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Harvard Physicists Make Light Dance

Posted by kdawson on from the not-so-fast dept.

tetrikphimvin and others clued us to the latest work by Harvard's Lene Vestergaard Hau, being published today in the journal Nature. The NYTimes has a good layman's overview of how Hau's team encoded a light beam in a clump of atoms and later reconstituted it elsewhere. The Harvard Gazette offers additional details, a photo, and video links.

4 of 109 comments (clear)

  1. So, if you walk next to stopped light... by ScnGuy · · Score: 2, Insightful

    are you going faster than the speed of light? How does this jibe with relativity?

    1. Re:So, if you walk next to stopped light... by CybrPwca · · Score: 1, Insightful

      IANAP (I am not a physicist), but as I understand it relativity has no problem here. You cannot travel faster than light in your current frame of reference. The slowed or stopped light is in a different frame than you are. Anything in the same conditions as the light should be slowed as well.

    2. Re:So, if you walk next to stopped light... by exp(pi*sqrt(163)) · · Score: 1, Insightful

      You cannot travel faster than light in your current frame of reference.
      What is a "frame of reference"? What does it mean to be "in a frame of reference"? What does it mean for one thing to be in a different "frame of reference" to another?

      Why is it that when people talk about physics they completely discard most of the contents of their brain and start spouting drivel. Just speak ordinary English and you'll find that your physics makes sense too. A frame of reference is nothing more than some rulers and clocks. You use the rulers to measure your position and the clocks to measure the time.

      If any object travels by I can use my ruler and clocks to determine its velocity. That's what a frame of reference allows me to do - measure things. It's nonsense to speak of something being in a "different frame" from you. You aren't "in" a frame. A frame of reference is what you can use to measure whatever you like.

      I'd love to know where you got this "in a different frame" nonsense from. Did you just make it up? Saying "IANAP" is no excuse for saying these things. I'm sure that if you were talking about measuring the speed of a car or the height of a building you'd use the term "frame of reference" without difficulty. The fact that we're talking about physics doesn't give you an excuse to simply hang your brain up with your hat at the front door.

      --
      Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
  2. Re:No Parking on the Dance Floor by spotlight2k3 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I think that they went a little far when saying that Light was Dancing. More closer would be that they stored a 4 centimeter stream of light and then played it back later. Finally we are gonna have a way to have data storage crystals like in all the scifi movies.