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Refraction is the bending of a wave when it enters a medium where its speed is different. It does with an extremely fast rate of the change of the refractive index. First, an initial beam known as the coupling beam is shone on the cloud rendering it transparent. In 1999, Lene Vestergaard Hau, a professor at Harvard University, aimed a laser beam through such a cloud of nearly motionless sodium atoms only 1/125 inch long. BEC, for short, was first predicted in the 1920s by Albert Einstein and the Indian physicist Satyendra Bose and it wasn’t until very late in 1995 that scientists were able to produce the necessary conditions for this extreme state of matter to occur. This is actually a distinct state of matter known as the Bose-Einstein condensate, which doesn’t resemble everyday observable states like liquid, gas, solid or plasma. This is the domain of quantum mechanics so prepared for a lot of weirdness. Eventually, once you get to about 0.000001 degrees above absolute zero, atoms become so densely packed they behave like one super atom, acting in unison. As you lower the temperature (remember temperature reflects atomic agitation), atoms and molecules move slower. At room temperature, atoms are incredibly fast and behave akin to billiard balls, bouncing off each other when they interact. While we can never actually speed up or reduce the speed of light, which is always a constant, scientists have been successful in manipulating the time it takes for light to travel through various mediums. This discussion begs the question: how much can we slow light? In popular culture, the powerful Doctor Manhattan from lan Moore’s classic “Watchmen” graphic novel is always surrounded by a blue glow. People working with nuclear reactors often get to see this telltale blue glow. This effect, known as Cherenkov radiation, was observed as a faint blue glow by Pavel Cherenkov in 1934 when he was asked to look at the effects of radioactivity in liquids. If a charged particle travels faster than light in a medium, than a faint radiation is produced. In water, for example, the charged particle excites the water molecules, which then return to their normal state by emitting photons of blue light. The light propagates in a cone forward of the region where the interaction took place, analogous to the sonic boom. Not only an electron can move faster than light through a different medium - other particles as well. The phase velocity of light in a medium with refractive index n is v light = c/n. Water has a refractive index of about 1.3, so the speed of light in water is considerably less than the speed of light in vacuum. A supersonic aircraft - the kind that travels faster than sound (more than 340 m/s) - will actually move way faster than the air it dislocates. The result is a sudden pressure change or shock wave which propagates away from the aircraft in a cone at the speed of sound.ĪDVERTISEMENT Dr. A ‘normal’ subsonic aircraft will deflect air smoothly around its wings. In some instances, sluggish light can produce some very interesting physical phenomena. Thus, an electron in water can travel faster than light in water. For some materials such as water, light will slow down more than electrons will.
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But their passage through a medium involves absorption by electrons and re-emission. For instance, when light propagates through water or air, it will do so at a slower speed. That’s due to the fact that light scatters off the molecules that make-up different materials. When light travels through a medium other than vacuum, it will be slowed down. Yes, yes nothing can travel faster than light, but… 1 Yes, yes nothing can travel faster than light, but….