Ultra-simple Desktop Device Slows Light To A Crawl At Room Temperature

Science Daily ^ | 4-1-2003 | Editorial Staff

[vannrox]

COOL.

[freedomlover]

Note to Self:

Don't release anything groundbreaking on April Fools Day. Everything is suspect.

[isthisnickcool]

......<--I made a really cool reply to this post but it isn't here yet.

[stayout]

the light in the new device travels more than 5 million times slower than normal . . . 1.5 times slower . . .5.3-million fold . . . slowdown

Arrgggh! Pet peeve alert, mathematically, a mere 1-fold slowdown means 0 miles per hour. Saying something is 5 million times slower or 1.5 times slower or 5.3 million times slower is just so much innumeracy.

[Leroy S. Mort]

The Original press release is dated 3/31. Passes the smell test....

[Quix]

Any implications re the structure of matter/the universe?

[longtermmemmory]

the Utah effect strikes again....

[narses]

Will "slow glass" be next?

[RandallFlagg]

What the heck is with the ruby?!

[TopQuark]

And, moreover, you yourself will comprehend it only tomorrow, when it finally traverses the path from the hand to the brain...

Until yesterday, TQ.

[bwteim]

I misread headline at first, thought it was describing a place I used to work at where they gave me a 286. It took 4 minutes to boot up:

Ultra-simple Desktop Device Slows To A Crawl At Room Temperature

[Drango]

So can this thing slow down my bedroom activity and ~ummm, ~you know, ~how do I say... my pleasure release?

[algol]

Don't release anything groundbreaking on April Fools Day. Everything is suspect.

Heh, you've got that right. Some sites (Slashdot) I just steer clear of completely on April 1.

[PatrioticAmerican]

I thought this thread was going to be about public school education.

[CanadianYankee]

LOL

[pierrem15]

A small question. Since energy is mv^2, what happens to the the extra energy when the light slows down? Is the wavelength shifted? I assume from reading that it emerges at the same wavelength.

What if you could really slow it down (a millimeter per minute). You then pump a powerful laser in for a few minutes and turn it off. You then turn off the original laser that works on the chromium atoms. What happens to the enery? The ruby melts? Or do you get one heck of a beam out the other end (i.e. suitable for punching through lots of nifty things)? Or do you get a slow release?

Just asking.

[Diddley]

I was just mentioning something similar to this to my local bar-friend the other day.

He wanted to know if a short packet of light (say 2-3 inches in length) were propagated in this manner, if one could see the packet traverse the room. I said I think that it only slows while it is going through the slowing-device.

He then wanted to know if the pulses of light would “bunch up” as they entered the slowing-device, causing a standing wave or some bunching phenomenon at the "entrance". I said that I didn’t think so, because light doesn’t bunch up at a (for example) window (does it?).

We then concentrated on a bug crawling across the bar.

[Libertarianize the GOP]

http://www.freerepublic.com/perl/bump-list

[kitkat]

LOL!

[Trickyguy]

Will "slow glass" be next?

That's the first thing I thought, too! The story by Bob Shaw.