Capturing light in motion at a trillionth of a second. MIT, using a new technique called Femto Photography, consisting of femtosecond laser illumination, picosecond-accurate detectors and mathematical reconstruction techniques, has captured the movement of pulses of light.
posted by quin on Dec 13, 2011 - 32 comments

Sorry Marty.. but 2.21 gigawatts ain't gonna cut it. Scientists have proven nothing can travel faster than the speed of light, so no time travelling for you, bub. A new study published in the American Physical Society's Physical Review Letters journal concludes that even single photons have to obey the posted speed limits. [more inside]
posted by analogue on Jul 25, 2011 - 145 comments

Physicists have managed to observe light behaving both as a particle and wave in the same double-slit experimental condition, by means of a new method to weakly observe a particle's momentum. This article in Nature summarizes the results in non-mathematical terms. [more inside]
posted by leibniz on Jun 3, 2011 - 49 comments

Whether Einstein's "spooky science" or quantum weirdness, the Geneva tests that show entangled photons traveling at 10,000 times the speed of light are stirring up challenges and "Alice in Wonderland" discussions about "subatomic particles communicating nearly instantaneously at a distance." [more inside]
posted by Surfurrus on Aug 24, 2008 - 73 comments