state of matter

Though Einstein put his foot down and demanded that nothing can move faster than light, a new device developed at the University of Rochester may let you outpace a beam by putting your foot down on the gas pedal. At 127 miles per hour, the light in the new device travels more than 5 million times slower than normal as it passes through a ruby just a few centimeters long. Instead of the complex, room-filling mechanisms previously used to slow light, the new apparatus is small and, in the words of its creator, “ridiculously easy to implement.” Such a simple design will likely pave the way for slow light, as it is called, to move from a physical curiosity to a useful telecommunications tool. The research is being published in this week’s Physical Review Letters.