this post was submitted on 28 Oct 2024
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56
In regards to the Bose-Einstein Condensate, what could be the daily life, practical application of slowing down or freezing a photon? (lemmy.world)
submitted 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
10 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

This all seems as exotic or esoteric to us now as these invisible electromagnetic waves were to Heinrich Hertz, who reportedly regarded them as mere scientific curiosities with no practical applications.

Unable to foresee radio, television, telephones, remote controls, microwave ovens, Wifi, Bluetooth... you get the point, that "thing with no practical applications" is now a staple of daily life, and all around us. We have fully tamed Electromagnetism.

Now with things like Quantum Computing and Bose-Einstein Condensates, we are starting to tame a new esoteric scientific curiosity - the probability wave function, the Uncertainty Principle.

Heinrich Hertz did not foresee things like satellite television and Spotify while looking for a spark flying across two metal tips from his dark room in the 1880s, but surely we have a better grasp of what potential benefits the newest technologies have in store for humanity?
Or are we for the most part still in the Hertz-like naive fiddling process?

Either way, there is going to be some incredible magic inside that quantum box!

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[–] [email protected] 26 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (2 children)

If you slow atoms to a stop you can use them for self referencing navigation. In an aircraft for example, any change in direction will cause the atoms to move, which can be detected and used to determine the change in the planes course. This is an alternative to using GPS. And extremely useful for submarines, since submerged vessels cannot use GPS (the signals don't penitrate water)

[–] [email protected] 15 points 3 days ago (2 children)

A more precise inertial navigation?

[–] [email protected] 8 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

Exactly!
I couldn't think of the right term for it, thank you.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 days ago

Yeah it sounds just like existing IME dead reckoning navigation, but with different sensor types

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 days ago (1 children)

A specific vibration or position of the atoms, containing the information of changes in movement...
That's high-tech indeed, but still sounds like classical physics to me, even with the ultra-cold temperatures involved, no Uncertainty Principle at play.