Speed of light

We all hear, and even repeat it sometimes, the phrase “speed of light” we do even take time to make a mental picture of it? Its value was set at 299,792,458 m / s in 1983 by the International Bureau of Weights and Measures. That is, the speed of light in mph is equivalent to 1,079,252 848.8 km / h.  This is almost incomprehensible.

Scientists Slow Speed of light

For the first time, scientists were able to reduce the speed of photons moving in the void. This is the first time this experience has been made.

Physicists have long known that the speed of light can be slowed when shown through materials like glass or water. However, no one had so far managed to slow the light as it moves in space, where its speed has always been regarded as fixed until this unprecedented experiment, which was conducted by Scottish physicists, and published January 22, 2015 in the journal Science.

To understand the importance of this discovery you must first remember that light consists of photons, which are in some way the “elementary particles.” A photon is a particle that carries the least amount of energy, indivisible, from a light beam. And it is precisely by acting on these photons that the Scottish scientists have managed to reduce the light’s movement speed in a vacuum. For this, they designed a “special mask”, responsible for changing the spatial structure of the light passing inside.

Then the researchers made light photons from two light transmitters located in two different places in the direction of a detector located in precisely the same distance of the two transmitters. At the exit of one of the two transmitters, the mask was affixed, forcing the photons to pass through it before heading to the receiver.

The result is amazing. For two photons emitted exactly at the same time by one and the other of the two light emitters, the one that has passed through the mask arrived at the receiver after another.