So Unbelievable I Don't Believe It But I Guess It's Real

Updated: Retracting most of my skepticism -- this guy is an MIT researcher.

Instapundit just linked this, about a camera which snaps pictures so quickly -- a trillion per second -- it can actually catch snapshots of light in motion.

Now, I'm not an expert in "physics." I'm not an expert in "science." I'm not an expert in "understanding basic concepts."

But is this even possible in theory? Isn't there some problem with catching a lightwave in motion, considering you're also relying on lightwaves to relay that image to you? Some kind of... I don't know, Heisenberg sort of problem, where the very act of measurement changes that which is being measured?

I know we have some physicists here and they'll put me some f'n' information, pronto, and then other people will explain to me what they just said.

Check out the pictures. Neat stuff. Just, uh... Just strikes me as not possible, even in theory. Even though I don't even understand the theory.

And for the Ladies... Since it has been established by the soundest of medical testimony that the female mind cannot understand complex concepts like Science or Time or Photography, here are pictures of Paul Ryan showing off the twin pythons.

Should Have Read the Article: These are MIT researchers. So this isn't just some guy in his garage looking for investment funds for his super-camera.

Douglas Adams had a line about lightspeed -- something like "Light, which travels so quickly it takes most civilizations thousands of years to realize it travels at all."

I guess that's where I'm at. I'm still stuck in the mindset that, for all purposes, it's de facto instantaneous. But of course it's not quite instantaneous.

More: Okay, I think maybe I was half-right. Listening to the guy, I think he's saying that these videos are actually composites of lots and lots of trial runs, synchronized up.

I think he's saying that.

posted by Ace at 04:16 PM

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