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I know what you're thinking after you read that title: If the wavelength is infinitely long, isn't it a line rather than a wave?
In 2015, researchers, researchers at the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) developed the first on-chip metamaterial with a refractive index of zero, meaning that the phase of light could be stretched infinitely long. The metamaterial represented a new method to manipulate light and was an important step forward for integrated photonic circuits, which use light rather than electrons to perform a wide variety of functions.
Now, SEAS researchers have pushed that technology further - developing a zero-index waveguide compatible with current silicon photonic technologies. In doing so, the team observed a physical phenomenon that is usually unobservable—a standing wave of light.
The research is published in ACS Photonics.
There's a lot more in the full story about the difficulties of proving the wavelength is infinite and what can be down with this new material with a refractive index of 0.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by c0lo on Tuesday October 10 2017, @01:36PM (5 children)
(you don't know shit what I'm thinking)
If wavelength is infinitely long it means an infinite wave velocity. Which is consistent with a zero refractive index (=the ratio of the velocity of light in a vacuum to its velocity in a specified medium) - to have an zero refractive index, the speed of light in the medium needs to be infinite.
Which means instantaneous propagation of information over the distance inside the meta-material.
If this is not... umm... an infinite stretch of the relativity theory, I don't know what it is (therefore I need to RTFOriginalA rather than the digested phys.org crap).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 10 2017, @01:55PM (1 child)
I was more thinking in lines of "colour". What "colour" would it have (all colours?) and how would you detect it? Could we detect these light waves when we would scan the sky (some sort of advanced alien signal, or natural sources)?
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday October 10 2017, @02:04PM
Same colour as ever, as the frequency of oscillation as seen from a certain point in space is not modified.
The only difference you'll experience: no Doppler in a place where the speed of light (the wave) is infinite.
Sky is the wrong place to look for such effects. You will need to search for advanced aliens inside specially designed metamaterials.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 5, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 10 2017, @02:18PM (2 children)
There's a difference between phase velocity, group velocity and signal velocity. Hint: It is the last one which is limited by c. It is the first one which gets infinite with infinite wavelength.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 10 2017, @03:36PM
And it is a gross failure of understanding between these that always gets people (which includes the occasional Ph.D.-types that really should know better) all hot and bothered about faster-than-light communication and such.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 12 2017, @11:20PM
wouldn't phase velocity go to 0 with infinite wavelength?
please educate, so curious!