“It’s coherent light.” “So it talks!” “No…”
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/16/scienc…
…Dr. Boyd… demonstrated an optical fiber…with a couple of odd characteristics:
A pulse of light shot into the fiber departs before it enters.
Within the fiber, the pulse travels backward – and faster than the speed of light…
If you have read up a bit in this area, you can make some good stabs at what the report is getting at, but that doesn’t change the fact that the article is – as written – effectively incoherent.
I guess the real science journalists were home sick and they got this guy out of the monkey cage to fill in.
May 15th, 2006 at 11:36 pm
For those of us who haven’t read up a bit in this area, is there any recommended primary source reading?
May 15th, 2006 at 11:58 pm
Pull out a first-year college book on vibrations and waves and
read up on wave packets, non-linear dispersion, group velocity, and phase velocity.
May 16th, 2006 at 12:11 am
For those of us who haven’t read up a bit in this area, is there any recommended primary source reading?
I took a stab at it a while ago, here. Egan’s applet and Chiao’s paper are both worth careful study.
May 16th, 2006 at 6:46 am
As Josh says. Click his link to the blog archives, then scroll up and read my post, with link, and comments by Fran, Josh, etc.