Slowing Down, and Even Stopping LIGHT!

The speed of light is considered the one universal constant in the the universe. The speed of light in a vacuum is defined to be exactly 299,792,458 metres per second (or 1,079,252,848.8 km/h, which is approximately 186,282.397 miles per second, or 670,616,629.4 miles per hour). Whew! Exact, aren’t we? Anyway… what if you could slow it down? What if you could stop it? Well, a researcher (physicist Matt Sellars) has done it! Why? Imagine using pulses of light to transfer and store digital information as quantum bits, instead of bits of electric current as we do today. Dewd! We are talking mega-fast computers!

Slowing Down and Stopping Light!

“Quantum computers will one day exploit quantum mechanics to perform incredibly complex mathematical operations at high speed. And if the researchers can find a way to store the light pulses for a very long time, they will also have memory that operates on a quantum scale.” I can’t wait!