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Understanding of Light Momentum: Researchers Shine a Light on 150-Year Old Mystery

posted by chromas on Tuesday August 21 2018, @09:53PM   Printer-friendly
from the Over-at-the-Frankenstein-place dept.

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The idea that light has momentum is not new, but the exact nature of how light interacts with matter has remained a mystery for close to 150 years. New research from UBC's Okanagan campus, recently published in Nature Communications, may have uncovered the key to one of the darkest secrets of light.

[...] To measure these extremely weak interactions between light photons, the team constructed a special mirror fitted with acoustic sensors and heat shielding to keep interference and background noise to a minimum. They then shot laser pulses at the mirror and used the sound sensors to detect elastic waves as they moved across the surface of the mirror, like watching ripples on a pond.

"We can't directly measure photon momentum, so our approach was to detect its effect on a mirror by 'listening' to the elastic waves that traveled through it," says [study co-author and UBC Okanagan engineering professor Kenneth] Chau. "We were able to trace the features of those waves back to the momentum residing in the light pulse itself, which opens the door to finally defining and modelling how light momentum exists inside materials."

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-018-05706-3

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  • (Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 21 2018, @10:10PM (5 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 21 2018, @10:10PM (#724409)

    Oh, never mind...

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  • (Score: 2) by RandomFactor on Tuesday August 21 2018, @10:19PM (2 children)

    by RandomFactor (3682) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday August 21 2018, @10:19PM (#724412) Journal

    Beam me up?

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    • (Score: 2) by BsAtHome on Tuesday August 21 2018, @10:26PM

      by BsAtHome (889) on Tuesday August 21 2018, @10:26PM (#724420)

      It is easier to disassemble than to reassemble. I can almost imagine the shockwaves from the fotonic momentum when thinking about getting reassembled from the beam.

    • (Score: 4, Funny) by takyon on Tuesday August 21 2018, @11:41PM

      by takyon (881) <takyonNO@SPAMsoylentnews.org> on Tuesday August 21 2018, @11:41PM (#724464) Journal

      EmDrive hovercars with light momentum secret sauce

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  • (Score: 2) by takyon on Tuesday August 21 2018, @11:17PM

    by takyon (881) <takyonNO@SPAMsoylentnews.org> on Tuesday August 21 2018, @11:17PM (#724451) Journal

    Crisis averted.

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  • (Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday August 22 2018, @05:56PM

    by DeathMonkey (1380) on Wednesday August 22 2018, @05:56PM (#724771) Journal

    Electric Universe

    A theory so powerful it actually reverses the flow of time which is how it's proponents are able to work backwards from their conclusions.