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Light Converted to Matter and Back Again

grunion

Penultimate Amazing
grunion
Joined
Jul 28, 2003
Messages
11,498
I came across this article that, if I understand it correctly, rather boggles my mind.

Apparently Harvard researchers were able to demonstrate that by passing a light through a supercooled sodium vapor cloud (at temperatures close to absolue zero) the light separated into two different states, one of which slowed to a snail's pace and could be grabbed and put in a different sodium cloud, whereupon it reformed into its original state.

I am trying to picture this slow, plasma state of light and what we could do with the ability to manipulate light-based information so drastically.
 
The mind boggles at the practical implications...

... you could convert the photonic images on a television set into a piece of matter, and save it for later viewing. WOW! Think of the possibilities! Imagine being able to record the Super Bowl and watch it when you get home!

... you could store the sunshine of a warm summer's day for re-release on a cold winter's day. WOW! Think of the possibilities! Imagine being able to have light AND heat during the coldest and darkest times of the year!

... you could attenuate the light from a bank of lamps. WOW! Think of the possibilities! Imagine being able to actually turn down the lights in your bedroom when you want to sleep!

I could go on ... shall I? :cool:
 
This doesn't sound like light being converted to matter so much as light being slowed down by a hillion jillion percent. Similar light-slowing experiments have been done before.

For reall energy-to-mass conversion, you need something like Pair Creation -- which only works with gamma rays of sufficient frequency.
 
yes, grunion, finnally modern science is catching up to the ancients in their technology and the greatest technological wonder ever created, the human body.

For light is not an absolute, it can be slowed dwon as computer scientists are finding out as well, hence making it possible to store energy on its wavelengths. This making it all the more important to understand sacred geometry and how light speed is connected to PHI, design and the heavenly bodies.

I'll get you that hyperlink soon...

And it may get a little spiritual for some who deny the invisable as e= mcsquared with c being light speed. Its all about creation... and the creative method for light is a creation and not the end all be all.

Good posting
 
Davidjayjordan said:
yes, grunion, finnally modern science is catching up to the ancients in their technology and the greatest technological wonder ever created, the human body.

For light is not an absolute, it can be slowed dwon as computer scientists are finding out as well, hence making it possible to store energy on its wavelengths. This making it all the more important to understand sacred geometry and how light speed is connected to PHI, design and the heavenly bodies.

I'll get you that hyperlink soon...

And it may get a little spiritual for some who deny the invisable as e= mcsquared with c being light speed. Its all about creation... and the creative method for light is a creation and not the end all be all.

Good posting
Click to expand...


Are you on drugs?
 
I didn't read it as turning it into matter but as trapping it, as has been posted this has been done before. but then moving that condensate to another that had not seen the light. and then having the new condensate release the light. The point being they moved the light a few mm while it was frozen.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6343311.stm
 
Davidjayjordan said:
yes, grunion, finnally modern science is catching up to the ancients in their technology and the greatest technological wonder ever created, the human body.

For light is not an absolute, it can be slowed dwon as computer scientists are finding out as well, hence making it possible to store energy on its wavelengths. This making it all the more important to understand sacred geometry and how light speed is connected to PHI, design and the heavenly bodies.

I'll get you that hyperlink soon...

And it may get a little spiritual for some who deny the invisable as e= mcsquared with c being light speed. Its all about creation... and the creative method for light is a creation and not the end all be all.

Good posting
Click to expand...

Nope.
 
Maybe I'm perverse but I found the maintenance of a sodium vapor cloud at close to absolute zero to be just as remarkable as freezing the photon. Science is just too cool! (pun intended)
 
Orangutan said:
I didn't read it as turning it into matter but as trapping it, as has been posted this has been done before. but then moving that condensate to another that had not seen the light. and then having the new condensate release the light. The point being they moved the light a few mm while it was frozen.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6343311.stm
Click to expand...

That's right. Light isn't being converted to matter. It's just that atoms in the first condensate absorb a light pulse, which are then excited to higher energy state. The momentum absorbed from the light also kicks the atoms to a second condensate, where the light can be released by de-exciting the atoms. The light pulse is coherent and has the same direction and shape as the original pulse. So the light pulse is being "stored".
 
Slimething said:
Maybe I'm perverse but I found the maintenance of a sodium vapor cloud at close to absolute zero to be just as remarkable as freezing the photon. Science is just too cool! (pun intended)
Click to expand...

If you're interested, this page gives quite a good introduction (if you ignore the condescending tone...)
 
I think plants take light and convert it to matter but it's been a while since botany classes. The converting it back to light can be accomplished by burning the plant. Hmm ...maybe they energy from light isn't directly converted to matter hmmm got to go look that up.
 
Dogdoctor said:
I think plants take light and convert it to matter but it's been a while since botany classes. The converting it back to light can be accomplished by burning the plant. Hmm ...maybe they energy from light isn't directly converted to matter hmmm got to go look that up.
Click to expand...

Photosynthesis uses light to change matter, in so much as it changes chemical bonds to produce food, which then can be used to build new cells in the plant.

n CO2 + 2n H2O + ATP + NADPH → (CH2O)n + n H2O + n O2,

Where n is defined according to the structure of the resulting carbohydrate.

From.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photosynthesis
 
Orangutan said:
Photosynthesis uses light to change matter, in so much as it changes chemical bonds to produce food, which then can be used to build new cells in the plant.

n CO2 + 2n H2O + ATP + NADPH → (CH2O)n + n H2O + n O2,

Where n is defined according to the structure of the resulting carbohydrate.

From.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photosynthesis
Click to expand...

Thanks so I guess the photon does not get transformed into an electron? What about photo voltaic cells?
 
Dogdoctor said:
Thanks so I guess the photon does not get transformed into an electron? What about photo voltaic cells?
Click to expand...

No they just use the light to create an electric potential.

You need light with more than 1.22 MeV to get pair production and then you are creating antimatter. Creating matter and not antimatter to go with it is not something anyone has managed to do to my knowledge, and one of the big gaps in physics, where is all the antimatter as everything we have seen creates equal amounts of matter and antimatter.

But light moving slower in a material is nothing new by itself. For example it can take more than a million years for the light to get from the core of the sun to the outside. but it takes sound a few hours. Of course that is nothing like what this is about either.
 
ponderingturtle said:
You need light with more than 1.22 MeV to get pair production and then you are creating antimatter. Creating matter and not antimatter to go with it is not something anyone has managed to do to my knowledge, and one of the big gaps in physics, where is all the antimatter as everything we have seen creates equal amounts of matter and antimatter.
Click to expand...

I know this is off-topic, but there is an explanation for this. Actually not everything we have seen is matter-antimatter symmetric. We have seen CP violations in experiments (neutral kaon system), which can help explain the asymmetry between matter and antimatter in the present state of the universe. The amount of CP violation so far detected is not enough, but we should get more data very soon. One of the 5 experiments of the LHC (LHCb) is mostly dedicated to this question.

One thing we must keep in mind is that the difference in the amounts of matter and antimatter is not as big as we think. This is because there are many more photons than protons in the universe. If in its early stages matter and antimatter were created in almost the same proportion, virtually all the antimatter would be annihilated with almost all of the matter. Only a small fraction of matter would remain, among a much bigger number of photons (product of the disintegration). So a tiny symmetry violation in the creation of matter and antimatter could account for the seemingly huge difference we see today.

On the topic of this thread. As you said you need a photon of at least 1.022·106 eV to create electrons. It is useful to compare this to the energy of the visible photons, just a few eV, almost a million times too small to create electrons.

Edit: Maybe you meant that 'everything we have seen creates equal amounts of matter and antimatter' as in 'all the systems we have seen exhibit baryon number conservation'?
 
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