Scientists Slow the Speed of Light

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Scientists Slow the Speed of Light

Posted by Soulskill on Friday January 23, 2015 @05:38AM from the lazy-particles dept.

lightbox32 sends news that scientists have found a way to slow individual photons within a beam of light. Their work was published today in Science Express (abstract, pre-print). The researchers liken a light beam to a team of cyclists — while the group as a whole moves at a constant speed, individual riders may occasionally drop back or move forward. They decided to focus on the individual photons, rather than measuring the beam as a whole. The researchers imposed a particular pattern on a photon, then raced it against another photon, and found that the two arrived at their destination at slightly different times. The work demonstrates that, after passing the light beam through a mask, photons move more slowly through space. Crucially, this is very different to the slowing effect of passing light through a medium such as glass or water, where the light is only slowed during the time it is passing through the material—it returns to the speed of light after it comes out the other side. The effect of passing the light through the mask is to limit the top speed at which the photons can travel.

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Re:sounds great... by ihtoit · 2015-01-23 05:48 · Score: 3, Funny

if you can slow the speed of a photon, then you bring the energy required to travel faster than light below infinity. FTL travel thus becomes feasible.
o.0

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Re:Obvious work is obvious by tchdab1 · 2015-01-23 05:49 · Score: 5, Funny

No, this is progress! One way to travel at the speed of light is to slow down that speed.
I disagree! by Kenja · 2015-01-23 05:56 · Score: 4, Funny

Clearly they didn't slow the speed of light, but sped up time. The speed of light is a constant, the flow of time is not.

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1. Re:I disagree! by Anonymous Coward · 2015-01-23 06:17 · Score: 3, Funny
  
  Maybe the time cube was right all along!
...slow down that speed by snikulin · 2015-01-23 06:06 · Score: 4, Funny

Somehow it reminds me about US educational system.
1. Re:...slow down that speed by Anonymous Coward · 2015-01-23 06:08 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  No photon left behind?
Re:Obvious work is obvious by PolygamousRanchKid+ · 2015-01-23 06:25 · Score: 4, Funny

The US Senate is planning to vote on changing the speed of light. The old speed was a "hoax" . . .

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Re:This feels like a bug.. by jeffb+(2.718) · 2015-01-23 06:32 · Score: 4, Funny

The good news: we've got a fix ready for deployment.
The bad news: this fix will force a system restart.
Re:Obvious work is obvious by ArcadeMan · 2015-01-23 07:22 · Score: 4, Funny

At least you didn't write "Serves me right for reading coffee before drinking my morning Slashdot."

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