Light's Most Exotic Trick Yet: So Fast it Goes ... Backwards?

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dipdude

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In the past few years, scientists have found ways to make light go both faster and slower than its usual speed limit, but now researchers at the University of Rochester have published a paper today in Science on how they've gone one step further: pushing light into reverse. As if to defy common sense, the backward-moving pulse of light travels faster than light.

Confused? You're not alone.

"I've had some of the world's experts scratching their heads over this one," says Robert Boyd, the M. Parker Givens Professor of Optics at the University of Rochester. "Theory predicted that we could send light backwards, but nobody knew if the theory would hold up or even if it could be observed in laboratory conditions."

Boyd recently showed how he can slow down a pulse of light to slower than an airplane, or speed it up faster than its breakneck pace, using exotic techniques and materials. But he's now taken what was once just a mathematical oddity—negative speed—and shown it working in the real world.

"It's weird stuff," says Boyd. "We sent a pulse through an optical fiber, and before its peak even entered the fiber, it was exiting the other end. Through experiments we were able to see that the pulse inside the fiber was actually moving backward, linking the input and output pulses."
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http://www.rochester.edu/news/show.php?id=2544
 
OMG i have heard of light going at different speeds before but going backwards, it sure went very fast cuz i didnt understand anything, i think this could be an example of time travel, may be the light didnt go backwards it might have just warped through time ;)
 
well the particle-nature of light is complelety flawed when a light is projected backwards.. reducing(changing) speed of light although still deals with particles( photons yea ;) ) but projecting in different angles is completely disorienting..

Again in the article the backward orientation of light starts as soons as it exits the fiber.. What does this mean? The wave nature of light is completely ellucidated in this statement. Consider a tube and a wave of water, when the wave exits ( and diverges in a bigger domain, with less refraction index) it also propels sm wavelets back.. maybe it is dealing with this phenomenon..

This is worth watching..;) link available in above source..

http://www.rochester.edu/news/photos/backward_light.mpg

anyways thanks for the info dipdude.. !!
 
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