Scientists can now “squeeze� light, a breakthrough that could make computers millions of times faster

[Redondo]

Scientists can now “squeeze” light, a breakthrough that could make computers millions of times faster

 

Have you ever wondered why we don’t use light to transmit messages? Nothing can travel faster than the speed of light, but while we use light to carry signals along fiber optic cables, we use electrons to process sound and information in our phones and computers. The reason has always been because light particles–photons—are extremely difficult to manipulate, whereas electrons can be manipulated relatively easily.

 

But now a group of Harvard physicists has taken a major step toward solving that puzzle, and have brought us one step closer to ultra-fast, light-based computers.

 

The physicists, led by Professor Eric Mazur, have created a material where the phase velocity of light is infinite. Their results were published in Nature Photonics on Oct. 19^th.

 

“The phase speed is infinite—much larger, infinitely larger than the speed of light,” Mazur tells Quartz.

This doesn’t mean light itself is traveling faster than the speed of light, which would violate the laws of relativity. “Phase velocity” refers to the speed of the crest of waves that ripple out when light strikes a material. The Harvard scientists created a material that allows these wave crests to move infinitely fast. This is a strange thought to wrap your head around, and means the crests of the waves are oscillating through time, but not space. Under these peculiar conditions, the Harvard scientists found that it’s easy to manipulate the photons, squeezing them down to the microscopic scale and turning them around. In other words, we can treat photons in the same way we currently manipulate electrons.

 

Click here to read more

 

 

[Hollyw00d]

[Ray McKigney]

Interesting.

[Guest]

[mrwicked]

i tried reading the paper summary.

i got through the author list pretty good, then when the first paragraph hit:

 

[mrwicked]

ha, exactly.

i understood it when taking quantum physics classes at berkeley.

now I'm like this:

 

[Adam]

I won't even click the link then. 

[Blarg]

One of these days one of these overly smart assholes is going to do something tragically stupid and the universe will implode before they can say whoops.

[ettin]

One of these days one of these overly smart assholes is going to do something tragically stupid and the universe will implode before they can say whoops.

Don't worry before I do it I'll write an exclusive AW.com 10,000 word article on it before I start the experiment. I'll title it 20XX Primer Ser... oops!