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52 Comments
- JorgeGonzalez, on 10/12/2007, -8/+41I'm sure the Japanese will find a way to molest the trapped light and sell the footage.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+25Hehe, you'll never get me now, light! OH ***** IT'S COMING UNDER THE DOOR CRACK! RUN!
- iet2004, on 10/12/2007, -4/+29"The breakthrough is a step towards light-based storage for quantum computers."
"Last year, a team at Harvard "froze light" to demonstrate how photons could be used to bear information in an optical computer, replacing electrons. The Japanese research adds the ability to trap them for RAM-style memory."
Did you read the article? Or....just commenting on the title? - AJH16, on 10/12/2007, -4/+28He's just pissed that he can't trap light.
- fyrehart, on 10/12/2007, -6/+28Those Japanese can "trap" light, but they still get attacked by Godzilla...
- Madcowz, on 10/12/2007, -0/+21'Trap light', pah easy.
I just switch the lights on and close the door. - Jugalator, on 10/12/2007, -0/+15Light doesn't always travel at c; this is merely its speed in vacuum. Otherwise, it's similar to the speed of sound in that various materials can change its speed. Denser media can slow down the speed of light a lot. Glass can slow it down to just about 2/3 * c, for example. How the speed of light changes is also the cause of refraction effects when you're looking into water for example.
- tophu, on 10/12/2007, -0/+14Geez. Lighten up.
- snapuswipe, on 10/12/2007, -1/+11@lazzareth
Using simple math, you can see that Science really isn't an important part of this equation, so let's remove it:
Australia > World - Australia
Now you're just sounding pompous. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+10Oh, you'd be surprised. You really would.
- MOJIRA, on 05/17/2008, -2/+10lazzareth = nerd
- rompom7, on 10/12/2007, -4/+12Australia did this first. Without the testicles raping unwilling school girls.
- MOJIRA, on 05/17/2008, -2/+9Chuck Norris... light... something... trap... something... bare hands, etc for the win.
- Exploit, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6And if the light tries to act smart, I just switch it off.
- Rorrim, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6I just read up on some light properties on Wikipedia, and I feel kinda stupid now. >_>
- Cappez, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7Your hands already contain light:
http://handlines.blogspot.com/2005/10/human-hands-emit-light.html
Now PCs just need to catch up to that feat... - Conwaysb0718, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Sounds like someone's working on the first Energon cube.
- proficient, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4It will be interesting what this will amount to in the future.
- orientis, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3I have the feeling that quantum computing will changes our lives as fundamentally as the rise of the internet.
- heffer2k02, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Can someone explain why having 3 states in a quantum computer is faster, and why thats any different to say, using 3 voltages instead of two in an electron system?
- Djerrid, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3"What would you do with it?" Well, if you looking for mass production implications, here are some ideas:
http://thecanardtimes.blogspot.com/2006/04/sloglas-sheds-light-on-privacy-and.html
SloGlas Sheds Light on Privacy and Legal Issues
Five years after the light-slowing material known as SloGlas has been installed throughout the US, groups are becoming concerned about the privacy and legal concerns that are now starting to arise.
SloGlas is created from a carbon-silicon crystallite that slows down the light particles that pass through it at a predetermined rate. This way the light shone through the material can be seen a few minutes or years later in perfect clarity.
This has become a great boon for reducing artificial lighting in homes and businesses as dual-sky lights have been pre-installed in millions of buildings. The delay is usually set at 12-hours on one half of the skylight while the other half is just normal glass. Enjoying the night sky and natural sunlight 24 hours a day has now become the norm.
Since light passes through at the same speed in both directions, these skylights and windows offer a glimpse back in time for both those inside and outside. The legal ramifications of this became apparent during the murder trial of Benny Harris who was accused of killing his wife. The prosecutors were granted an eight month recess while they waited for the subpoenaed SloGlas to reveal what happened at the murder scene at the time of the crime.
In another creative use of the material for the other side of the law, a serial flasher found a way to get around the statute of limitations. He exposed himself in front of the three-year pane at the Slivers of Time sculpture in Central Park, then came back three years later with a flash mob he created to enjoy their reactions. After being charged with indecent exposure, the judge ruefully had to throw it out because they were past the statute of limitations. Congress is now considering ways to get around this new loophole.
Joint ownership rights of SloGlas have been giving divorce and property rights lawyers a headache. Spouses want to see their kids grow up all over again, but don’t want their former significant others to see them in compromising situations. And previous renters of apartments claim they own the images that will someday shine through the other side of the expensive panes that were installed in their residences.
The material’s use as energy storage has also elicited a lawsuit. A broken pane that had been shipped from the Sahara and ended up in a US landfill spontaneously combusted the trash it was laying on when the direct sunlight finally shone through.
What once started as modern art sculptures and time capsules to novelties, batteries and ubiquitous energy-savers has time- and place-shifted light in a way that we are only now beginning to grasp. - Dochtuir, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4http://itsatrap.ytmnd.com/
- yahoofrom, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Oh no, L trapped Yagami Light?
- mathchemist, on 10/12/2007, -3/+5How the hell do you rape someone with testicles? I think you mean tentacles, my friend.
- TheWedge, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2They probably used photonic crystal waveguides where the waveguide center was a negative index of refraction material and the cladding is a positive index of refraction material (or vice versa). Then you have a Gaussian waveform travelling through where the center is in the NIR material and its velocity is backwards and the tails of the Gaussian are in the PIR material and thus the velocity is forward. If you get this processed just right and use the right wavelength of light in your waveguide, the total group velocity is the combination of the light propagating backwards and the light propagating forward in the cladding, thus your overall group velocity is significantly slower (and theoretically could be 0).
(I'm working on this kind of stuff for my PhD - sucks they beat me to it ;) - junk, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2@ djerrid
Nice job of expanding on the original, some of those ideas are great.
For those who don't know this is based off ideas from "Light of Other Days" by Bob Shaw. One of my favorite sci-fi short stories. - EarthernJar, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2The real question is: how long before The Concerned Citizens Against Light Abuse form and lobby to have the trapping of light outlawed due to its cruel and inhumane practices?
- etoiles, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2pfff... I have been doing this for years with my fridge
- Frost9999, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1@heffer2k02
I think it's something like... quantum computers will be able to have all states at the same time. So not just 1 or 0 but both. Or all three. At the same time. Trippy huh?
Although, I could be wrong. - Zoshchenko, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I don't even pretend to understand how this works or what it means, but I'm really looking forward to the Grand Opening of the Tokyo Light Zoo in 2009!
- tektalk, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Laser computers anyone?
- GordonV, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1What kind of a router can we build using crystal trap technology along with fiber optics?
Would CTT (Crystal Trap Technology) be the only way we could fully exploit fiber optic communications. (in the aspect of making a processor fast enough to handle so many requests.)
Was the crystal palace in the old Superman movies a look into the future?! - Jugalator, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Real men trap light by creating micro black holes in their personal particle accelerators.
- Rorrim, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I RTA now, and I can tell you that it sounded like they didn't slow down light (in this one), but rather just made it take longer than c * Time to get from point A to point B. This could be because of all of the "sidestops" it makes to each crystal molecule. It's amazing how they can slow light down so much and still keep it going in a straight enough overall path.
And, when they mention the frozen light, it actually sounds just like light that was slowed down to a human reachable speed, not frozen, and by a different method it sounds like.
But overall, I find this very interesting. Read up on Quantum Mechanics, Computers, Cryptography, etc. if you want to find out more. - Djerrid, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I actually never read the original. It was mentioned in the forward to a collection of short stories and the simple idea so captured my imagination that years later it came back up as that little piece.
But now that you have given me the title and author, I was able to find the complete short story here:
http://www.scifi.com/scifiction/classics/classics_archive/shaw/shaw1.html
I'm off to read it. Thanks again. - Agret, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1It's all so simple now *slaps face with mouth wide*
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Australia really does need to trap light. We only getting sunshine for 7 months of the year and with no power grid it gets awful dark and we can't tend to our kangaroos properly.
- Brocclibob, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I've sold boxed light on eBay before. When i was asked were the light went when he opened it i told him either he is looking at it right now, or it escaped when he opened it. It was so worth the negative comment and the 30 bucks.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Those Frucking Japs will trap and eat anything, All in the name of science,
- Willeth, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I would really really like to see what this looks like. Would it glow? Would it even look like anything? It boggles the mind.
- sweetbean, on 10/12/2007, -3/+3Gives new meaning to Sean Paul's "Just Gimmie the Light" and new ideas for the marketing team over at Bud Light.
- ardavis, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Assuming these answers on physlink.com are reputable (google seems to think they are)
http://www.physlink.com/Education/AskExperts/ae217.cfm
Q. Why does light slow down when entering a prism but speed up when it exits?
A. The light waves that go through the glass don't actually slow down. The effect is only apparent Notice the light wave is still only propagating at c, the phase velocity of the wave, however, may travel less, or even greater than at the speed of light.
http://www.physlink.com/Education/AskExperts/ae509.cfm
Q. Is it possible to slow light down?
A. When light enters a material, photons are absorbed by the atoms The delay between the time that the atom absorbs the photon and the excited atom releases as photon causes it to appear that light is slowing down. - comradeTJH, on 10/12/2007, -4/+4Picture! Or it didn't happen!
- Superflks, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1No, it probably won't be very interesting.
- Benbass, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0@ Rorrim.
Light travels at c in a vacuum. By changing the medium that it is traveling through, you can change the speed of light. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -4/+0 here is a video showing them do it and possible future uses
http://www.searchjerk.com/cgi-bin/smartsearch/smartsearch.cgi?keywords=japanese+scientist+light+video&search=Search - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -5/+0here is a video showing them do it and possible future uses
- Exploit, on 10/12/2007, -8/+2lazzareth = idiot :P
- Rorrim, on 10/12/2007, -10/+3I thought light always travelled at c. I haven't RTA, but do they mean that light bounces of the crystal atoms so much that in can only get to point A to point B in so much time, lesser than c?
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