Was excited to publish my first article for Wired Science last week!
The article, which appeared on Wired.com, was about a new tiny chip that could slow light down at room temperature, thanks to some quantum physical effects. The article was fairly challenging to write, but thankfully the UC Santa Cruz researcher responsible, Holger Schmidt, was very helpful in making sure I got the science right. We actually got to go to his lab last November and see the experimental setup he used to slow light, which made the experiment a lot more tangible than reading about it in a paper.
The first response that most people have when they hear about slowing light is “Isn’t the speed of light constant?! Does this violate Einstein’s laws?”
I thought I would clarify – the speed of light is constant in a vacuum. It’s speed changes depending on the medium, so the real breakthrough here is being able to provide such a medium on a tiny chip that can be mass-produced. (Previous efforts had managed to slow light down to 37mph, but with a lot more effort and equipment.)
Anyway, do check out the article.
[Wired]