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Pulling force / curving space is god "who" dont exist at all!

Expanding space is god "who" dont exist at all!

Space is eternal infinity palce "who" is nothing!

Movement is always pushing force!

Eternal movement!

Eternal recycling!

Onesimpleprinciple com

Love

Could be used in laser cooling as you can send in photons in a way that you can bias the exit flight paths and hence the momentum you want to take from a to-be-cooled substance.

With detectors at the other end you could even build a logic gate with this.

Fascinating stuff.

Please (non-physicist) readers, don't take this to mean that light actually has mass or directly interacts with other photons. They created a system that behaves *as if* these things happen.

Really? I am a physicist reader & I know energy fields have associated gravity fields. Why is that? Maybe "toot" knows & he can explain in to us.......?

I wonder if "toot" might know that when a photon is emitted from an atom, the atom becomes lighter by the quantity of the transformed mass, a lighter atom means less gravity associated with that atom because the transformed mass carried it away. We studied this in nuclear reactor design in engineering school.

The article uses a lot of metaphor. Please (non-physicist) readers, don't take this to mean that light actually has mass or directly interacts with other photons. They created a system that behaves *as if* these things happen.

Seconded. Naturally, a site like physorg can't be expected to just regurgitate the raw science - their raison d'être is translating science to the masses. But yes, caution is very much warranted. Even the researcher described it as an actual state of matter ... and maybe that's appropriate, though from what I'm reading that also seems like more of an analogy than anything.

Regardless, this is *super* cool stuff.

Please (non-physicist) readers, don't take this to mean that light actually has mass or directly interacts with other photons. They created a system that behaves *as if* these things happen.

Really? I am a physicist reader & I know energy fields have associated gravity fields. Why is that? Maybe "toot" knows & he can explain in to us.......?

I wonder if "toot" might know that when a photon is emitted from an atom, the atom becomes lighter by the quantity of the transformed mass, a lighter atom means less gravity associated with that atom because the transformed mass carried it away. We studied this in nuclear reactor design in engineering school.

What is your point here? Shavera is merely recommending caution in taking physorg's description too literally. He is not spouting pseudoscience, suggesting the described research is impossible, or anything else that should be controversial in nature ... not sure what set you off here.

Seconded. Naturally, a site like physorg can't be expected to just regurgitate the raw science - their raison d'être is translating science to the masses.

If you google the following sentence from the article:

"Harvard and MIT scientists are challenging the conventional wisdom about light, and they didn't need to go to a galaxy far, far away to do it."

-you see that it appears on dozens of websites including sciencedaily and fox news.

I wonder if "toot" might know that when a photon is emitted from an atom, the atom becomes lighter by the quantity of the transformed mass, a lighter atom means less gravity associated with that atom because the transformed mass carried it away. We studied this in nuclear reactor design in engineering school.

Photons don't have mass. An atom that emits a photon does become slightly less massive, but the photon does not "carry away" the extra gravity.

This may be a stupid question, but "causing the photon to slow dramatically"- what about the speed of light? How do photons slow down?

Wikipedia has a nice breakdown under "refractive index." The microscopic explanation in that article is what you're probably looking for.

This may be a stupid question, but "causing the photon to slow dramatically"- what about the speed of light? How do photons slow down?

The speed of light is a constant.
It differs based on the medium it is going through.

The speed of light in a vaccum is the same, regardless of where the vaccum is. The speed of light in pure water at a set temperature is the same. The speed of light in an ultra-cold rarified gas is the same.

Those three speeds however, are NOT the same.

I hate when someone says "they slowed the speed of light." They do not mean they made the speed of light slower. What they mean is they created a medium (rarified gas, near absolute zero in this case) where the speed of light is measured to be very, very slow.

The reason they form the never-before-seen (photon) molecules?

...they created a medium (rarified gas, near absolute zero in this case) where the speed of light is measured to be very, very slow.

So, in the case where a distant galaxy is viewed after light has passed by a nearer intervening galaxy surrounded by "rarified gas, near absolute zero...", naturally a lot denser nearer the galaxy and rarer further away, would you expect refraction to take place? If so, does this mean that "gravitational lensing" does not produce the multiple images of the distant galaxy, but refraction by the nearer galaxy's gas "lens" does? Oh dear, this could upset a lot of people....

Any first year physics student could tell ya that refraction bends each color of the spectrum at slightly different angles, and gravitational lensing bends ALL colors at the SAME angle. This is geometric optics at it's most basic level. That's why they are so easy to tell apart.

Ya should have read one of those authors ya were relentlessly quoting a while back.

Is it really appropriate to refer to these quantizations of the non-vacuum electric fields within the medium as "photons", or should we think of them as something that the photons create in the medium when they enter it, to be reconverted to true photons as they exit?

Although, admittedly, we might take that attiude with every light source we experience in our thin but non-vacuum atmosphere. But I'm inclined to agree with the comment "They created a system that behaves *as if* these things happen. "

Well the stress energy tensor does interact with the curvature tensor (ie, energy curves space-time around it), but that doesn't mean the light itself has mass.

Reg, observations show that galaxies are surrounded by very _hot_ gaseous halos, known as galactic coronae:

http://archive.st...de6.html

http://www.news.wisc.edu/3536

http://ned.ipac.c...ge5.html

http://arxiv.org/.../0505299

Do try to keep up.

The reason they form the never-before-seen (photon) molecules?

Actually the experiments with cold atoms aren't solely equivalent to experiments with photons in vacuum - this environment is much denser and its excitons have non-zero rest mass - pretty well, like the rubidium atoms by itself. .... These photon molecules are an analogy of glueballs (clusters of gluons) inside of quark gluon plasma, which were observed during particle collisions. In AWT the highly energetic gamma ray photons can condense too in form of gamma ray burst, which do propagate across whole universe as a single body. These observations point to nonzero mass of photons in vacuum too.

Well the stress energy tensor does interact with the curvature tensor (ie, energy curves space-time around it), but that doesn't mean the light itself has mass.

But the mass must be contained with it, or we would violate the E=MC2 mass energy equivalence. For example, during supernovae explosions the mass of whole Sun is radiated in form of gamma rays in a brief moment, so it cannot disappear suddenly just because of relativity. IMO the gamma ray photons exhibit their own weak gravity field, which propagates with superluminal speed around them at distance.

The article uses a lot of metaphor. Please (non-physicist) readers, don't take this to mean that light actually has mass or directly interacts with other photons. They created a system that behaves *as if* these things happen.

Technically correct. They could also have it correct too!
Either the Rydberg atoms are entangled or they are not. Right? If they are then something has to give on the light, in order, by whatever Plank scale 'might' exist. So, the light may actually be behaving differently in a never observed state. Apparently, even light is bound to "as if" it's presence has weight because two photons can't cause an effect on something at the same exact time. It appears like a clock that ticks at the smallest possible moment unit to me, among other things.

..but "causing the photon to slow dramatically"- what about the speed of light? How do photons slow down?

They don't, they only go at speed c, always. In a material there is a probability that a particular atom absorbs and a probability that it reemits a photon. Since it is probability based it does not occur instantaneously. Even the direction is probability based in that the amplitudes of the wavefuction for each possibility, can add constructively or destructively,... giving a particular direction based on the frequency the most likely one. I don't think it even makes sense really to say its "the same photon" going through the material, but everyone says that.

In the wave picture (classical), the incoming light wave jiggles atomic charges (or molecular dipoles) which then re-radiate in the same frequency, but delayed in phase,... the sum of the incoming wave and the delayed phase re-radiated wave results in a "slowed" light wave as compared to the original one.

Since it is probability based it does not occur instantaneously.

Since it is probability based it does not occur instantaneously.

The problem with such an explanation is, this mechanism would lead into gigantic scattering of light, because atoms would re-emit the light in random directions.

The wave function (phase) amplitudes for those possibilities sum destructively, and so cancel out,.... sum of many possible atom absorption/emissions states at once.

,... the phase is the same wavefunction component responsible for the interference fringes in the two slit experiment. It has no physical basis except to add or subtract probabilities. Each atomic layer considered at a time with each atom having a probability amplitude associated with it in absorbing and emitting the photon,...

Actually in this instance Zeph is correct. The photons passing through a medium are NOT absorbed and re-emitted. That is not what slows the photon down. The only absorption that will take place is with electrons which happen to have the ability to absorb that PARTICULAR photon's quanta of energy. If it can't then the photon is merely nudged aside.

It's the same concept that allows certain substances to act as filters, some substances are opaque, others not at all. The chemistry of the medium determines how much it will slow, whether or not it will be absorbed, it's not determined by the wave probabilities.

If I read this...

Fascinating stuff.

AdamCC

The article uses...

Seconded. Naturally...

Regardless, this is *super* cool stuff.

The authors didn't even create a novel title for their dumbed down article.

There is no pulling force at all!

Pulling force / curving space is god "who" dont exist at all!

Expanding space is god "who" dont exist at all!

Space is eternal infinity palce "who" is nothing!

Movement is always pushing force!

Eternal movement!

Eternal recycling!

Onesimpleprinciple com

Love

If I read this correctly the photons change the probability of direction of reflection/reemission in a way that the probability is higher that they will move towards one another. (While imparting a net momentum on the rubidium atoms away from that path to keep momentum conserved)

Could be used in laser cooling as you can send in photons in a way that you can bias the exit flight paths and hence the momentum you want to take from a to-be-cooled substance.

With detectors at the other end you could even build a logic gate with this.

Fascinating stuff.

Please (non-physicist) readers, don't take this to mean that light actually has mass or directly interacts with other photons. They created a system that behaves *as if* these things happen.

Really? I am a physicist reader & I know energy fields have associated gravity fields. Why is that? Maybe "toot" knows & he can explain in to us.......?

I wonder if "toot" might know that when a photon is emitted from an atom, the atom becomes lighter by the quantity of the transformed mass, a lighter atom means less gravity associated with that atom because the transformed mass carried it away. We studied this in nuclear reactor design in engineering school.

The article uses a lot of metaphor. Please (non-physicist) readers, don't take this to mean that light actually has mass or directly interacts with other photons. They created a system that behaves *as if* these things happen.

Seconded. Naturally, a site like physorg can't be expected to just regurgitate the raw science - their raison d'être is translating science to the masses. But yes, caution is very much warranted. Even the researcher described it as an actual state of matter ... and maybe that's appropriate, though from what I'm reading that also seems like more of an analogy than anything.

Regardless, this is *super* cool stuff.

Please (non-physicist) readers, don't take this to mean that light actually has mass or directly interacts with other photons. They created a system that behaves *as if* these things happen.

Really? I am a physicist reader & I know energy fields have associated gravity fields. Why is that? Maybe "toot" knows & he can explain in to us.......?

I wonder if "toot" might know that when a photon is emitted from an atom, the atom becomes lighter by the quantity of the transformed mass, a lighter atom means less gravity associated with that atom because the transformed mass carried it away. We studied this in nuclear reactor design in engineering school.

What is your point here? Shavera is merely recommending caution in taking physorg's description too literally. He is not spouting pseudoscience, suggesting the described research is impossible, or anything else that should be controversial in nature ... not sure what set you off here.

Seconded. Naturally, a site like physorg can't be expected to just regurgitate the raw science - their raison d'être is translating science to the masses.

No its not. They rarely translate anything. They mainly reprint press releases. There isnt even a byline for this article.

If you google the following sentence from the article:

"Harvard and MIT scientists are challenging the conventional wisdom about light, and they didn't need to go to a galaxy far, far away to do it."

-you see that it appears on dozens of websites including sciencedaily and fox news.

I wonder if "toot" might know that when a photon is emitted from an atom, the atom becomes lighter by the quantity of the transformed mass, a lighter atom means less gravity associated with that atom because the transformed mass carried it away. We studied this in nuclear reactor design in engineering school.

Photons don't have mass. An atom that emits a photon does become slightly less massive, but the photon does not "carry away" the extra gravity.

This may be a stupid question, but "causing the photon to slow dramatically"- what about the speed of light? How do photons slow down?

The speed depends on the medium through which it is propagating.

"How do photons slow down?"

Wikipedia has a nice breakdown under "refractive index." The microscopic explanation in that article is what you're probably looking for.

This may be a stupid question, but "causing the photon to slow dramatically"- what about the speed of light? How do photons slow down?

The speed of light is a constant.
It differs based on the medium it is going through.

The speed of light in a vaccum is the same, regardless of where the vaccum is. The speed of light in pure water at a set temperature is the same. The speed of light in an ultra-cold rarified gas is the same.

Those three speeds however, are NOT the same.

I hate when someone says "they slowed the speed of light." They do not mean they made the speed of light slower. What they mean is they created a medium (rarified gas, near absolute zero in this case) where the speed of light is measured to be very, very slow.

The reason they form the never-before-seen (photon) molecules?

Actually the experiments with cold atoms aren't solely equivalent to experiments with photons in vacuum - this environment is much denser and its excitons have non-zero rest mass - pretty well, like the rubidium atoms by itself. So we can observe the condensation of photons way easier, than with photons in vacuum. These photon molecules are an analogy of

(clusters of gluons) inside of quark gluon plasma, which were observed during particle collisions. In AWT the highly energetic gamma ray photons can condense too in form of

, which do propagate across whole universe as a single body. These observations point to nonzero

in vacuum too.

After all, the photon condensate (i.e. sorta photon macromolecule or "photon polymer")

before some time already. Again, these photons didn't spread in vacuum, but through dye solution, which provided them a nozero effective rest mass.

@ rkolter

...they created a medium (rarified gas, near absolute zero in this case) where the speed of light is measured to be very, very slow.

So, in the case where a distant galaxy is viewed after light has passed by a nearer intervening galaxy surrounded by "rarified gas, near absolute zero...", naturally a lot denser nearer the galaxy and rarer further away, would you expect refraction to take place? If so, does this mean that "gravitational lensing" does not produce the multiple images of the distant galaxy, but refraction by the nearer galaxy's gas "lens" does? Oh dear, this could upset a lot of people....

So, in the case where a distant galaxy is viewed after light has passed by a nearer intervening galaxy surrounded by "rarified gas, near absolute zero...", naturally a lot denser nearer the galaxy and rarer further away, would you expect refraction to take place? If so, does this mean that "gravitational lensing" does not produce the multiple images of the distant galaxy, but refraction by the nearer galaxy's gas "lens" does? Oh dear, this could upset a lot of people....

Any first year physics student could tell ya that refraction bends each color of the spectrum at slightly different angles, and gravitational lensing bends ALL colors at the SAME angle. This is geometric optics at it's most basic level. That's why they are so easy to tell apart.

Ya should have read one of those authors ya were relentlessly quoting a while back.

It seems to me that calling them "photons" in such a medium is more than a little erroneous. The massless particles we usually think of photons as being can only exist at the speed of light, in a vacuum, and experience their entire history in an instant.

Is it really appropriate to refer to these quantizations of the non-vacuum electric fields within the medium as "photons", or should we think of them as something that the photons create in the medium when they enter it, to be reconverted to true photons as they exit?

Although, admittedly, we might take that attiude with every light source we experience in our thin but non-vacuum atmosphere. But I'm inclined to agree with the comment "They created a system that behaves *as if* these things happen. "

Well the stress energy tensor does interact with the curvature tensor (ie, energy curves space-time around it), but that doesn't mean the light itself has mass.

But the mass must be contained with it, or we would violate the E=MC2 mass energy equivalence. For example, during supernovae explosions the mass of whole Sun is radiated in form of gamma rays in a brief moment, so it cannot disappear suddenly just because of relativity. IMO the gamma ray photons exhibit their own weak gravity field, which propagates with superluminal speed around them at distance.

"...a distant galaxy is viewed after light has passed by a nearer intervening galaxy surrounded by "rarified gas, near absolute zero..."

Reg, observations show that galaxies are surrounded by very _hot_ gaseous halos, known as galactic coronae:

http://archive.st...de6.html

http://www.news.wisc.edu/3536

http://ned.ipac.c...ge5.html

http://arxiv.org/.../0505299

Do try to keep up.

The reason they form the never-before-seen (photon) molecules?

Actually the experiments with cold atoms aren't solely equivalent to experiments with photons in vacuum - this environment is much denser and its excitons have non-zero rest mass - pretty well, like the rubidium atoms by itself. .... These photon molecules are an analogy of glueballs (clusters of gluons) inside of quark gluon plasma, which were observed during particle collisions. In AWT the highly energetic gamma ray photons can condense too in form of gamma ray burst, which do propagate across whole universe as a single body. These observations point to nonzero mass of photons in vacuum too.

Great stuff, Franklins! You're very close, mate! In my ToE I identify and explain BOTH the 'mechanism' and the 'composite field' (observed already) which becomes even more powerful/effective in BEC and other superconducting & superfluidic energy-mass contexts. You're definitely on the right track! Kudos. :)

Well the stress energy tensor does interact with the curvature tensor (ie, energy curves space-time around it), but that doesn't mean the light itself has mass.

But the mass must be contained with it, or we would violate the E=MC2 mass energy equivalence. For example, during supernovae explosions the mass of whole Sun is radiated in form of gamma rays in a brief moment, so it cannot disappear suddenly just because of relativity. IMO the gamma ray photons exhibit their own weak gravity field, which propagates with superluminal speed around them at distance.

Again, you've got it all taped, Franklins! Obviously the 'gravity waves' being looked for are associated with the expelled energies (in whatever form), which only 'manifest' that gravity effect when slowed and 'localized' into some energy-matter system which does not 'outrun' its own associated 'gravity effect' at the speed of light. You're on a roll, mate. Cheers!

The article uses a lot of metaphor. Please (non-physicist) readers, don't take this to mean that light actually has mass or directly interacts with other photons. They created a system that behaves *as if* these things happen.

Technically correct. They could also have it correct too!
Either the Rydberg atoms are entangled or they are not. Right? If they are then something has to give on the light, in order, by whatever Plank scale 'might' exist. So, the light may actually be behaving differently in a never observed state. Apparently, even light is bound to "as if" it's presence has weight because two photons can't cause an effect on something at the same exact time. It appears like a clock that ticks at the smallest possible moment unit to me, among other things.

..but "causing the photon to slow dramatically"- what about the speed of light? How do photons slow down?

They don't, they only go at speed c, always. In a material there is a probability that a particular atom absorbs and a probability that it reemits a photon. Since it is probability based it does not occur instantaneously. Even the direction is probability based in that the amplitudes of the wavefuction for each possibility, can add constructively or destructively,... giving a particular direction based on the frequency the most likely one. I don't think it even makes sense really to say its "the same photon" going through the material, but everyone says that.

In the wave picture (classical), the incoming light wave jiggles atomic charges (or molecular dipoles) which then re-radiate in the same frequency, but delayed in phase,... the sum of the incoming wave and the delayed phase re-radiated wave results in a "slowed" light wave as compared to the original one.

Since it is probability based it does not occur instantaneously.

The problem with such an explanation is, this mechanism would lead into gigantic scattering of light, because atoms would re-emit the light in random directions.

Since it is probability based it does not occur instantaneously.

The problem with such an explanation is, this mechanism would lead into gigantic scattering of light, because atoms would re-emit the light in random directions.

The wave function (phase) amplitudes for those possibilities sum destructively, and so cancel out,.... sum of many possible atom absorption/emissions states at once.

,... the phase is the same wavefunction component responsible for the interference fringes in the two slit experiment. It has no physical basis except to add or subtract probabilities. Each atomic layer considered at a time with each atom having a probability amplitude associated with it in absorbing and emitting the photon,...

Actually in this instance Zeph is correct. The photons passing through a medium are NOT absorbed and re-emitted. That is not what slows the photon down. The only absorption that will take place is with electrons which happen to have the ability to absorb that PARTICULAR photon's quanta of energy. If it can't then the photon is merely nudged aside.

It's the same concept that allows certain substances to act as filters, some substances are opaque, others not at all. The chemistry of the medium determines how much it will slow, whether or not it will be absorbed, it's not determined by the wave probabilities.

antialias_physorg

If I read this...

Fascinating stuff.

AdamCC

The article uses...

Seconded. Naturally...

Regardless, this is *super* cool stuff.

Agree with you guys...but

Isn't it also true that a high energy gamma ray will produce e+ & e- pair. Yes, I know the process is different but my point is, this shows that if e(+,-) can be produced by gamma rays doesn't that imply that the particles are made of the fundamental em? If this IS the case then couldn't we speculate that other particles are also em in a particularly structured way? What I am suggesting is that it is em that is the fundamental 'entity' and not the particles, although em does produce the 'unique' e(+,-), proton etc.

Does this article therefore show that we ARE progressing in the direction of being able to use photons to produce material objects...maybe a long way off but this is a great start. Star trek food Synthesizer here we come...just a joke ha ha

In other words, contrary to the title of the article, the scientists did not produce a novel state of matter.

The authors didn't even create a novel title for their dumbed down article.