Re: [CTRL] Scientists Bring Light to Full Stop, Hold It, Then Send It on Its Way
Translating the "mumbo-jumbo" and "hocus-pocus", this would seem to describe a technique for creating holograms using a super-cooled gas medium instead of a traditional static chemical (photographic) emulsion as the storage medium...3D projection television, anyone? Interestingly, it might also describe a workable technique for im- plementing quantum teleportation of physical matter ( see the attached URL about "Schroedinger's Eskimo".) Regards, William Harry Tenorlove wrote: > > -Caveat Lector- > > Forwarded without comment. > > Tenorlove > > ~` > > > http://partners.nytimes.com/2001/01/18/science/18LIGH.html?Partner=AltaVista > > &RefId=_WLmY_WEFnnunuu-ly > > January 18, 2001 > > Scientists Bring Light to Full Stop, Hold It, Then Send It on Its Way > > By JAMES GLANZ > > > > > > The New York Times > > > > > > > researchers say they have slowed light to a dead stop, stored it and > > then > > released it as if it were an ordinary material particle. > > > > The achievement is a landmark feat that, by reining in nature's > > swiftest and > > most ethereal form of energy for the first time, could help realize > > what are > > now theoretical concepts for vastly increasing the speed of computers > > and > > the security of communications. [snipped] Title: Man 'Made Cold By The Universe' Seen By Scores Who Knew Him SIGHTINGS Man 'Made Cold By The Universe' Seen By Scores Who Knew Him By Liz Ruskin - Anchorage Daily News From Fred Colvin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 5-15-00 BETHEL - In villages along the Kuskokwim River and in this hub city, scores of people have reported catching sight of Richard Pavilla, a 38-year-old man who disappeared in December while on a snowmachine trip from his home village of Atmautluak. Pavilla, they say, is still alive but he is in a rare condition in which he is feather-light and as wary as a wild bird. "It has happened in the past, but it's kind of long and in between," said 77-year-old Peter Jacobs, through a Yup'ik translator. "That person is not dead. The spirit is still with the body, but he's in a different state." The Alaska State Troopers ended their search for Pavilla more than three months ago, 12 days after they found the body of Pavilla's companion and the snowmachine the two were riding. The troopers presume Pavilla is dead, too. But day after day, Bethel's search and rescue coordinator keeps taking the reports of people who say they've seen the lost man. Pavilla and Richard Tikiun, 27, left Christmas Eve on a snowmachine for Bethel, about 30 miles away across the frozen tundra. People in the village told troopers the men had been drinking and may have been planning to pick up Tikiun's stash of alcohol on the way. Searchers found Tikiun's body Dec. 28, four miles from Atmautluak and just north of the main trail to Bethel. He lay face down on the ground next to his snowmachine and an empty vodka bottle, troopers said. Pavilla, troopers said, obviously stayed alive for a while, despite fierce winds and temperatures that dropped to minus 30 degrees. Searchers found a series of windbreaks made of snow blocks and tree branches, snow caves dug into drifts and even a hastily made igloo, as well as several sets of tracks thought to be Pavilla's. It was shortly after New Year's when the first sighting of the lost man was reported, said Peter Atchak, Bethel's volunteer search and rescue coordinator. Five of the searchers, Pavilla's cousins, reported seeing a solitary figure on foot about eight miles southwest of Bethel. "They thought it was a searcher, but when they were approaching close he took off running," Atchak said. The person crossed the frozen river and was gone, the cousins reported. The next report came a couple of days later. A group of youngsters were driving a truck from Napakiak upriver to Bethel when someone came out of the brush toward them. They got frightened and drove off, Atchak said. The troopers ended their search Jan. 9, figuring no one could survive so long in such severe weather. The volunteer search and rescue group kept looking, and Atchak kept track of the reported sightings. They came from up and down the Kuskokwim and from villages on the coast. In all, there were more than 50 reports from 10 villages. People also reported seeing Pavilla in Bethel - near the high school, at the hospital and crouched under a woman's house. Atchak said he has repeatedly investigated reports of boot prints and found they were made by size 7 Sorels, just like Pavilla's. "I wouldn't have believed it myself if I hadn't seen his tracks, hi
[CTRL] Scientists Bring Light to Full Stop, Hold It, Then Send It on Its Way
-Caveat Lector- Forwarded without comment. Tenorlove ~` > http://partners.nytimes.com/2001/01/18/science/18LIGH.html?Partner=AltaVista > &RefId=_WLmY_WEFnnunuu-ly > January 18, 2001 > Scientists Bring Light to Full Stop, Hold It, Then Send It on Its Way > By JAMES GLANZ > > > The New York Times > > > researchers say they have slowed light to a dead stop, stored it and > then > released it as if it were an ordinary material particle. > > The achievement is a landmark feat that, by reining in nature's > swiftest and > most ethereal form of energy for the first time, could help realize > what are > now theoretical concepts for vastly increasing the speed of computers > and > the security of communications. > > Two independent teams of physicists have achieved the result, one led > by Dr. > Lene Vestergaard Hau of Harvard University and the Rowland Institute > for > Science in Cambridge, Mass., and the other by Dr. Ronald L. Walsworth > and > Dr. Mikhail D. Lukin of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for > Astrophysics, > also in Cambridge. > > Light normally moves through space at 186,000 miles a second. > Ordinary > transparent media like water, glass and crystal slow light slightly, > an > effect that causes the bending of light rays that allows lenses to > focus > images and prisms to produce spectra. > > Using a distantly related but much more powerful effect, the > Walsworth-Lukin > team first slowed and then stopped the light in a medium that > consisted of > specially prepared containers of gas. In this medium, the light > became > fainter and fainter as it slowed and then stopped. By flashing a > second > light through the gas, the team could essentially revive the original > beam. > > The beam then left the chamber carrying nearly the same shape, > intensity and > other properties it had when it entered. The experiments led by Dr. > Hau > achieved similar results with closely related techniques. > > "Essentially, the light becomes stuck in the medium, and it can't get > out > until the experimenters say so," said Dr. Seth Lloyd, an associate > professor > of mechanical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of > Technology who > is familiar with the work. > > Dr. Lloyd added, "Who ever thought that you could make light stand > still?" > > He said the work's biggest impact could come in futuristic > technologies > called quantum computing and quantum communication. Both concepts > rely > heavily on the ability of light to carry so-called quantum > information, > involving particles that can exist in many places or states at once. > > Quantum computers could crank through certain operations vastly > faster than > existing machines; quantum commmunications could never be > eavesdropped upon. > For both these systems, light is needed to form large networks of > computers. > But those connections are difficult without temporary storage of > light, a > problem that the new work could help solve. > > A paper by Dr. Walsworth, Dr. Lukin and three collaborators - Dr. > David > Phillips, Annet Fleischhauer and Dr. Alois Mair, all at Harvard- > Smithsonian - is scheduled to appear in the Jan. 29 issue of Physical > Review > Letters. > > Citing restrictions imposed by the journal Nature, where her report > is to > appear, Dr. Hau refused to discuss her work in detail. > > Two years ago, however, Nature published Dr. Hau's description of > work in > which she slowed light to about 38 miles an hour in a system > involving beams > of light shone through a chilled sodium gas. > > Dr. Walsworth and Dr. Lukin mentioned Dr. Hau's new work in their > paper, > saying she achieved her latest results using a similarly chilled gas. > Dr. > Lukin cited her earlier work, which Dr. Hau produced in collaboration > with > Dr. Stephen Harris of Stanford University, as the inspiration for the > new > experiments. > > Those experiments take the next step, stopping the light's > propagation > completely. > > "We've been able to hold it there and just let it go, and what comes > out is > the same as what we sent in," Dr. Walsworth said. "So it's like a > freeze > frame." > > Dr. Walsworth, Dr. Lukin and their team slowed light in a gas form of > rubidium, an alkaline metal element. > > The deceleration of the light in the rubidium differed in several > ways from > how light slows through an ordinary lens. For one thing, the light > dimmed as > it slowed through the rubidium. > > Another change involved the behavior of atoms in the gas, which > developed a > sort of impression of the slowing wave. > > This impression, actually consisting of patterns in a property of the > atoms > called their spin, was a kind of record of the light's passing and > was > enough to allow the experimenters to revive or reconstitute the > original > beam. > > Both Dr. Hau's original experiments on slowing light, and the new > ones on > stop
