Tuning The Speed Of Light

[Zeus_Hunt]

On the screen, a small pulse shifts back and forth – just a little bit. But this seemingly unremarkable phenomenon could have profound technological consequences. It represents the success of Luc Thévenaz and his fellow researchers in the Nanophotonics and Metrology laboratory at EPFL in controlling the speed of light in a simple optical fiber. They were able not only to slow light down by a factor of three from its well – established speed of 300 million meters per second in a vacuum, but they've also accomplished the considerable feat of speeding it up – making light go faster than the speed of light.

Their results, to be published in the August 22 issue of Applied Physics Letters, could have implications that range from optical computing to the fiber-optic telecommunications industry.

The telecommunications industry transmits vast quantities of data via fiber optics. Light signals race down the information superhighway at about 186,000 miles per second. But information cannot be processed at this speed, because with current technology light signals cannot be stored, routed or processed without first being transformed into electrical signals, which work much more slowly. If the light signal could be controlled by light, it would be possible to route and process optical data without the costly electrical conversion, opening up the possibility of processing information at the speed of light.

This is exactly what the EPFL team has demonstrated. Using their Stimulated Brillouin Scattering (SBS) method, the group was able to slow a light signal down by a factor of 3.6, creating a sort of temporary "optical memory." They were also able to create extreme conditions in which the light signal travelled faster than 300 million meters a second. And even though this seems to violate all sorts of cherished physical assumptions, Einstein needn't move over – relativity isn't called into question, because only a portion of the signal is affected.

The EPFL team has brought applications of slow light an important step closer to this reality. And Thévenaz points out that this technology could take us far beyond just improving on current telecom applications. He suggests that their method could be used to generate high-performance microwave signals that could be used in next-generation wireless communication networks, or used to improve transmissions between satellites. We may just be seeing the tip of the optical iceberg.

Someone said that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light.....(Was it Einstien) :P

Now we have light travelling faster than light....

Quite interesting... :thumbsup:

[erRor67]

wha... this is very interesting.. Could really affect our communication too.

[nsane]

Someone said that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light.....(Was it Einstien) :thumbsup:

it might have been a theory, never proven to be fact, so that might not be entirely true...

that's kinda cool tho, the light signal travelled faster than 300 million meters a second, imagin how fast we could download a movie on that thing :P

[Tomez]

lol all we care about is faster downloads?!?!? hahahahahaha :ph34r:

But its still in its first stages cuz only a protion is affected it might take years :ph34r:

[myidisbb]

Someone said that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light.....(Was it Einstien) :ph34r:

Now we have light travelling faster than light....

Quite interesting... :ph34r:

speed of light measure in a vacuum is constant. this science study test was using a gas instead. (the gas name started with C) they reported this about 6- 12 months ago.

when they used a laser base on speed of light constant under a vacuum it made the laser seem to get to the end before being released.

they are using something under that line for this newest test. trust me they DID NOT GO FASTER THEN THE SPEED OF LIGHT CONSTANT UNDER A VACUUM. this is piss poor reporting to make a study look nice for more money. ei junk science. can you say, "cold fusion?"

base on what was said it was only laser with fiber optic. i smell a rat and fish running after some taxpayer's money.

[nsane]

bringing up cold fusion, anyone know if that UNC Professor ever completed his fusion testing? he was making a reacter with some gas and some high powered magnets to control it :ph34r:

was the theory they used for spider man 2, minus the gas...

edit: his homepage - the 2nd to last paragraph is about his fusion testing, not much detail tho. seems he's working at UCLA now too :ph34r:

[myidisbb]

bringing up cold fusion, anyone know if that UNC Professor ever completed his fusion testing? he was making a reacter with some gas and some high powered magnets to control it :ph34r:

was the theory they used for spider man 2, minus the gas...

edit: his homepage - the 2nd to last paragraph is about his fusion testing, not much detail tho. seems he's working at UCLA now too :ph34r:

the utah one that started that crap in 1987-88 was with water and special gas/metals etc. after waste $25 million dollars of utah taxpayers money. heck no.

i believe you mean fusion test and not cold fusion. that is with gas, laser (in some of them) and very powerful magnets to keep the gas explosion from going off and killing everyone. after 30 plus years and billions. nope. they still claim another 20 years needed. just like beforehand.

[nsane]

i never said cold fusion, quote...

ever completed his fusion testing?

any ways, i may have got the 2 mixed up, but i was watching a show on fusion a few months back and we KNOW how to create a fusion reaction. it's just a matter of controlling the reaction that's the problem, which i'm sure we'll solve eventually. but you act like it's all a big waste of money, i mean, once they figure it out that's ganna be a clean and free source of power for 1,000s of years (well worth the money in my book). you realise how much money we spend on fosil fules and all the polution from our current power supplies? :ph34r:

nuclear waste is the worst, has a half-life of 10,000 years and no known way to dispose of it, just buildin up making everything near by radioactive :ph34r:

[myidisbb]

i never said cold fusion, quote...

ever completed his fusion testing?

any ways, i may have got the 2 mixed up, but i was watching a show on fusion a few months back and we KNOW how to create a fusion reaction. it's just a matter of controlling the reaction that's the problem, which i'm sure we'll solve eventually. but you act like it's all a big waste of money, i mean, once they figure it out that's ganna be a clean and free source of power for 1,000s of years (well worth the money in my book). you realise how much money we spend on fosil fules and all the polution from our current power supplies? :ph34r:

nuclear waste is the worst, has a half-life of 10,000 years and no known way to dispose of it, just buildin up making everything near by radioactive :ph34r:

i see what happen. you had the two in the same setence.

these programs tend to suck money and never anything made. just awww give us another 20 years. nothing ever comes from these. frankly, a fusion rector would be pretty scarey if the magnets failed. i trust a USSR water cooling defected nuke plant before i trust a fusion one.

the future for the usa is wind and solar. problem is land space and libs not wanting it. there is the possible use of water mills put in the ocean. but already evironment wacko left communist are against it too.

fossil fuels still give us the most for the buck. cheaper and in the usa clean. the bs electric car is about dead. its problem was where to get the energy from. we have very clean air even in major cities. by and large we clean our stuff up.

right now in state of CA we have the leftist communist democrats wanting to tax hardware of all kinds. they then will force it on ebay collectins therefor bypassing the tax free web. they doing that to people that got smokes from the web in newyork. (i dont smoke, but i support their rights since they pay a tax that i sure as heck dont want to pay if they quit)

[erRor67]

[...]

nuclear waste is the worst, has a half-life of 10,000 years and no known way to dispose of it, just buildin up making everything near by radioactive :ph34r:

I still dont understand why they cant just put all of the stuff in a spaceship and send it out away from our solar system.. Is it too costly or something?

[nsane]

they've thought about it, but what if something happens when trying to lauch it into space? barrels of radioactive waste exploding at 50,000 feet would create MILES of nuclear wasteland...i wouldn't wanna take that chance :ph34r:

edit: oh yeah, they hollowed out some mountain in nevada or something that's made of like 98% lead. they're ganna start stuffing that with the waste and when it's full seal it up forever and hollow out another.

edit 2: lead, not iron :ph34r:

@bb - how would a magnet 'fail', it's a magnet, give it power at it works? plug that into the reactor and you've crated a little catch-22 (the magnets keep the reaction stable and the reaction powers the magnets). NOTHING to worry about there, a magnet just won't decide "i don't wanna create magnetic fields anymore". that's like 6th grade science, a magnet wil ALWAYS be a magnet :rofl:

[myidisbb]

they've thought about it, but what if something happens when trying to lauch it into space? barrels of radioactive waste exploding at 50,000 feet would create MILES of nuclear wasteland...i wouldn't wanna take that chance :ph34r:

edit: oh yeah, they hollowed out some mountain in nevada or something that's made of like 98% lead. they're ganna start stuffing that with the waste and when it's full seal it up forever and hollow out another.

edit 2: lead, not iron :ph34r:

@bb - how would a magnet 'fail', it's a magnet, give it power at it works? plug that into the reactor and you've crated a little catch-22 (the magnets keep the reaction stable and the reaction powers the magnets). NOTHING to worry about there, a magnet just won't decide "i don't wanna create magnetic fields anymore". that's like 6th grade science, a magnet wil ALWAYS be a magnet :rofl:

the cost to shoot nuke waste into space is very costly and if it went down? shuttle cost to fly is $100-250 million each time. side note on environmental wackos out of control. we had to replace the halogon gas on our nuke bomb tip missiles because its a green house gas and if they where ever launch they would cause globe warming because of that gas being release. frankly, i thought that was an oximoron view of not taking into count nukes going off. i can only think they wanted to make it illegal to use our missiles if need be.

not sure if its lead. was thinking salt mine. in anycase nothing like a natural high metal poisoning area. cant put them on the super clean fund list.

electric magnet. a very lot of them. you know the saying, "murphy's law". and "shit happens" "earth quake".

the earth's magnet field flips every so often. we are actually due for it to happen. they also said nuke plants would be cheap. (actually they are until you get studies and other communist anti american attacking nuke plants to make them worthless)

remember you cant create energy from nothing.

if magnets would done it they would had it 40 years ago. (on a side note, there is a theory you could use magnets to bend a laser to fall onto itself. causing the possible time travel. but you could only go back to the point of after making the machine)

take care all going to bed.

[nsane]

not sure if its lead.  was thinking salt mine.  in anycase nothing like a natural high metal poisoning area.  cant put them on the super clean fund list.

it's lead, the same stuff they use to block x-ray radiation because radioactivity CANNOT penetrate it (the best place to put some radioactive waste) :ph34r:

remember you cant create energy from nothing.

it's not being created from nothing, it's being created from a fusion reaction which creates NO waste (it's burns up EVERYTHING, nothing is left). the thing with fision, nukes, is we thought we'd have a way to dispose of it by now...but we don't. everything else from nuclear power is perfectly clean if the reaction is controlled properly :ph34r:

[erRor67]

they've thought about it, but what if something happens when trying to lauch it into space? barrels of radioactive waste exploding at 50,000 feet would create MILES of nuclear wasteland...i wouldn't wanna take that chance :blink:

Yeah, I kinda figured it was cause of the safety and cost issues. :thumbsup:

[Tomez]

it's lead, the same stuff they use to block x-ray radiation because radioactivity CANNOT penetrate it (the best place to put some radioactive waste) :)

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I think I read that lead only decreases the speed of Gama rays which decreases it s ability to travel long distances but not completly stopping it.

[nsane]

that's prolly why it's out in middle of the desert :)