'Sonic Boom' Of Light Captured For The First Time Ever

Hey everyone, Trace here for a DNews short.
For the first time ever, scientists have captured the “sonic boom” - for light.
Normally sonic booms are created when an object moves faster than the speed of sound.
But you shouldn’t be able to create a ‘sonic boom’ for light when nothing can travel
faster than light.
Unless, of course, you are a bit more specific.
Nothing can move faster than the speed of light - in a vacuum.
You can, however, slow down the speed of a beam of light by shining it through a medium
like water or glass.
By leveraging this quality, you can make some light travel faster than other light!
Scientists accomplished just that in this experiment by sandwiching a tunnel filled
with dry ice fog between two plates made of a mixture of silicone rubber and aluminum
oxide powder.
Then, they pulsed a green laser through the tunnel.
Now, light moves slower through the plate material than it does in the tunnel.
So, as light scatters into the plates, it can’t keep up with the light in the dry
ice fog.
When this happens a cone-shaped wavefront of light forms behind the laser pulse, just
like a sonic boom shockwave created by a supersonic aircraft.
In this case, the beam is the airplane.
While this wasn’t the first time a photonic boom had been created - it was the first time
one had been captured in real time.
That’s thanks to a new superfast camera that can capture images at 100 billion frames
per second.
They call it the Streak Camera and it’s so fast that researchers ultimately hope to
use it to image more than just laser pulses.
Eventually, they want to apply it to biomedical imaging and watch neurons fire in the brain.
Woah.
When a camera can keep up with light and neurons - you know it’s gotta be good.
So wait, if we can make light slower, does that mean Einstein was wrong about the speed
of light in his theorems?
Julian looks into it.
Here.
What would you do with a camera that can take 100 BILLION FRAMES PER SECOND.
Let us know in the comments, make sure you subscribe so you get more DNews and thanks
for watching.

'Sonic Boom' Of Light Captured For The First Time Ever

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