In this episode, Astrom explains why light seems to love messing with us

Light travels at 299,792,458 meters per second.

According to relativity, this is the only speed light can travel at.

But it seems to travel a path through time and space that has it either going slower or faster than the speed of light, even if dense mediums aren't present.

The really weird thing is that it ends up at the same destination in space and time anyway.

When light travels through matter, it's constantly waving like ships bobbing on water.

Experiment is a fascinating exploration of how light can sometimes behave like a wave and sometimes like a particle.

In 2023 , researchers from the Imperial College figured out a way to separate the slits of this experiment, not in space, but in time.

They took a transparent material called Indium tin oxide that under specific conditions can be made to be reflective.

They fired a laser at it and then rapidly changed the material from transparent to reflective and then back again.

This left only a slim window a few femtoseconds where the laser was reflected.