Lene Hau has already shaken scientists’ beliefs about the nature of things. Albert Einstein and just about every other physicist insisted that light travels 186,000 miles a second in free space, and that it can’t be speeded-up or slowed down. But in 1998, Hau, for the first time in history, slowed light to 38 miles an hour, about the speed of rush-hour traffic.
Two years later, she brought light to a complete halt in a cloud of ultracold atoms. Next, she restarted the stalled light without changing any of its characteristics, and sent it on its way.
Now, Hau has done it again. She and her team made a light pulse disappear from one cold cloud then retrieved it from another cloud nearby. In the process, light was converted into matter then back into light. For the first time in history, this gives science a way to control light with matter and vice versa.
It’s a thing that most scientists never thought was possible. Some colleagues had asked Hau, “Why try that experiment? It can’t be done.”
She has no doubt practical systems will eventually flow from her research — but, that’s not what she does. Her work continues to meet the standard for basic research. I wonder what she’ll aim for next?
The possible implications that this can have in nanotechnology can be mind-boggling.
Or they could bottle it and sell it!
Cripes! This is great!! I love it when conventional beliefs I turned upside down on their head. I guess she is playing more with the photon properties of light. I always thought that if light has wave properties, there is “some kind” of matter properties for it. In university I alway got a blank expression from my Physics instructor when I asked WHY does light has wave characteristics.
It’s all fun and games until someone destabilizes reality…
“Great. Can it send me to Hawaii?”
“Sure, but you have to purchase your program 30 days in advance.”
now she has to make it go backwards!
She also caught lightning in a bottle.
Light to matter to light… woo hoo!
Next: Matter to light to matter.
#9 – Why not? We’re all energy anyway…
“Honey, how was work today?”
“Great! I completely stopped light in ultra-cold atoms and totally revolutionized science in unimaginable ways! How was your day, dear?”
“Uh, well, same old same old, but I did hear that Ted in the stockroom was leaving and I might get moved up into his job…”
Another upheaval in hard science. Cool. We just might make it to the Singularity before we blow ourselves up yet.
I read somewhere that the “condensed” light has a volume on the order of one fifty-millionth of the light it is made of. I’m too lazy to figure out if that is consistent with E=MC^2 but nano-scale information technology isn’t the half of it. Sub-quantum-level information encoding, anyone?
One of her Harvard colleagues, before her first experiment which slowed light down, asked her why she was bothering with the experiment since it can’t be done, according to the Harvard press release.
“To quote the great Simpsons – heh, heh,” she isn’t reported as having replied. She might have, though.
I said if before and was labeled a kook.
I’ll say it now, and mark my words.
The speed of light is NOT a barrier to deep space travel. It’s just a matter of understanding the technology over time and applying it.
Alpha Centauri, here we come.
I can’t beleive no one has linked this to TRON yet?
http://www.fantascienza.com/cinema/tron/media/07.JPG
#14, I see this more as a source of propulsion then just a parlor trick. But what the heck, nothing wrong with being a kook. Actually, it is a poor man’s eccentric.
I don’t see a word about the experiment(s) be replicated in the article. Since that is the key to determining whether an experiment is illegitimate, I will have to wait and see. Besides, there is interestng actual news coming out of Harvard today.
#17 – Lau got a tenured professorship at Harvard for her earlier work in slowing down light, as I recall. That looks pretty peer-reviewed to me.
check out the quirks and quarks podcast from feb 10th for a (relatively) easy to understand interview with Dr. Hau about her research and its possible applications
http://podcast.cbc.ca/mp3/quirksaio_20070210_1697.mp3
186000 miles per second in a vaacuum. Einstein stated 186000 miles per second in a vacuum. Light moves more slowly in non-vacuums depending on density. While neat, this is not ground-breaking stuff folks.
Sure, but does it go up to 11?