Slowing and Stopping Light

[turbohead]

Danish physicist Lene Vestergaard Hau (Harvard University) succeeded in slowing a beam of light:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EK6HxdUQm5s

[ZeroPoint]

hmm, thats quite interesting. it will be cool to see what kind of things can come of it.

[daction]

looks a bit confusing

[VDX]

... remembers me on old Sci-Fi novels about "slow glass", where people could see their long passed beloved from outside through the windows acting inside the house ...

Viktor

[Draco]

That's part of a larger Nova documentary on the race to get something as cold as possible. Absolute Zero https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mTFRgosx4aQ

It's a neat episode and I still some times pick up on new stuff when I watch it

[planters]

It's my understanding that "slow light" is an extreme example of the effect of the electrical field (associated with any light field), interacting with the electrical field surrounding the atoms in a medium. Unlike the true slowing of light that occurs in a gravity field along with the associated effects on space-time, "slow light" is more of a compressing phenomenon, like passing a fluid through a very fine filter.

[Draco]

I believe they explained that compression as the laser light entered that super condensate and when it exited that it stretched back out and resumed at it's original speed