Slashdot Mirror
Scientists Trap a Rainbow
An anonymous reader writes to tell us that Physicists from both the University of Surrey and Salford University have devised a method to trap a multi-colored rainbow of light inside a prism. "Previous attempts to slow and capture light have involved extremely low or cryogenic temperatures, have been extremely costly, and have only worked with one specific frequency of light at a time. The technique proposed by Professor Hess and Mr Kosmas Tsakmakidis involves the use of negative refractive index metamaterials along with the exploitation of the Goos Hänchen effect, which shows that when light hits an object or an interface between two media it does not immediately bounce back but seems to travel very slightly along that object, or in the case of metamaterials, travels very slightly backwards along the object."
It shouldn't hurt to be a photon.
Did they get the pot of gold as well?
There's a protest against capturing rainbows going on today in NY... looks like it's a murky ethical question...
The world's only surviving livewriter.
that if Apple brings back the old logo they will rule the Intarweb tubes?
Support NYCountryLawyer RIAA vs People
can . Big deal.
If a baby duck is a "duckling," why would anyone want to eat "dumplings?"
...Over or UNDER the bridge?
(Captcha: cadaver)
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
Or they don't. They propose a method that might. The meta-materials needed to do this with visible light don't exist yet.
ccalam - acoustic versions of new songs.
The Phantom Zone isn't a nice place.
Help me take back Slashdot. When did 'News for Nerds' become 'FUD and Conspiracy Theories for Extremist Nutjobs'?
!rorrim ym ni kcuts m'I ,em pleh esaelp
Are they stacking these prisms into pyramids, like Abu Ghraib (and Dachau)?
Ponies and rainbows! Who will save the ponies and rainbows?
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
Roads all across Ireland are blocked by thousands of Leprechauns protesting against capturing and inhumane treating of rainbows.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
Has anyone worked on making devices or materials that channel light along a very long internal optical path folded up inside a small volume? Maybe some kind of photonic crystal that takes a laser input at a precisely calibrated angle, that reflects off nanoscopic features all throughout, or an optical medium with precisely aligned internal reflecting surfaces to cycle the light around, moving across the reflection surfaces gradually with each cycle through them, until the light reflects at an angle that escapes? Since photons interact only at the locus where they actually interfere and travels straight without confinement, the light doesn't need extra structure to segregate it. A long enough reflection path could emit light at its end only after a long time internally reflecting, which could offer enough time to move a properly positioned reflector "cap" over the entrance/exit. That device wouldn't slow light, but it would delay it, and then store it, entirely optically. Perhaps offering a purely photonic battery.
Am I making this up myself, or is it serendipity?
--
make install -not war
if they had just done a cursory literature search on the phenomenon, they would have realized that previous experiments on the phenomenon has produced disasterous results for the researchers, and jennifer aniston
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Isn't Hänchen German for chicken? That would make him Goos Chicken.
It would be nice if the "journalists" bothered to mention there's an article in Nature.
Namaste
There may be a prism on the dark side of the moon that produces rainbows... or so an ungodly amount of acid apparently led Pink Floyd to believe.
stuff |
This discovery is FABULOUS!
Ask not what you can do for your country. Ask what your country did to you
Good! Trip over the power cable quick and we'll never be bothered by those annoying creations Bungle, Zippy, Aunty and Telltale ever again.
Though in hindsight that might of made more sense to the UK readers.....
Gay!
I skimmed the article and the conclusion I got was that for now this belongs with the earlier main page post about the top 10 snake oil products http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/11/19/1616248. Nothing has actually been done to prove that this procedure is actually possible. This is an example of the worst in modern science. Publish of research via press release. There has been no Peer Review, this isn't being linked to from a scientific journal, it's a theory with no evidence to support it being possible. For all I know it is a sound theory, but until I see some experimental evidence it's just smoke and mirrors.
Bureaucracy expands to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy.-Oscar Wilde
Today we found it! The Rainbow Connection, for Lovers Deamers and You. La De da dee de da..
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
"If people could put rainbows in zoos, they'd do it."
- Hobbes, Calvin and Hobbes
Then a unicorn came and kicked my ass. Fucking unicorns.
That illegal immigrant 'Lucky' and confiscate his 'charms'
Props to the carebearstare tag, but why not Rainbow Brite? ....okay, i'm being silly.
There's this device that's been around for over a century. It's called a "camera". Since a rainbow is simply a band of color caused by refraction of light, capturing a record of that band of color on film (or digital media) is, in effect, captuting the rainbow itself.
Now if you could catch the leprechaun that would be a different story!
-mcgrew
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
Metamaterials? If they're not actual materials, then WTF are they?
Question everything
Next on the agenda is to catch a falling star and put it in their pocket.
I quote others only in order the better to express myself. -- Michel de Montaigne
Apart from being extremely literary (puzzle references to Prufrock's love song among other things), this game was incredibly complex in it's movement across past, future and present. And the slow light flashlight was the icing on the cake - it illuminated an object with light from the objects past, enabling the player to view what the object WAS - it would be scary and exciting if this was a step towards making the SlowLight real.
And you can shine it on aging body-parts to recapture past buff-ness :)
See that long UID - that's what you get for lurking too long
to capture Oz too?
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
Read the article, it's a theory. They didn't actually build it. They just proposed it. to really do it, they need a real multispectrum transparent material with a negative index of refraction. (Same thing they need to build an invisibility chamber. Can you say "Unobtanium"?)
Experimental physics is littered with beautiful theories that never worked in practice.
Show us the trapped rainbow, please.
Everybody knows 3 people with my name.
Angels released the waters from above and from the deep when God's bow, which used to serve as a reminder that He wouldn't flood the Earth again, was captured by misguided scientists.
"We didn't think we were doing anything wrong; I mean, the rainbow looked neat. It's not like we had any arrows big enough to shoot from it."
"How were we to know we'd be the ones to make 'Waterworld' a reality?"
Thankfully, God quickly scolded the Angels in question and reset His bow in the heavens. The scientists were sternly warned not to capture His bow again, but were given clues into human cloning and the nature of dust and ribs.
I hope they catch a Unicorn next! So I can prove them all that I wasn't crazy, right Jenny? Jenny doesn't like electroshocks, right Jenny? Jenny... jenny
Looks like we're close to having the Light Saving Brick (watch the video).
Peter, you've lost the news!
And with that, I've lost our American audience...
Shiny. Let's be bad guys...
It would have been nice to see what the trapped rainbow looks like. It is too bad the article does not contain an actual picture of it. This seems quite common of many articles of some fascinating discovery, heavy on hype, but not providing much data or depictions of it actually in action.
How does slow light speed up the internet? wouldn't slow light take more time to cross tubes thus slowing the internet? or is my understanding of "slow" that whack?
Lucky was last seen in Boston in TD Banknorth Garden Arena supporting the Celtics.
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
I bet someone made this name up, sounds like straight out of Duck tales.
Hey don't blame me, IANAB
Great: Now capture a Hooloovoo (a hyper-intelligent shade of the color blue).
I am officially gone from
We're only a couple proofs away from Kyle having to suck Cartman's balls.
What does it mean that I read the title as "Scientists Crap a Rainbow ... in your mind!"?
Shop as usual. And avoid panic buying.
This is hilarious, Captain. ;)
For the life of me, I can't see why anyone would moderate you negatively. Bahaha.
Cheers.
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/11/19/1616248
This indicates that these metamaterials are able to produce superluminal effects! Red moving faster than blue!
And his karma is probably in the toilet with all of them. Some people ar incapable of insight, interest, or even humor while flaming and trolling are easy for them. One should keep their trolling in meatspace where it belongs! Trolls should grow a pair, as internet troilling is so lame and cowardly. Sheesh!
-mcgrew
(can't decide whether to check "no karma bonus. OK, I'll check it...)
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
Well, I'm working on a master plan to get my karma back down to where it deserves to be here. ;) Truly this was fun while it lasted, I do enjoy blowing off steam here as one can probably tell from my posting history. And it's true, my ability to "bring the noise" insult-wise was being taxed, so guilty as charged on the lack of imagination.
.... well, that settles it! Everybody grab a broom, it's Shenanigans!
So sayonara and viva la taco, as it were. And