Can light be reduced to a velocity of 0ms^-1?

Question

I'm a lightweight in physics, but from what i have learnt so far is that light has properties of both a particle and of an EMF.
We see the characteristic of light which resembles that of a particle when it is passing through a medium so reduced in velocity.

Is it possible to reduce light to a velocity of 0, if so, would it behave as a particle?

Answer 1

The phenomenon of "slow light" has been developing as a field of research over the last few years. Speeds down to zero are envisaged. For a general-audience press item see:
http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/1999/02.18/light.html
There is a dedicated physicists website:
http://www.slowlight.org
There is much more if you google on "slow light".

Answer 2

The thing to remember is that light always travels at the speed of light. When people talk about the reduced speed of light in a medium, the effect is caused by a very special type of interference which gives the wave the quality of a slower moving wave...That being said, it would take an infinitely dense material to give light the appearance of not moving.

Answer 3

Not quite but, light can slow down-alot,only a few mm every thousand years or so, this happens in the core of stars, like the sun. it's because the plasma is so opaque.

Opacity is the state of being impenetrable to light. An opaque object is neither transparent (allowing all light to pass through) nor translucent (allowing some light to pass through). Degrees of opacity are converse to degrees of transparency.

When a wave of light strikes any interface between two substances, each ray of light can be transmitted, reflected or absorbed at this boundary. The arrangement of atoms in an opaque substance allows nearly all of the light rays to be reflected at many different angles. Therefore, very few of the incident light rays are reflected to the viewer's eyes.

In general, the opacity of a gas is a function of its composition, density and temperature.

because the core of a star is so dense and hot it slows the progresion of the light, for a star (plasma) protons and electrons apply more than atoms.

Answer 4

No. Light cannot be seen just as particle or a EMF...it is both, always. And if you had a machine that could see photons, what would you see? A particle, a EMF or both?

The answer is nothing! This is just a model to help us understand light behavior. Photons don't have "real" mass. They only react to gravity because of the equivalence between mass & energy (E=mc^2). Quantic physic is not easy to understand...

Answer 5

speed of light reduces when it travels from a rarer medium to a denser medium but there is not material in the world that can reduce the speed of light to 0ms1. light's particle nature still is not approved by all. before reaching a velocity equal to 0ms1
light which is a form of energy gets absorbed by the medium

Answer 6

In theory if light were to travel into a medium with an infinite refractive index it would have a velocity of 0.

Answer 7

This question is identical to the question: "Do photons have a non-zero rest mass?" Current physics answers this question "no", although there is no experimental evidence to suggest that photons could not have a really, really tiny rest mass. Neutrinos were once thought to have a zero rest mass, but they are now known to have a very small rest mass, so they can in principle be brought to rest.

So the answer to your question is: no, according to current physical theories. These theories are, however, known to be incomplete.

Answer 8

Yes, it is possible to stop light. In fact, it has been done. The "speed of light" we are so familiar with is the upper limit, and is the speed of light traveling in a vacuum. But that doesn't mean there is a lower limit to the speed.

Answer 9

No. A photon has no resting mass (or it would have infinite mass at the speed of light), so it can never rest.

Answer 10

No, it would cease to exist as light if the velocity was zero,