Slow Light = Fast Computing

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.'"

Comments

It should be called....

[julesh]

Slow glass

The future is now! (tm)

[Itninja]

Physicists said the new approach to taming light could hasten the arrival of a futuristic era

I hate statements like this. How does a 'futuristic era' arrive? Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't it impossible to hasten the arrival of the future? And when the future does indeed arrive, will it not then be simply 'the present'?

Re:Meanwhile, scientists at..

[drinkypoo]

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

The results were invalidated, however, when it was pointed out that the atmosphere of Santa Cruz is typically a cloud of marijuana smoke, and the control experiment failed to take this into account.

Re:Why not?

[ceoyoyo]

Why's that? 212F is just the boiling point of water, heating up cesium gas isn't all that hard and you wouldn't need to maintain a very large volume at that temperature. A regular processor will quite rapidly get more than hot enough if you don't spend lots of energy cooling it.