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Fastest-Ever Flashgun Captures Image of Light Wave

loconet writes to tell us that a team of researchers have created the shortest-ever flash of light. Weighing in at just 80 attoseconds, this flash has already been used to capture an image of a laser pulse and could possibly be used in the future to capture the electron movement around large atoms.

11 of 175 comments (clear)

  1. Yep, it's hoax. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    It is a hoax. see the picture of the light pulse? Well, for one, it's only showing a wave and we all know from physics that light is both a wave and and particle. So where's the particle? Hmmm?

    Secondly, the wave is, well, wavy. And we know, again from physics, that light only travels in a straight line.

    Those damn scientists always trying to fool us! And engineers too!

  2. Re:Sounds impossible by bugnuts · · Score: 5, Interesting

    from TFA, I believe it's imaging a laser pulse shot through neon gas. It's the laser pulse that triggered the flash in the first place.

    Bizarrely, the article states

    As each flash is intense enough to completely ionise a neon atom and release an electron, the researchers could use those electrons like a flashgun, to illuminate some of the original 2.5 femtosecond trigger pulses of laser light. This is interesting, because the neon is releasing electrons, not photons.

    I agree that snapping a photo of light sounds dubious, but it looks like an electron flash, so maybe it's just making something visible that wouldn't have been seen otherwise.

  3. Re:Duckhunt by PawNtheSandman · · Score: 5, Funny

    What's the difference between you and a mallard with a cold?

    One's a sick duck and... I can't remember how it ends, but your mother's a whore.

  4. Re:Who woulda thought? by vivin · · Score: 5, Funny

    Light is a wave and a particle and therefore, a "wavicle".

    --
    Vivin Suresh Paliath
    http://vivin.net

    I like
  5. Re:Who woulda thought? by PunkOfLinux · · Score: 5, Funny

    Ergo, test particles are "testicles"?

  6. Re:Um... What? by againjj · · Score: 5, Informative

    Ok, first you have this coherent photon beam. This means that they are all traveling at the same direction. So how do you take a picture of THAT?

    In a different way that a standard photograph.

    You are bombarding the photon beam with photons,

    No, you aren't. That doesn't make sense.

    What they do is have the laser pulse travel through something they call a "chirped mirror". This packs the photos from the laser pulse into a smaller space. This then travels through a neon cloud, which then creates a flash of light. This flash of light is the "shortest-ever flash of light".

    To photograph this flash of light, they direct it into a second neon cloud, which ionizes atoms, releasing electrons. Those electrons are then recorded. Multiple flashes were required to produce enough electrons to build up the image shown in the article, so what you really have is an image of many flashes overlaid.

  7. Re:What about shutter speed? by egomaniac · · Score: 5, Informative

    Consider a 35mm film camera with a mechanical shutter... what degree of force and mechanism would be required to move that shutter to open AND close the height of 24mm in 80 attoseconds? IANAPhysicist, but I doubt human hands could hang on to it.

    Apparently we're not realizing just how short 80 attoseconds is. You doubt human hands could hang on to it? Moving 24mm in 80 attoseconds is faster than the speed of light. Not only is it faster than the speed of light, it's a million times faster than the speed of light.

    Light only travels 24 nanometers in 80 attoseconds.

    --
    ZFS: because love is never having to say fsck
  8. Re:Duckhunt by gardyloo · · Score: 5, Funny

    At which point she laughs?

  9. Re:Um... What? by TigerNut · · Score: 5, Interesting
    Richard Feynman once pondered, if moisture molecules in the atmosphere scatter light, and presumably this is a random effect because the molecules are randomly distributed, why is it that buildings, etc. when they're viewed through mist, do they still have sharp edges? You'd think all the random scatter would blur the edges.

    That thought train led him to do some fundamental work in particle scattering and path integrals, IIRC, and eventually to the Feynman diagrams that are now commonly used to describe some aspects of particle interactions.

    So you're thinking some good deep thoughts there, but I can't give you a good answer other than "they just know". Basically the "proper" reflection is the only one that is coherent to the observer and the other reflected beams are all out of phase so they might as well not happen... and therefore they don't. Or something like that.

    --

    Less is more.

  10. Re:Who woulda thought? by turgid · · Score: 5, Funny

    Ergo, test particles are "testicles"?

    No, he was a famous ancient Greek philosopher.

  11. Re:What about shutter speed? by kjots · · Score: 5, Informative

    Your safe search is off, which triggers my URL filtering to block google. It's a great way to catch people who hang out on the seedier side of google images.

    Or people who don't like to have their search results artificially curtailed by someone else's sense of unreasonable morality.