Wednesday, January 28, 2015

Changing the Speed of Light

Summary: Scientists in Scotland have successfully altered the speed of light. Incredible in my humble opinion. To do this, they used a mask to alter the shape of a photon. This slowed the light down. Then the photon was released back into free space and raced against a photon of unaltered shape. Amazingly, the altered particle remained at the lower speed.

At this initial stage it is nothing more than a curiosity but it could have implications for astronomy. While it would not make a difference in small distances such as between Earth and the moon, if photons mutate shape in nature then our distances to far off stars and galaxies may not be as accurate as previously assumed.

BBC News

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