Quote:
Originally Posted by mrnoodle
... they think they can not only slow down light, but stop it -- that means that it could be stored, and I suppose be used as a storage medium itself. 100000000 TB harddrives, anyone?
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This research was reported in The Economist in 8 Jul 1999:
Quote:
Slower than a speeding bullet
... demonstrations of light travelling at a lazy 17 metres per second as it passed through a collection of cold sodium atoms.
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The ability to slow an electronic signal was a major accomplishment necessary to create TV. Today we are looking to replace the electronic transistor with either a magnetic or optical transistor. Slowing those signals is also necessary for using those new technologies in fundamentally breakthrough products. These Quantum Physics breakthroughs are today what the transistor was back in and after 1948.
Rubidium is another material actively being studied for optical communication, data storage, etc.
The concept to freeze and store light was reported by The Economist sometime in early 2004 from CA. Not only to store data (like digital registers) but to also create other wavelengths that would make (for example) current fiber optics capable of tens of times more data. Related to this is negative refraction - where as lens may bend light in a completely opposite direction.
Much of Quantum Physics research is slowly moving out of the US for a variety of reasons including the George Jr 'fear of all foreigners' attitudes and so many companies that now use MBA school concepts to make profits (which then don't exist ten years later). Another example is how America killed the Super Collider to spend 10 of times more money on a useless International Space Station (ISS) that does no science. By now, every regular dweller in The Cellar should appreciate what a boon-doogle the ISS has become along with another science corrupting program - Man to Mars.
Meanwhile, scientists are currently collecting in Cern (Europe) to practice for the startup of a European version of a super collider - a tool so necessary for advancements in Quantum Physics. The Super Collider that should have been operating in the US in the 1990s will now be doing necessary Quantum Physics research instead in Europe.
The stopping of light is simply one of so many new technologies that will define the world's future 20+ years from now - as a 1948 transistor does today. But then back in 1948, almost all the world's breakthrough technologies were pioneered in the nation that most appreciated science and technology - when the purpose of a business was its products; not its profits. |
