Brainy Quote of the Day

Tuesday, June 7, 2011

Time-Reversed Light Pulses...


Image Credit: PhysOrg.com


(PhysOrg.com) -- By taking advantage of the properties of periodic systems, physicists have described how to efficiently time-reverse ultrashort electromagnetic pulses. Since a time-reversed pulse evolves as if time runs backwards, time reversal eliminates any distortions or scattering that occurred at earlier times, regardless of the medium the pulse has propagated through.

This is related to time reversal signal processing: unlike the comments I've read at the link below, it's not to build a "time machine."

TRSP primarily uses a function of waves called Reciprocity: "if one has a solution to the wave equation, then the time reversal (using a negative time) of that solution is also a solution of the wave equation." (Wikipedia). Understanding this comes from Ordinariy Differential Equations, usually a sophomore science/engineering math course in colleges and universities. This will have applications in communications, thus mobile phone applications, fiber optic cable applications, and bandwith/information delivered on the Internet, sadly not time travel.

PhysOrg.com link: Physicists describe how to make time-reversed light pulses


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