#lene hau

[noosphe-re]

We can slow it [the light] down, stop it, and move it around, and then create a copy of it in a new place.

Lene Hau, Danish physicist stores light, moves it around, and makes it reappear, ScienceNordic, Lise Brix, 17 Oct 2014

[pixiedane]

Foundation | Lene Hau

In 1999 Lene Hau slowed a beam of light down to the pace of a bicycle. In 2001 she stopped light completely. This work holds important implications for quantum computing and quantum cryptography. Dr. Hau is currently the Mallinckrodt Professor of Physics and of Applied Physics at Harvard University. You can read more about her and her research here. 

[valkyries-things]

DR. LENE HAU // PHYSICIST

“She is a Danish physicist and educator. She is the Mallinckrodt Professor and of Applied Physics at Harvard University. In 1999, she led a Harvard Uni team who, by use of the Bose-Einstein condensate, succeeded in slowing a beam of light to about 17 metres per second, and, in 2001, was able to stop a beam completely. Later work led to the transfer of light to matter, then from matter back to light, a process with important implications for quantum encryption and quantum computing. More recent work has involved research into novel interactions between ultracold atoms and nanoscopic-scale systems.”

[emperornorton47]

Wow. That's badass.

[naturahominus]

(via https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8Nj2uTZc10)

[knowledgeistreasure]

Lene Hau: The Speed of Light?

Hau has already shaken scientists’ beliefs about the nature of things. Albert Einstein and just about every other physicist insisted that light travels 186,000 miles a second in free space, and that it can’t be speeded-up or slowed down. 

But in 1998, Hau, for the first time in history, slowed light to 38 miles an hour, about the speed of rush-hour traffic.Two years later, she brought light to a complete halt in a cloud of ultracold atoms. Next, she restarted the stalled light without changing any of its characteristics, and sent it on its way...  http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2007/02/light-and-matter-united/

Light travels at the “speed of light” - 300 million meters (186,000 miles) per second - only in a vacuum. Whenever light travels through a substance, its speed is slowed. For example, in water, light travels at only 225 million meters (140,000 miles) per second.

When atoms get extremely cold, a few millionths of a degree above absolute zero, they lose their individual identities and blend together. At low enough temperatures, a collection of millions of atoms can behave like a single “superatom.” This collection is known as the “Bose-Einstein Condensate,” after the two physicists whose work predicted its existence in 1924.

After making the condensate, Hau and her co-workers began looking for ways to use it. They realized that if they massaged the condensate just right with laser beams, they could make light pass through the previously opaque condensate. And they found that the massaged condensate could slow light more effectively than any material ever discovered... 

http://www.physicscentral.com/explore/people/hau.cfm

[wtf-fun-factss]

Lene Hau, the woman that stopped the light - WTF fun facts

[loveislouderthanperception-blog]

Danish-born physicist Lene Hau is an amazingly accomplished woman and physicist. In 1999, Hau and her team of Harvard scientists slowed a beam of light down to 60 km/hr (37 mph) and, in 2001, she was the first person in history to completely stop a beam of light and trap it in a Bose-Einstein condensate. Hau has given much of her life to working on advances in nanotechnology, physics, and quantum optics and has been recognized for also producing the lowest temperature ever achieved (part of creating a Bose-Einstein condensate)

Lene Hau's accomplishment in science and technology and her status as a high ranking expert and scholar would cause many to think she's a man

Lene Hau breaks stereotypes.

(image source: http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/012907_Hau_Lena_141.)