IBM slows light, readies it for networking

[ROM-DOS]

IBM slows light, readies it for networking

http://news.zdnet.com/IBM+slows+light,+readies+it+for+networking/2100-9584_22-5928541.html?part=rss&tag=feed&subj=zdnn

IBM has created a chip that can slow down light. A number of companies and university researchers are currently tinkering with ways to replace the electronic components inside computers, which ferry signals with electrons, with optical technology. Optical equipment ferries data on photons, the smallest measure of light. Photons are far faster. More important, optical equipment generates less heat, curbing the growing problem of heat and power consumption.

Control Light speed with alternate atmospheres. (Glass, Water) Carry data on various colors, various speeds. Bend light with alternate atmospheres, magnetic pull. Ditch 1's and 0's. replace with colors. Faster, cleaner, cooler data. Less heat. Bundle data in micro-flashes. Save in nano photo burns. Photons act as pixels but carry full programs instead of one pixel.

welcome to the future.

[hulioni]

Very cool!  Nice find.

[cholla]

ROM-DOS; This definately looks like the future technology to go with.I have always thought the light spectrum could be devided into a infinite amount of (colors or  frequencies) which ever you prefer & each capable of carring a certain amout of data.

I think that lasers manipulated this way may be the treatment for various cancers & diseases .Kind of StarTrek but I was influenced by this watching the transporter beam & their medical scanners.

[resopalrabotnick]

hm. of course, use diferent colors (freqs) to carry more information just like on a normal connection, but where is the gains in using optical processing if you use slower light?

[ROM-DOS]

hm. of course, use diferent colors (freqs) to carry more information just like on a normal connection, but where is the gains in using optical processing if you use slower light?

In both the case of the IBM chip and ordinary glass, maybe the speed of the photon itself is not reduced? It appears to be slowed down from a straight, linear perspective. Maybe the substrates just alter the path of the photon, inducing it to move in a corkscrew pattern or the photons temporarily orbit the "holes" at a constant rate? Yes, this does slow the speed of light from point A to B, but the photon itself may remain moving at the speed of light.

[cholla]

hm. of course, use diferent colors (freqs) to carry more information just like on a normal connection, but where is the gains in using optical processing if you use slower light?

Can a PC process data at light speed ? If it can't then slowing down the light speed to 1/3 might allow 3 times the data transmitted over the same cable Each to a different  user there by cutting network congestion .

[netmasta]

Can a PC process data at light speed ? If it can't then slowing down the light speed to 1/3 might allow 3 times the data transmitted over the same cable Each to a different  user there by cutting network congestion .

That's a good question. I bet a PC could especially since we already use light technology in elecronics. E.g.:FIOS and optical audio in a surround system. I have no idea how light speed is delt with in those applications.

[resopalrabotnick]

electrons on a cablke are pretty damn close to light speed, radio is light speed.

the speed of the individual bit is not what makes the speed of the connection, it's the speed with which you can discern individual bits, meaning how many bits per second can you send/receive. as i understand it the gain in optical versus standard transistors is that to bounce around small groups of or individual photons generates less heat, thereby wasting less of the applied power and allows for smaller components, making way for smaller circuits that will increase speed by shortening data paths and allowing a higher density of circuits in a given area. this is why cray computers were assembled by small framed women. they were the only ones small enough to reach inside the largish mainframe colums to make the connections because the goal was to keep the whole thing as small as possible to reduce the overall lengths of the data paths, shortening times for data transfer from circuit a to circuit b.

[cholla]

On a FIOS modem that connects directly to a FIOS cable how does it connect to the PC?

I don't know myself .Do they have a PC that has the capability of a optical cable directly from the modem to the PC.Meaning the PC receiving its data completly optically.

[netmasta]

I don't have FIOS, but I look in the FIOS forum sometimes. The Fiber goes to an ONT, (Optical Network Terminal?), a grey box outside your house that replaces the POTS (Plain Old Telephone Service) box. Then from the box to your router or computer they run Cat5 networking cable. There is no modem with FIOS.

[ROM-DOS]

A pulse of light has been stopped in its tracks with all its photons intact, reveal US physicists.

In a vacuum, light travels at the phenomenal speed of 300,000,000 metres per second. Scientists can exploit the way that the electric and magnetic fields in light interact with matter to slow it down.

Over the last few years, scientists have become masters of the light beam. Speeds of a few metres per second are now reached routinely in laboratories around the world. It is rather harder, however, to stop light completely and previous attempts have halted light but lost its photons in the process.

http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99994474

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3308109.stm

[resopalrabotnick]

I don't have FIOS, but I look in the FIOS forum sometimes. The Fiber goes to an ONT, (Optical Network Terminal?), a grey box outside your house that replaces the POTS (Plain Old Telephone Service) box. Then from the box to your router or computer they run Cat5 networking cable. There is no modem with FIOS.

meaning the ONT is not much more than an optical to wired converter, and in the telco switch the fiber runs into the concentrator/router/whatever they call it that controls your max speed/maybe provides the dhcp services/concentrates traffic onto their backbone/whatever they do to manage their network. it's basically a fiber optic network link just like you can set up at home with two fibers and a few black boxes.

[ROM-DOS]

The speed Einstein said couldn't be exceded (or deceded, if that's a word) was C. The constant for the speed of light in a vaccum without gravitational influences.

I'd like to note, though, that a common misperception is that nothing travels faster than the speed of light. That's not what the theory states. Rather it states that nothing can pass the threshhold of C. If you're already going faster than the speed of light, you will continue to do so. If slower, than you will continue to do so.

Think about how fast a shadow can move. If you project a shadow of your finger  using a nearby lamp onto a far away wall and then wag your finger, the shadow will move much faster than your finger. If your finger moves parallel to the wall, the speed will be multiplied by a factor D/d where d is the distance from the lamp to your finger and D is the distance from the lamp to the wall. It can actually  be much faster than this if the wall is at some oblique angle.  If the wall is very far away the movement of the shadow will be delayed because of the time it takes light to get there but its speed is still amplified by the same ratio.

The speed of a shadow is therefore not restricted to be less than the speed of light.  Others things which can go faster than the speed of light include the spot of a laser  which is pointed at the surface of the moon. Given that the distance to the moon is  385,000 km try working out the speed of the spot if you wave the laser at a  gentle speed. You might also like to think about a wave arriving obliquely at a long  straight beach. How fast can the point at which the wave is breaking travel along the beach?  This sort of thing can turn up in nature. For example the beam of light from a pulsar  can sweep across a dust cloud. A bright explosion emits an expanding spherical shell of light or other radiation. When it intersects a surface it creates a  circle of light which expands faster than light. A natural example of this has been observed  when an electromagnetic pulse from a lightning flash hits an upper layer of the atmosphere.  These are all examples of things which can go faster than light, but which are not physical objects.

In quantum physics, the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle states that one cannot simultaneously know both the position and the momentum of a given object to arbitrary precision. It furthermore precisely quantifies the imprecision. ~ lol

. . .you know, this all has to do with the applied quantum mechanics aposiopesis. . .