|
|
Article: RESEARCH TEAM SLOWS THE SPEED OF LIGHT TO 38 MPH.(News)
- Article from:
- Seattle Post-Intelligencer
- Article date:
- February 18, 1999
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1999 Seattle Post-Intelligencer. All rights reserved. Reproduced with the permission of the Dialog Corporation by Gale Group. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
|
When light travels through empty space, it zips along at a speed of 186,171 miles a second - the highest speed anything can attain, even in principle. A moonbeam takes only a little over one second to reach Earth.
But a Danish physicist and her team of collaborators have found a way to slow light down to about 38 miles an hour, a speed exceeded by a strong bicyclist.
The physics team, headed by Dr. Lene Vestergaard Hau, who works concurrently at the Rowland Institute for Science in Cambridge, Mass., and at Harvard University, expects soon to slow the pace of light still further, to a glacial 120 feet an hour - about the speed of a tortoise.
...