Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Light so Fast it Travels Backward

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the there-and-back-again dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Slowing down light used to be considered a neat trick for physics wonks. But researchers in New York now say they've pushed light into reverse. And as if to defy common sense, the backward-moving light travels faster than light." While there's not much use to come of it yet, it will be interesting if Einstein himself is proved wrong.

5 of 415 comments (clear)

  1. tsop tsrif by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    tsop tsrif

  2. Re:Obvious how they did that by mcho · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    Awesome comment -- and, for some reason, Chuck Norris is the most popular search tearm in some Eastern European Counties.

    --
    Synchronize your calendar and mobile phone via text messaging.
  3. Re:Startrek fans... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic
    This has very little to do with the article, but the L.A. Times recently published an article regarding the Toronto Sex Crimes Unit that focused on their fight against child pornography ("Sifting Clues to an Unsmiling Girl"). They are the law enforcement organization that photoshopped the victims out of child porn photos in order to get the public's assistance in identifying the backgrounds (it worked). In any case, the article had this amazing claim:
    On one wall is a "Star Trek" poster with investigators' faces substituted for the Starship Enterprise crew. But even that alludes to a dark fact of their work: All but one of the offenders they have arrested in the last four years was a hard-core Trekkie.
    Wow. All but one in four years. Seemed rather unlikely to me.

    So, I called the Child Exploitation Section of the Toronto Sex Crimes Unit and spoke to Det. Ian Lamond, who was familiar with the Times article. He claims they were misquoted, or if that figure was given it was done so jokingly. Of course, even if the figure was given jokingly, shouldn't the Times reporter have clarified something that seems rather odd? Shouldn't her editors have questioned her sources?

    Nevertheless, Det. Lamond does confirm that a majority of those arrested show "at least a passing interest in Star Trek, if not a strong interest." They've arrested well over one hundred people over the past four years and they can gauge this interest in Star Trek by the arrestees' "paraphenalia, books, videotapes and DVDs."
    Det. Constable Warren Bulmer slips on a Klingon sash and shield they confiscated in a recent raid. "It has something to do with a fantasy world where mutants and monsters have power and where the usual rules don't apply," Bulmer reflects. "But beyond that, I can't really explain it."
    I asked Det. Lamond if this wasn't simply a general interest in science fiction and fantasy, such as Star Wars or Harry Potter or similar. Paraphrasing his answer, he said, while there was sometimes other science fiction and fantasy paraphenalia, Star Trek was the most consistent and when he referred to a majority of the arrestees being Star Trek fans, it was Star Trek-specific.
  4. Re:Reverse? by iced_773 · · Score: 0, Offtopic


    ".t0sP ts1rF" yas ot yrt t'ndid uoy tsael ta ,lleW

  5. Re:Obvious how they did that by chord.wav · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    Yeah, what's with that?
    BTW, guess what's coming to a theater near you? Knight Rider movieee!! Yeah! Google for it...