IBM slows light, readies it for networking

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A basic (but understandable) misunderstanding...

There's a basic -- but understandable -- misunderstanding here. In case you haven't read the Einstein (and, more importantly, the Maxwell) papers, here's the upshot:

It is the SPEED that is important, not the light.

Explanation: It just happens that electromagnetic phenomena propogate through the universe at a certain rate (in a vacuum). There are a bunch of ways to slow them down -- such as passing them through a medium (like glass, or water, or whatever); and even ways of speeding them up (putting them in a "faster medium", changing the temperature of a given medium, etc.); but the absolute fastest they seem to be able to go is about 186,000 miles per second -- and that's only when in a vacuum. Anyway, the point is, slowing down the light itself doesn't matter for the things you're talking about. What would matter would be changing the "speed limit" of the electromagnetic world. IBM hasn't done that.

-Zhaeon

P.S. In case you're interested in a little pontification, this misunderstanding is the result of some slurred popularizations of the ideas that come along from scientists (the slurring happens mostly among the scientific technicians who think they are participating in the emperical sciences proper in a way that they aren't). It's about the same as people saying that Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle means that "you can't know both a particle's position and velocity precisely" or that Copernicus (or whomever you'd like to credit) "proved that the Earth revolves around the sun, not vice versa," both of which are equally seriously flawed misunderstandings of what was actually going on (but equally popular). In fairness, it's hard stuff to sort out sometimes.

Posted by: zhaeon   Posted on: 11/03/05 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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