Lene Hau did not stop light, she stored a signal and retrieved it later.
Lene Hau did not stop light, she stored a signal and retrieved it later.
Applaud her skills, but she is not performing some magic show for you.
It is better to just treat this as a signal where you change the way the signal is stored; and the speed and bandwidth and materials with which it is transmitted. Playing word games about “stopping light” and throwing in a few “genius” and “Einsteins” is clickbait. I guess you want “mysteries”. But it is better, I think, to minimize the hoopla and maximize the applications and practical uses. In that sense, ordinary and everyday “gravitational engineering” for everyone is preferred over “smoke and mirrors and flashing lights ” for a few “geniuses playing with expensive toys”. The more you make it into a sideshow or carnival with magic and misdirection – that hurts the world, separates people, encourages over praise of a few, and encourages promoting a few over all others. I would much rather have light and gravity and moving things with fields to be stuff that everyone uses. Just like we flip a light switch, everyone can use “gravity” or “fields” or “atomic fuels” or “levitation fields” or “tractor beams”. Making a set of words evoke excitement and longing for something is just a sales pitch. And you yourself have not made it real yet.
Do not say “she is doing something; isn’t she wonderful”, say “here is how you do it yourself”, or what you can do with it.
Richard Collins, The Internet Foundation
