
Light captured at 100B frames per second - davidbarker
http://motherboard.vice.com/read/the-fastest-camera-ever-created-will-be-used-to-study-invisibility-cloaks
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dperfect
I find it interesting that these cameras and videos claim to capture photons
as they travel through the air. Don't the photons still have to bounce off
something (toward the camera) in order to be imaged by the camera? In other
words, can we really "see" the photons/light in the various positions of its
apparent journey, or are we still looking at a portion of the photons that
have reflected off other particles (such as dust in the air) and made their
way to the camera?

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wyager
Even without dust in the air, you have things like Rayleigh scattering. But
yes, we only "see" the photons that were deflected from their original path.

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zuck9
That's about 105 years of a normal movie if you're going to watch one second
of it completely.

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nsajko
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8709920](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8709920)
is the same story, posted 42 days ago.

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avinassh
but this submission did not get enough upvotes nor was on front page. Why so

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rjtavares
Because success, both for startups and for HN submissions, is highly affected
by chance.

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Gurkenmaster
So HN is bascicially a startup simulator for side projects?

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deegles
I'm imagining now a system where users with lots of karma can "invest" in
posts they think should be on the front page, incubator style. If they make it
to the front page it's an "IPO" of sorts and they get a return on the other
users votes.

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0942v8653
> With CUP, the photons necessary to take an image are blasted through a beam
> splitter and then through a tube that has several tiny mirrors. These
> photons are converted into electrons, which encode the data you want
> captured—namely the time and space data necessary to create an image.

Can photons actually be converted to electrons? I've never heard of anything
like this. Very interesting.

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irremediable
I've possibly missed the point of what you're asking, but... surely it's
obvious that photons can be converted to electrons, given that's what a
photodiode does and that's how digital cameras work?

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wyager
>surely it's obvious that photons can be converted to electrons, given that's
what a photodiode does and that's how digital cameras work?

This is a common misconception. Both of those use light to facilitate electron
excitation, but neither of them actually convert photons into electrons. The
electrons are already there.

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irremediable
Ah, so that's how I missed the point of what he was saying. I know how
photodiodes work -- I was just struggling with the semantics of "conversion".

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elwell
If I remember correctly, these devices are capturing multiple photons over a
similar path; not a single photon's journey.

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kingkawn
every day feels more closer and closer to everything getting insanely cool all
at once

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partition
Is the blotchiness due to uncertainty principle or sensor imperfections? Both
maybe?

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_random_
That is energy vapour surrounding individual photons.

