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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: 2) by looorg on Tuesday October 10 2017, @01:59PM (4 children)
That is totally not what I was thinking after reading the title. A wave is an oscillation so it's better described as a curve then a line. By any mathematical definition back to ancient times a line can't have curvature cause then it's no longer a line, but a curve. Also if they are just observing it that is some pretty sloppy proof for it going on to infinity. Isn't this what everyone was thinking!?
(Score: 3, Informative) by c0lo on Tuesday October 10 2017, @02:22PM
I don't know what ancient times you refer to, but the guys that invented differentials and gave a definition for the curvature are dead for a long time.
The curvature in any given point on the trajectory is defined [wikipedia.org] in the terms of the cross-product between the instant velocity of the trajectory and the acceleration on the trajectory.
With a constant curvature you get a circle - the velocity is always tangent to trajectory, the acceleration is always normal and centripetal.
Do it on a line and the velocity and acceleration are collinear - which leads to a zero cross product, thus a straight line has zero-curvature.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Tuesday October 10 2017, @07:15PM (2 children)
You are beeing to lose with the defernition: better described first as a curve, then as a line. The loose use of "then" for "than" is what will finally destroy physics as we know it.
You have put your finger right on the tight spot. I recommend you give the Docta Ignorantia by Nicholas of Cusa. He asserts that if we take a plane figure, such as a triangle, and extent two sides to infinity, the triangle becomes a line. Same would apply to an infinite curve. And an infinite line, (this is what will cook your noodle later, Neo), having no length, or an in-finite length, is equivalent to point, which also has no length. Cusa's point is that the infinite is just the infinite, so the finitely large is identical to the infinitely small. But, he was a philosopher, not a scientist.
What I want to know is when do they predict the observation of the infinite wavelength to be finished?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 11 2017, @02:03AM (1 child)
Are you sure you're qualified to make such a statement?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by aristarchus on Wednesday October 11 2017, @04:04AM
We have been over this before, AC. Perhaps you missed the Protocols of Soylentil Grammar Nazis? Everyone who criticizes the grammar mistakes in a post must include one or two (or more) mistakes in the critical post. We are gods with feet of clay.