Holomovement
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Materials
Light Projection, Plastic Lens, Galvanized steel, magnets
Year
2021
As light travels through a medium other than a vacuum, it will slow its velocity. Many ordinary materials slow down light, water for instance slows down light to about 75 percent of its velocity in a vacuum. This is called the refractive index of a material, and it depends on the optical frequency or wavelength; this dependency is called chromatic dispersion. We see this when objects bend in water, or a beam of light is focused through a glass prism. There are two significant reasons why the refractive index of transparent materials and their ability to slow the speed of light are correlated. Firstly, light has a wave-like nature. Furthermore, a wave length oscillates up and down, with a separation of peaks and time between oscillations. Secondly, light is capable of simultaneously existing in multiple states until it is measured, a phenomenon called superposition. The process of slowing down light in a media defines a fundamental relationship between space and time.
The slowing of light became an intrinsic focus in my work through the research of its many applications. Light has the ability to carry information in digital systems, and by slowing light down, it also has the ability to store information. Although experiments to radically alter light for storing encoded data takes a lot of scientific equipment, you can learn more here in this study titled: Putting The Brakes on Light by Dr. Hau, Lene Vestergaard’s team at Harvard University.
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