The history of optics began long before Christ in the regions where ancient Egyptians and Mesopotamians used to live. The Indian subcontinent, the Greek people, and the Islamic world should be mentioned as innovators in this domain as well, along with a French physicist who lived during the 18th and 19th centuries.
Augustin-Jean Fresnel is responsible for the so-called invention that saved a million ships, a type of composite lens named after him. The Fresnel lens is a compact design that can be extremely thin, even as thin as a flat sheet.
Because the Fresnel lens captures more oblique light compared to conventional lenses, this apparently boring contraption makes plenty of sense in lighthouses. Also convenient for searchlights, spotlights, floodlights, railroad signals, and traffic signals, the Fresnel lens comes in two flavors: flat lens and cylindrical lenses as found on shipboard lanterns.
Coming courtesy of Superkot, a popular YouTube channel specialized in crazy experiments, the following video demonstrates how powerful a Fresnel lens can be against items that include a penny, iPhone, and a car tire. The heat makes easy work of the coin because it’s made from copper-plated zinc, a combo that can’t withstand the sunlight focused by the lens.
In the case of the Apple-branded smartphone, the screen first develops a black spot, then the display goes completely dark. Not long after that, cracks develop on the screen before the iPhone ultimately goes kaboom because the lithium-ion battery doesn’t like heat. As for the car tire, which is a Hankook Optimo ME02 tire, the sunlight focused on a small point of the sidewall eats its way into the rubber like nobody’s business. The GoPro Hero 8 action camera fitted inside on the outer barrel of the wheel also captures the moment when the tire gets perforated and air starts gushing out.
Had the car - namely a Daewoo Lanos - been fitted with Michelin’s Uptis tires, it wouldn’t need a spare after being subjected to the Fresnel lens.
After a 1:43 scale model of a Ferrari 250 GTO sparked Mircea's interest for cars when he was a kid, an early internship at Top Gear sealed his career path. He's most interested in muscle cars and American trucks, but he takes a passing interest in quirky kei cars as well. Full profile
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