Danish Physicist Claims To Be Able to Slow Down Speed of Light
A fundamental physical constant in many areas of physics, the speed of light. The speed of light, which is constant and finite, is 186,000 miles per second.
However, did you know that it is possible to alter the speed of light?
Lene Hau, a physicist from Denmark, achieved this first slowing of light to 38 mph in 1999. Later, she was able to completely halt, regulate, and move it.
Lene Vestergaard Hau, a physicist born in Vejle, Denmark, on November 13, 1959, is most known for her work slowing and stopping light.
She graduated from Aarhus University in Denmark with a bachelor’s degree in mathematics, a master’s degree in physics, and a PhD.
After years of effort, Hau mastered the art of riding a bicycle at the speed of light in 1999.
Instead of cycling faster, she slowed light down to an astonishing 60 kilometers per hour, accomplishing this impressive feat. She accomplished something even more extraordinary, stopping light in its tracks.
Light travels at 186,000 miles per second. Hau has known this but never anticipated breaking the light-speed slow-speed record. She started a new research endeavor shortly after she got there: looking for the Bose-Einstein Condensate, a brand-new state of matter.
Atoms are extremely sensitive to temperature; at a few millionths of a degree above absolute zero, they lose their individuality and merge.
This collection can behave like a single superatom at low enough temperatures; it is referred to as the Bose-Einstein Condensate after the two physicists whose research predicted its existence in 1924.
“I was so curious to see what this new state of matter was like. We were incredibly happy. We had succeeded.” she said.
The Bose-Einstein Condensate was ultimately formed in June 1997 after Hau and her colleagues successfully cooled the atoms.
After creating it, Hau and her coworkers started looking for uses for the condensate. They discovered they could make light pass through the previously opaque condensate by precisely manipulating it with laser beams.
And they realized that no material had ever been identified that could delay light as efficiently as the massaged condensate.
Using an electromagnet, a 0.2 millimeter-long cigar-shaped condensate was suspended inside a vacuum chamber. They used a precisely calibrated laser beam to illuminate the cigar from the side before firing a pulse of laser light along its long axis.
As soon as the pulse touched the modified condensate, it slowed and compressed. For a year, Hau labored through the night in the lab to refine her test technique for slowing light. She started to notice the light slowing in March 1998, at last.
“I thought, ‘gee, you are the first person to see light go this slowly.” she said.
She discovered she was moving quicker than her light beams when she took a flight to Copenhagen that summer. She published her findings that autumn when she successfully got light to move at a bicycle’s pace.
Her team advanced their research this year by successfully stopping all light inside a Bose-Einstein Condensate. The scientists immediately shut off the coupling laser once the light pulse had been fully compressed and trapped within the condensate.
The light became trapped inside after this change. The initial light pulse emerged from the other end when they turned the coupling laser back on.
See more here sciandnature.com
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MattH
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So, what could this tell us about event horizons and ever diminishing returns?
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MattH
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If light could be slowed down or captured as stationary that could mean light has mass.
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Herb Rose
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Hi Matt,
For the speed of light to be constant it must have mass. The speed of a wave will vary as the medium in which it travels varies. If light is a wave traveling in an energy field as that energy field decreases (goes towards absolute zero) the wavelength of the light will increase and frequency (speed) decreases. You can have waves become stationary or cancel each other out but, according to Einstein, if mass disappears there should be an explosion.
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MattH
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Cheers for that Herb. Light is my weakest subject, especially in the middle of a heavily overcast night.
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Jerry Krause
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Hi PSI Readers,
“Atoms are extremely sensitive to temperature; at a few millionths of a degree above absolute zero, they lose their individuality and merge.” (this article)
“Cryogenics is the branch of physics that deals with the production and effects of very low temperatures. The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is the largest cryogenic system in the world and one of the coldest places on Earth. All of the magnets on the LHC are electromagnets – magnets in which the magnetic field is produced by the flow of electric current. The LHC’s main magnets operate at a temperature of 1.9 K (-271.3°C), colder than the 2.7 K (-270.5°C) of outer space. The LHC’s cryogenic system requires 40,000 leak-tight pipe seals, 40 MW of electricity – 10 times more than is needed to power a locomotive – and 120 tonnes of helium to keep the magnets at 1.9 K. (https://home.cern/science/engineering/cryogenics-low-temperatures-high-performance)
“The Bose-Einstein Condensate was ultimately formed in June 1997 after Hau and her colleagues successfully cooled the atoms.” (this article)
Theoretical versus Practical Geometry where points (intersections) and right lines cannot be seen because they don’t exist.
Have a good day
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Herb Rose
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Correction. Light travels at 186,000 miles/second in deep space where the temperature is close to absolute zero and there is an extreme vacuum. In the laboratory it slows and stops under those conditions. It is amazing what nonsense physicists will create to continue to believe the crap they already believe. The goal is not to get it right but to avoid being wrong and preserve their egos as experts.
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Kevin Doyle
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Herb Rose nailed it.
This is delusional, self-aggrandizing, self-gratification.
Stupid.
Non-reality.
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VOWG
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I can do that, I turn off the switch and it comes to a stop.
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Citizen Quasar
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You beat me to it, VOWG.
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