摘要
One of the surprises in the run up to,and during,the United Nations’International Year of Light and Light-based Technologies(IYL)in 2015 was the nearly universal lack of awareness of how life depends completely on light,and of the widening role of photonics-based technologies in our lives today.I recognize how little credit or attention we also give to oxygen or water.Like the light from the sun that brings and sustains life,and that eons ago brought most of the energy we now consume,these crucial contributors to life are rarely thought of,not only by the general public but even within the technical community.On being reminded of what photonics enables today,practitioners of photonics were however quick to acknowledge the increasing role of photonics in modern life.That was one of one of the successes of the IYL.
