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Slow Light = Fast Computing

Posted by Zonk on from the yay-light-beams dept.

yohaas writes "The Washington Post is reporting that scientists have been able to slow the speed of light while still maintaining its ability to transmit information. The researchers have even developed a way to 'tune' the process, modulating how fast or slow the light goes within controlled circumstances. From the article: 'Scientists said yesterday that they had achieved a long-sought goal of slowing waves of light to a relatively leisurely pace and using those harnessed pulses to store an image. Physicists said the new approach to taming light could hasten the arrival of a futuristic era in which computers and other devices will process information on optical beams instead of with electricity, which for all its spark is still cumbersome compared with light.'"

8 of 134 comments (clear)

  1. Ahem. by Hawthorne01 · · Score: 5, Funny

    We don't say "slow light" anymore. We say "Luminescentally Challenged".

    --
    "Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."
    1. Re:Ahem. by Quaoar · · Score: 5, Funny

      How retarded.

      --
      I'll form my OWN solar system! With blackjack! And hookers!
  2. Future performance whores will brag... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    ...in terms of how small their underclock of c is.

  3. Meanwhile, scientists at.. by LM741N · · Score: 5, Funny

    UC Santa Cruz have achieved a 1/1000 slowdown of light by passing a beam through a cloud of marijuana smoke.

  4. That's not a pun, THIS is a pun! by spun · · Score: 3, Funny

    worst pun ever Boy, that sounded like a challenge.

    Light, for all its flare, can't hold a candle to electricity's current ability to generate a buzz around computing!

    Worst pun ever? Pfha! We have not yet begun to pun!

    --
    - None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
  5. Call me when they slow down darkness. by bad_fx · · Score: 4, Funny

    "No matter how fast light travels, it finds the darkness has always got there first, and is waiting for it."

  6. Re:Wrong Way by geekoid · · Score: 3, Funny

    but nobody would ever see you win!

    --
    The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
  7. Re:The future is now! (tm) by Atzanteol · · Score: 5, Funny

    And when the future does indeed arrive, will it not then be simply 'the present'?

    Dark Helmet: What the hell am I looking at?!
    Colonel Sandurz: Now. You're looking at now, sir. Everything that is happening now is happening now.
    DH: What happened to then?
    CS: We passed it.
    DH: When?
    CS: Just now. We're at now now.
    DH: Go back to then!
    CS: When?
    DH: Now!
    CS: Now?
    DH: Now!
    CS: We can't!
    DH: Why?
    CS: We missed it.
    DH: When?
    CS: Just now.
    DH: When will then be now?
    CS: Soon.

    --
    "Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge"

    - Charles Darwin