New research published this week in the journal Nature Physics reveals that light can behave in an even stranger “superliquid” state, in which light particles flow around objects with no friction or viscosity at all. In this state, light exhibits the dramatic effect of “frictionless flow,” bending around obstacles with no ripples or swirls whatsoever. Interestingly, this effect can be observed at room temperature and ambient pressure.
Weird, I just read something this week speculating that dark matter acts like a super fluid within galactic structures, and not as a superfluid in open space. Super fluids must be the super science flavour of the month.
And then he woke up and pulled his hand out of the chamber pot.
Predators walk among us.
Hmmm….
High school physics told us that light cannot bend. If you see light around a corner it’s because it’s reflective light.
That was almost a half century ago so I suppose stuff has changed. Global warming and all.
High school physics told us that light cannot bend. If you see light around a corner it’s because it’s reflective light.
Actually light can indeed bend when it passes near a massive object. This was demonstrated during a solar eclipse in 1919.
Since then, the phenomenon known as gravitational lensing was discovered and is now used as a method of astronomical observation.
Super fluids must be the super science flavour of the month.
I first read about the superfluid state about 40 years ago when it was observed in helium. The resulting properties are indeed weird as conventional physics doesn’t fully describe what’s going on.
What you need to BELIEVE if you accept 97% of “scientists” global warming computer models:
1. The earth is flat
2. Al Gore is not fat
3. Co2 causes cancer
4. Co2 causes temps of 122 in Phoenix and Death Valley
5. Co2 causes the desert to get HOT in the middle of summer
6. Taxing EVERYTHING that “rich” people own will lower the earth’s “fever”
7. The Paris “accord” will finally knock Capitalists off their “high horse”
8. Light is flat
Just one more tiny step toward the development of the positronic brain of the AI. We shall create our heirs/successors who think at the speed of light and have the strength of 10 men.
Physicists can get a little out there when they begin to speculate on mysteries but their brain power makes so-called climate scientists seem like dull plodding weathermen.
I’ve been trying to wrap my head around various ideas in physics over the last few years – just material for the public – and this world is a very strange place. Our understanding is very limited.
Lighting Directors have known of this for a long time. A Rosco Cinegel 3011 (Tough Silk) used to diffuse a light source will have the effect of wrapping the light around an object being lit. This helps add depth the the scene.
*depth to the scene
Doesn’t the dual slot interferance experiment show light bending
Yes, the high-school explanation for me was that light is a wavicle, sometimes it acts like a particle, sometimes like a wave. The double-slit experiment with a point light source displays patterns that only come about for waveforms that show positive and negative interference patterns.
Light always moves in a straight line, at the same speed, unless it interacts with something.
Light can only interact with things via electromagnetic or gravitational forces.
The fact that one can make materials that interact with light in counter-intuitive ways in no way changes the current understanding of light.
Light is a form of electromagnetic energy, with oscillating electric and magnetic fields, and it comes in quanta of energy called “photons”, the energy of each quanta is proportional to the frequency of the oscillation of the fields. There is no such thing as a “wavicle.”