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Quantum Researchers Able to Stop and Restart Light
In two independent experiments that defy the notions of Einstein, researchers have been able to stop, then restart a beam of light.
Ordinarily, light travels at the speed of 186,282 miles per second, but the research team of Lene Hau, a professor of physics at Harvard, who in 1999 was able to slow light down to 38 miles per hour, has been able to trap light in a cloud of sodium atoms super-cooled to near ‘absolute zero.’
“It’s nifty to look into the chamber and see a clump of ultracold atoms floating there,” Hau says. “In this odd state, light takes on a more human dimension; you can almost touch it.” [1]
In an independent experiment, an easier approache was tried by the team of Ronald Walsworth and Mikhail Lukin at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA).
They shot laser beams through a dense cloud of rubidium and helium gas. (Rubidium, in its solid or natural form, is a soft, silver-white metal.) The light bounced from atom to atom, gradually slowing down until it stopped. No supervacuum or ultra-cold was needed. In fact, the chamber where the light stopped was at a temperature of 176 degrees F. [1]
Both experiments accomplish almost the same thing, however, in the CfA experiment researchers were only able to store about half of the incoming light, and the storage time was about half that of Hau’s experiment.
Be AWARE truthisscary.com
Source: http://truthisscary.com/2015/01/quantum-researchers-able-to-stop-and-restart-light-2/
