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MSNBC on Infinera's Optical Chip

Posted by timothy on from the tripping-fantastic dept.

pnoti writes: "This article at MSNBC is a loose overview of Infinera's new chip with circuits that control the flow of light instead of the flow of electrons. 'If this chip performed as they hoped, it would shatter many of the theoretical limits regarding the behavior of light in optical communications networks.'" Update: 04/10 04:26 GMT by T : That's MSNBC, not The New York Times -- oops.

3 of 132 comments (clear)

  1. Red Herring by The+Gardener · · Score: 5, Informative

    Yeah, Red Herring carried the story, and with a little lower "fluff factor". At least, it seemed to me . . .

    The Gardener

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  2. Re:Makes you wonder by J.+J.+Ramsey · · Score: 3, Informative

    I'm not so sure that photons not having mass means that they have no inertia. Photons have momentum, can exert a (very) slight pressure, and can be pulled on by gravity. Given that, their inertia is likely to me small, but nonzero.

  3. Re:Makes you wonder by harvardian · · Score: 3, Informative

    Being pulled-on by gravity doesn't mean anything. Gravity (according to Einstein) is the warping of space-time, so things that are massless still experience it. According to Newton's equations, that wasn't the case.