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Heard of Cherenkov radiation? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherenkov_radiation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherenkov_radiation
by posterboy 10y ago
Heard of Cherenkov radiation? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherenkov_radiation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherenkov_radiation
- juanpabloaj 10y agois the same thing? Cherenkov radiation with the "photonic mach cone"
- dahart 10y agoI hadn't before this thread, but Cherenkov radiation does seem to slightly better fit the comparison to a sonic boom than regular light scattering, doesn't it? After reading the paper this article is talking about (http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/3/1/e1601814.full http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/3/1/e1601814.full), what they are describing is normal light diffusion: "We have demonstrated ultrafast video recording of light-scattering dynamics using LLE-CUP and visualized the propagation of a scattering-induced photonic Mach cone as an instantaneous light-scattering pattern with a single camera exposure." Maybe it's reasonable, and maybe I'm being pedantic or even wrong, I'm not entirely sure, but for some reason describing this as a "photonic mach cone" or a "sonic boom of light" seems just a tad more sensational than informational & accurate. Unlike both Cherenkov radiation and sonic booms, the cone here would be caused primarily by the scattering, which of course is slower than the primary wave. The cone isn't a direct symptom of unimpeded light propagation, meaning the angle of the cone represents the speed of scattering and not the speed of light.