A Camera That Makes the Speed of Light Look Slow

What a week for pushing the limits of human knowledge. Not only are we closer to identifying the very particle that explains how the Universe is built -- we also have realized that a camera can break the speed of light.

MIT researchers have created a new imaging system that can acquire visual data at a rate of 1 trillion exposures per second. That’s fast enough to produce a slow-motion(!) video of a burst of light traveling the length of a one-liter bottle, bouncing off the cap and reflecting back to the bottle’s bottom.

Media Lab postdoc Andreas Velten, one of the system’s developers, calls it the “ultimate” in slow motion: “There’s nothing in the universe that looks fast to this camera,” he says.

Check out the incredible video for more.