Scientists develop an Ultrafast Camera that records at the Speed of Light - WOW !

For once ATS is not responsible for the misinformation. It seems that the nerds who wrote the press release got it all wrong or exaggerated for the purposes of getting press attention.

They aren't watching individual photons, which would obviously be impossible. You can't see photons!

Instead they are firing many, many extremely short pulses of laser light at a fixed object and taking a photograph of the scene as it is illuminated by each of the pulses at different points in their path through the scene.

So basically they are compressing time, not expanding it. All those many photographs take a long time to take and they compress it down to a few seconds of video. They are not taking photographs in the fraction of a second that it takes light to move across the scene and expanding it out to fill a few seconds of video!

So the important point is that the photons in each frame are not the same photons, but from a different laser pulse.

reply to post by XtraTL
They explain it in the video, so it isn't a lack of reading comprehension for the posters that aren't getting it.

I hope that they go back and listen to what the researchers are saying in the video.... it isn't nearly as earth-shattering as the title says.

Heisenberg's uncertainty principle along with the soon-to-be recognized flaws of the cameras will rip this story to shreds.

EDIT : I was right.

Good way to examine movement of proteins in cells and implosion hydrodynamics for nuclear weapons to name a couple good uses.

I cant help but wonder what relevant information could be gained from this process? I am impressed like the rest, but wondering what application it could be used for and in turn, what innovative advancement would in the long term be achieved by it.


or is this simply going to improve speedtraps!!!

Originally posted by theRhenn
reply to post by theRhenn

 

wait wait wait.. If nothing moves faster than the speed of light, how exactly does it take pictures faster than light?

...rewatching video! doh!

It does'nt take pictures faster then light just observes relative to one view! In laymens terms it just takes many pictures with a really sensitive probably CCD imager! It actually views where the photons are relative to the camera's view! The wave of light moves outward from the mirror hence when it illuminates each area of the scene or any time light reflects off of any matter there is a second source of light waves/particals "whatever light is truely made of" eminating from that matter and that is the light that is then absorbed onto the film or the chip "whatever exposure methods they are using" and this happens many times for them to see such a complete image like they are! it's easier to understand if you know some basic physics!

Very cool.

While it does not breach the speed of light, it basically does in practice. Interesting play with the idea of framing.

DP

reply to post by CLPrime


Yes, but it would still be cool to see it do that

reply to post by FlySolo


Indeed it would. Personally, I can't think of any situation which I wouldn't want to see in this way. The process must be precisely repeatable, of course, but watching things like the double-slit experiment would definitely make me giddy.

This is something that does what it says on the tin, (if the observations are correct of course)

www.universetoday.com...

Device Makes Radio Waves Travel Faster Than Light,

short summary paper at Cornell,

arxiv.org...

It seems to be an electronic accelerometer device to annoy radio waves to go faster, could be all bunk, but if real, more than just an effect. The OP's story shows quite a dramatic effect however, and could have great use in many applications. Computors comes to mind. I wonder if they have tried a prism and mirrors yet?

reply to post by smurfy


It's real, but, as I explained 2 pages ago, what's being talked about are two different types of velocity: phase velocity and group velocity. Group velocity (the speed of the photons, themselves) must always be equal to exactly 299,792,458 m/s under any and all circumstances. Phase velocity (the speed of the wave) can be anything we want to make it - even, in this case, greater than light's group velocity.

Any time you hear of anyone speeding up or slowing down the speed of light, they're talking about the phase velocity, because the group velocity cannot be changed, ever. It's not nearly as impressive as these articles make it sound.

Originally posted by CLPrime
reply to post by smurfy

 

It's real, but, as I explained 2 pages ago, what's being talked about are two different types of velocity: phase velocity and group velocity. Group velocity (the speed of the photons, themselves) must always be equal to exactly 299,792,458 m/s under any and all circumstances. Phase velocity (the speed of the wave) can be anything we want to make it - even, in this case, greater than light's group velocity.

Any time you hear of anyone speeding up or slowing down the speed of light, they're talking about the phase velocity, because the group velocity cannot be changed, ever. It's not nearly as impressive as these articles make it sound.

edit on 15-12-2011 by CLPrime because: (no reason given)

That is why I put in the link to the radio wave experiment, it's almost like it's the same thing as the Op's in some ways in application, but that the end 'purpose' is different as if disconnected. So what really is a pulsar achieving in such a fashion, accidental phasing consistently? it's all QI

reply to post by Coffee Monster


Actually, I can't imagine any uses for the light speed camera, I'm not a rocket scientist, but I can imagine trying to get grandma to take a picture with this camera..

Grandma, I've told you 10 times already, E=MCsquared. How hard can that be? It's always all relative. Now push those 30 colored light buttons in the exact sequence I showed you or else you might send us all back in time or ignite the atmosphere, I can't remember which.

Wait.

Probably you would have to be smarter than a rocket scientist to think up uses for this.

Ok, all you rocket scientists out of the pool (Baby Ruth!), you are just getting in the way.

Now that I think about it, I would be embarrassed to claim to be as smart as a rocket scientist....if I was one. I'm thinking they are pretty far down the smartness ladder these days.

Hey - I think I saw a Space Shuttle astronaut emptying my trash at work the other day when I stayed late. They are kind of like a rocket scientist in a way, aren't they?

Wait Wait. This would jumped on by the porn movie producers in a heartbeat. They have paved the way forward for all the latest tech innovations. Like the internet and DVDs. Just think about the Money Shot now with this new invention..

So I AM as smart as those bottom feeding rocket scientists after all.

reply to post by Skylonda


Yes, I am replying to my own post. That's probably so wrong in the rules somewhere on page 1101, section Q, item 7 of 9. I know. You bean counters should just skip this post and so go on to the next one.

I had a thought whilst I was re-reading the title of this thread -" Scientists develop an Ultrafast Camera that records at the Speed of Light - WOW !"

This is my own thought, no rocket scientists were consulted on this one.

The title says that the camera records "at the speed of light." Sounds impressive to the rocket scientists, but what do they know? Just wait til they find out my grandma's dusty, old Kodak Brownie records at the speed of light also.

The shutter opens for a milisecond, then closes and there's your picture. It's quite simple really. The light entered through the camera lense at the speed of light. WOW! 186,000ish miles per second. 299,792,458 metres per second for you Europeans and fussy science fiction authors. You know who you are.

I checked Wikipedia, so the numbers have to be right. And I know the light didn't slow down and change the so called "laws of physics" just so my grandma's Brownie could take a picture of her cat. Grandma's Brownie was a work horse and did not even care if the light coming through the lense that day was acting as a particle or as a wave. And neither did grandma.

I was also thinking that if the light speeded up a little bit like those concerned scientists said or even slowed down a little due to being tuckered from the long journey from Sirius, the Brownie would have handled it all just fine.

Now, I think that is a good point these " better than rocket scientists" forgot to consider. I hope they didn't mail out their paper to the scientific journals just yet. And I don't even want to get into the issue of my eyeballs also recording images for my brain at the same speed as grandma's Brownie.

In closing, I would like to offer the use of grandma's Brownie if it would help their experiments and keep them from getting into hot water.

Gotta go now. Some light is coming in from the Galactic center right now and I want to try my eye experiment (186,000ish miles/sec) again, just to be safe. That's called a double blind study. Right?

Quick PS: I also think these scientists would be better served working on that whole Kessel run thing in 12 parsecs. Now THAT would be something.

reply to post by Skylonda


recording at the speed of light is a meaningless statement anyway. its like saying my phone transmits data at 100 billion moles. its the wrong unit of measure.

anyway, its good marketing i guess.

Originally posted by dr treg
If your car could travel at the speed of light, would your headlights work? - Steve Wright

According to Einstein no, yet he believed if there was a mirror in front of the headlights it would show their reflection, which he saw as a paradox.

reply to post by Hawkwind.


Actually, it depends who you ask. If you ask the driver of the car, then they will see the light from the headlights go out ahead of the car at c. If you ask an external observer, then they will see the car keeping up with the light from the headlights, both of which they will measure to be travelling at c.