> I'm not sure what IIRC stands for, but you're
>behind the times. Look at the date on the article
>below. Not only has light been stopped, but it's
>also been speeded up beyond its normal limit.

Something I failed to address in my previous post: Slowing down light isn't news. It happens all the time. It's called refraction. Put a straw in a glass of water. See how the straw looks bent or broken? That's refraction. It's caused by the fact that the speed of light in water is slower than the speed of light in air. This is high school science class stuff. Slowing light down to a "stop" and then restarting it is interesting science, but not world-shattering stuff. Maybe it'll have some uses nobody forsees down the road. That's the benefit of science for science's sake--unseen technological benefits.

Also, nowhere in that article you linked to do I see anything about speeding UP light. As far as I know, that'd be something truly newsworthy. The speed of light in a vacuum (the well-known constant "c") is the universal speed limit as far as anyone knows now (notwithstanding Geordi LaForge's favorite particle, the tachyon, which may or may not exist and may or may not even be detectable if it does exist.) If you can link me to something where someone sped up light faster than c, I'd love to see it. Note that particles can travel faster than light in a medium (such as air or water). Cherenkov radiation, which causes the glow around fission reactor cores, is caused by particles from the fission reaction exceeding the speed of light in water.

-- Dave