The Bose-Einstein Condensate and the Properties of Light

[Darkside]

Okay for those who aren't aware:

sufficiently cooling atoms down to within just a whisker of absolute zero, scientists have very briefly created what is known as the Bose-Einstein Condensate, the properties of which are hard for me to articulate; Basically the atoms start to change not only in structural composition but in definition of their location. It's like they are strung out, not only in many places at once, but are intertwined in a way that scientists cannot distinguish between them using mathematics (Like the Heisenberg Uncertainty principle starts to unravel, almost). Like the atoms become confused

Anyway, apparently a test was done passing a laser through this state of matter, and they were able to slow the propagation of light through the beam. Literally, inside the condensate, light's unflinching speed slowed.

So:

Absolute Zero is the complete halting of atoms (of course, atoms move faster the hotter their environment, so it's literally the absence of temperature)

Light is the fastest energy wave we are aware of, and apparently on an arbitrarily grand scale, also is slowed when the matter it is passing through is sufficiently cooled (I'm not a physicist or anything like, so if someone wants to correct, go right ahead ).

It seems to me that somehow the entire universe as we know it is dependent upon certain things like (on a grand scale) pressure, friction, and inherently temperature

Does anyone understand why light is slowed? Or can someone hypothesize why? I guess this is almost a metaphysical discussion I am trying to start...or maybe not...I don't know ARRRGGGHHH

Can this information tell us anything really universally enveloping about the universe?

...oh boy I'm already in over my head here...

[Musthavename]

Literally, inside the condensate, light's unflinching speed slowed.

You realise light's speed isn't exactly unflinching. It moves slower in water than it does in air. The cap is speed of light in a vacuum. If you've ever done experiments with prisms or blocks of glass, the reason light refracts is precisely because it slows down.

This isn't scientific to a large extent, but some brief info off wiki.

Denser media, such as water and glass, can slow light much more, to fractions such as 3⁄4 and 2⁄3 of c. Through diamond, light is much slower—only about 124,000 km/s, less than 1⁄2of c

Certain materials have an exceptionally high group index and a correspondingly low group velocity for light waves. In 1999, a team of scientists led by Lene Hau were able to slow the speed of a light pulse to about 17 m/s;[16] in 2001, they were able to momentarily stop a beam.[17]
In 2003, Mikhail Lukin, with scientists at Harvard University and the Lebedev Institute in Moscow, succeeded in completely halting light by directing it into a Bose–Einstein condensate of the element rubidium, the atoms of which, in Lukin's words, behaved "like tiny mirrors" due to an interference pattern in two "control" beams.[18][19]

Effectivly, when you get something dense and complex, light slows down. Since the Condensate is effectivly built out of "threads" intertwined than atoms, its incredibly complex and hard for light to navigate through.

Light is the fastest energy wave we are aware of

All electromagnetic waves travel at the speed of light. This includes microwaves, radio waves, gamma rays, infrared, ultraviolet, and visible light. The only difference is the wavelength (or frequency if you prefer, as thats just the inverse).

[MrMofo]

There's a good documentary on Nova called "Absolute Zero." Much of it is devoted to the history of cold, and finding cold, making ice, and whatnot, but at the end it talks about the Bose-Einstein Condensate some. If you haven't seen it, perhaps you might be able to get more info from that.

EDIT: I love Nova.

[Darkside]

Okay I have a question regarding light:

does it ever attenuate or dissipate? I guess really I need for education on the properties of light. Anyone care to help me out? It's one thing I'm interested in but really don't have any idea as far as mathematics and physics and whatnot is concerned.

[Sphere]

IIRC in a Bose-Einstein Condensate the sub-atomic particles from many different atoms form into a weird single particle. That is why it is called a condensate.