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

University of Rochester ^ | 11 May 2006 | Staff (press release)

[Auslander]

But light is a quantum phenomena. It is discrete not continuous. Single photos exist. They are a easily prove to exist using double slit.

So a single photon pulse will have no leading edge.

A Taylor series approximation is a continuous method derived from the constraints the operations of calculus. E.I. calculus requires the inputs to its operations to be continuous. Placing these artificial constrains on a real phenomena will get you absurd results. E.G. needing an infinite series of continues sine waves to make up a discrete event.

[mcshot]

Code broken - cute.

[onedoug]

Now, move the whole universe back in time, and we can do the whole thing again.

[ReformedBeckite]

How do we know the light didn't make a U-turn

[stevio]

Good catch, I was going to post that reply too.

[martin_fierro]

[GOPJ]

Thanks for the ping.

[GOPJ]

.syawedis dna, sdrawrod, sdrawkcab swolf thgiL .rekcehclleps sih ton s'ti ebyaM

[contemplator]

?rdrawrod

[Physicist]

I hope in the paper they managed to use the word "endochronic".

[PatrickHenry]

Good article. Explains a lot. Thanks.

[RadioAstronomer]

:-)

[DocRock]

Bookmark

[Yo-Yo]

.syawedis dna, sdrawrod, sdrawkcab swolf thgiL .rekcehclleps sih ton s'ti ebyaM

(^; ?"sdrawrof" naem uoy oD ?"sdrawrod"

[LuxMaker]

and if light can be made to go backwards, down't that mean it has mass? and doesn't that destroy the conservation of matter thoery that says that mass cannot be created nor destroyed since one can turn a light off and on?

First off, light does have mass.

Second the conservation of matter theory could easily be said to be a conservation of energy theory as well because E=MC². Energy and Mass are directly proportional to each other. When you turn a light on, nothing is created as electrons are used to generate photons (light) both of which are different kinds of energy.

[Yo-Yo]

Light is also a wave phenomon, or else you couldn't do a defraction experiment, including the two slit one photon experiment.

Even on a quantum level, a photon has frequency associated with it, otherwise all photons would be the same color. Imagine if you will a single round photon, going past a slit. Being round, you'd see at first just a sliver of the photon, then the whole body, then finally just a sliver of the tail end. Leading and trailing edges of a photon. Unless it is your contention that photons are cubes? LOL

All I know is my EE calculus says that you can't generate a perfect sqare wave because you can't generate all of the odd harmonics required. You will always be dealing with a risetime, a falltime, and a certain amount of ringing in the squarewave.

[MHGinTN]

Pesky bosons and leptons. They need to all be in a condensate ... Mmmm, think I'll get an ice cream.

[SaveTheChief]

sdrawkcab krow t'nseod rekcehclleps ruoY

Ereht thgir ynnuf s'taht won.

[King Prout]

w...t...F?!?!?

[Ichneumon]

[I know this all sounds weird, but this is the way the world works," says Boyd.]

The result is weird, but apparently theory predicted the result. So, yes. It's a weird world.

As JBS Haldane said, "The universe is not only stranger than we imagine, it is stranger than we *can* imagine."