YouTuber records the speed of light in incredibly rare footage
A YouTuber has managed to record the speed of light in super rare footage.
The speed of light travelling through a vacuum is 299,792,458 metres per second, or 186,282 miles per second. According to Albert Einstein's theory of special relativity, nothing can reach the speed of light, ultimately giving it the role of infinite speed in our universe.
So, being able to record it seems pretty special, right?
Brian Haidet, who has a PhD in Materials Science and runs the YouTube channel AlphaPhoenix, shared the footage on his page, explaining he had managed to build a camera that shoots at two billion frames per second in HD.
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"This camera, consisting of one mirror, one lens, two tubes, cables, one of the weirdest camera flash bulbs ever built, is not only fast enough to watch light move, it's fast enough to see the past," he explained.
For the experiment, Brian set up a high-powered laser, that shoots down towards a mirror in his garage.
"The beam bounces back, into another parallel mirror, so this beam of light is going to ricochet back and forth until it finally misses the mirror and hits the wall," he adds.
Brian then revealed what the laser beams looked like on a long exposure photograph on a camera.
"Very similar to what your human eye would see if you were standing here with me."
He then showed what it looked like at two billion frames per second, and it's pretty incredible.
"Light moves around six inches or 15 centimetres per frame of this video. This beam of light is travelling at the universe's speed limit. Light in any reference frame will never move any faster or any slower than this speed," he explained.
People were amazed by the clip, with one person commenting on the video: "I just watched light moving at human perceptible speed from a set up built by a YouTuber in his garage. This the most 21st century thing I have ever seen."
While another said: "I am 72 years old and was amazed and enthralled by your knowledge, determination, clarity of explanation, and all done on a shoestring budget in a garage. You are a true testament to the faith we should have in our young people of today, as an engineer my time is over, so happy to see you forging forward."
And a third added: "The fact that a single person achieved this on a relatively low budget, wearing sandals in a messy garage, is what truly blew my mind."
Meanwhile, a fourth wrote in the comments: "I cant believe this dude is consistently dropping videos that each could be a masters thesis easily. Absolutely incredible. The most rigorous science channel out there. Huge respect."
Science is well and truly amazing.
Topics: Science, Social Media, YouTube, Technology
Lucy Devine