Wednesday, January 13, 2010

Can you catch a ray of light?

Here's a cool and fortuitous article we found on Science News for Kids. Here's an excerpt:

"It’s easy to imagine catching a ball, holding it for a moment and then throwing it in the air again. It’s also easy to imagine scooping up a handful of water — say, from the ocean — and then releasing it again. But what about light? Is it possible to “catch” light — and then let it go?

Scientists from Harvard University recently demonstrated a way to catch and release light—but it’s not easy. In other words, no one will be using the new method to play a game of catch with flashlight beams anytime soon."

Cool because light is cool and very mysterious, and fortuitous because we have a fun book in the works called 'Can you catch a ray of light?' Won't be out for some time but it is about a little girl who tries all sorts of home grown experiments to catch light and understand what it is. Thinking how we might incorporate this....



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