I'm not a physicist, but when I read this:
Quote:
|
But that seemingly small degree of braking is nothing less than a means of storing, or "buffering" waves of light. Moreover, the system is tunable. With the turn of a knob the temperature in the chamber can be changed, which alters how much the incoming light is slowed and stored.
|
it implies - to me - that the light is still moving at the same but through a medium that inhibits its progress. So the speed of light is still constant but these particular photons are spending more time moving throught the cesium. They haven't changed the speed of light, just impeded these particular light particles in a convenient way.
Not trying to split hairs or anything, but when you say
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by shakran
The speed of light isn't constant. It can be sped up and slowed down. It can even be stopped.
|
it's not entirely true, only for the photons involved in this experiment. C (the speed of light) can never exceed 300,000 km/second. You cannot vary C in any way known to man since the photons in these experiments instananeously "accelerate" back to C when they exit the medium - that's because they were never truly slowed down, just taking a much longer route than normal but still at C.
Make sense?