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Light Stopped, Held And Re-emitted By A Crystal
nherc writes: "An article in Nature talks about an incredible new crystal that can actual stop and hold light to be later emitted. It's mentioned light has previously been "slowed" by super cooled gases, but this certainly blows that away. They mention this could be a major step towards quantum computing."
Contrary to popular belief, the speed of light and time are independent of each other. The speed of light is merely the physical speed that light particles travel in a vaccum. Nothing special. Travelling faster than the speed of light away from a given event would mean that you would reach a place where the event had not yet "taken place" but you would not be in the past. Light takes TIME to catch up with you. Much like travelling away from an event faster than the speed of sound means when you stop, sound still has to catch up with you. It doesn't mean you're in the past and the event hasn't happened yet. These are just physical realities.
In relation to this discovery, individual light photons (particles which make up light, particles which have not relation to time whatsoever, and move at a constant speed in space relative to time, in a vacuum) were slowed down and stopped with their energy being dispersed into atoms. With excitement of the atoms, the energy was then re-released from the atoms and the photons continue their journey.
This has been theoretical for a long time, but its nice to see someone actually doing it.
+Kinnear
No, no it doesn't. Go back to physic class ya freak!
DranoK
Shh! Nobody knows I'm gay!