Scientists Map Spiraling Light For Faster Net 62
Mark.JUK writes "Scientists working at New York's Institute of Ultrafast Spectroscopy and Lasers have discovered a new way of mapping the multiple higher channels / more complex light in an optical fibre, which could allow telecommunications operators the ability to harness 'untapped data channels' and thus improve broadband speeds and internet capacity across the world. Critically, the new model allows scientists to follow polarization and other changes as light travels, which also gives you an insight into the material that it travels through. Until recently it wasn't possible to map such light, but all that has changed thanks to the globe-shaped Higher Order Poincare Sphere model."
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Until recently it wasn't possible to map such light, but all that has changed thanks to the globe-shaped Higher Order Poincare Sphere model."
I understand a globe-shaped sphere, but what's a globe-shaped model? And how does it enable more spam and trolling?
Re:Hurra! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Hurra! (Score:5, Funny)
And how does it enable more spam and trolling?
I believe the intended logic was "more internet bandwidth == more internet traffic == more spam".
It's a special case of the standard Slashdot curmudgeon technique, where you demonstrate how experienced and knowledgable you are by interpreting any piece of potentially good news as definite bad news. If you do it enough times, you win a patch of lawn to keep children off of.
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The implies there is a spammer somewhere saying "I would spam, but the bandwidth isn't quite there yet."
Their army of zombie PCs (Score:2)
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It's a special case of the standard Slashdot curmudgeon technique, where you demonstrate how experienced and knowledgable you are by interpreting any piece of potentially good news as definite bad news. If you do it enough times, you win a patch of lawn to keep children off of.
And the 2nd tier achievement gives you a stick to wave at them.
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Is that anything like a grail shaped beacon?
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So what does this solve? (Score:1)
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You use the same fibre it just makes is "darker" - since now you can light up even less of it.
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and thus improve broadband speeds and internet capacity across the world (outside the US)
FTFY
Also, In case anyone wants a source. [youtube.com]
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Why not start with messing around with wavelengths, wouldn't that be easier to figure out on the receiving end?
Because this is not the '80s*.
You do realize that we're already doing that, right? And have been for some time?
* I'm hedging here -- I wasn't involved back then, and I'm too lazy to research now, but I think _starting_ multi-wavelength work was actually before the '80s.
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I think the phone cos have been working on it
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Blacker than the blackest black...times infinity.
Warning...offtopic attempt at humour ahead... (Score:2)
Maxwell Smart:
"Ah, the old 'Black Hole Network' trick.
Gee, Chief, isn't that what KAOS used to build their Top Secret headquarters, 'Hotel KAOSifornia', where your data checks in, but never leaves?" [1]
Agent 99:
"No, Max, that has nothing to do with what TFA is talking about!"
Chief:
*facepalms, again*
What? [3]
[1]*Ronco® style infomercial ahead*
"The most reliable, insanely secure, and long lasting data storage/backup solution ever! And its FREE!
It works just like a black hole, data gets suc
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Actually that's not entirely true, the primary reason for our unused fiber is lack of the open access agreements/requirements which other countries have instated.
The cost of merely testing it before bringing it online could very well be financially infeasible.
You going to cite that? Because I have trouble believing it.
X-Zibitionism (Score:2)
I can't wait for them to replace all that unused fiber with more unused fiber.
You dawg, we heard you liked Internetting so we put some unused fiber in your unused fibe.... ah, sod it- fill in the rest yourselves!
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Mom: Billy eat your vegetables
Billy: But Mooom, they aren't even deep fried!
Well, Not Across the World (Score:5, Insightful)
...and thus improve broadband speeds and internet capacity across the rest of the world outside of the United States!....
FTFY. I think there is more than enough evidence to point to the fact that shitty boradband speeds in the United States are due to politics, greed, corruption, and outright laziness more than a lack of technology.
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...and thus improve broadband speeds and internet capacity across the rest of the world outside of the United States while marginally decreasing the time it takes to hit the bandwidth caps inside the United States!....
Thank you, Kodos! (Score:2)
Well, he did promise to have us "twirling, twirling towards the future"...
Maybe, but it won't make broadband cheaper.. (Score:1)
At least, not here in the U.S..
In fact, it'd probably be just the excuse they've been waiting for to charge us more.
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No, should decrease costs for the ISPs though. They'll install this around the same time they start charging you overage for passing too many packets per minute.
I wouldn't be surprised if.. (Score:1)
I wouldn't be surprised if they apply for (or receive) grants for implementing the necessary changes to their hardware infrastructure.
Won't affect us downstream (Score:5, Insightful)
Great, and the big providers will still cap us to cable speeds from a decade ago and charge for overages!
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And it's not like we don't use Facebook, YouTube and p2p here.
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Poland has 15% broadband penetration. That means they have 1/20th the amount of subscribers.
In addition you are actually just straight up lying, Poland has an average speed of 4Mbps, falls to 1.6Mbps according to speedtest.net. [bbc.co.uk], where as the US has: has an average speed of 8Mbps according to the OECD, although it is nearly half this (4.6Mbps) according to speedtest.net." [bbc.co.uk]
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Raise your beer! (Score:5, Funny)
...thanks to the globe-shaped Higher Order Poincare Sphere model.
Here's to HOPS!
Complex light? (Score:2)
The problem is that, until now, it hasn't been possible to map the multiple higher channels / more complex light in an optical fibre.
This complex light doesn't have "simple" peaks and troughs, like waves on an ocean, and instead moves and twists like a tornado as it travels through space. The solution to this problem is a globe-shaped Higher Order Poincare Sphere (HOPS) model.
While I kinda know what mapping to a higher order Poincare [wikipedia.org] sphere is, I am naively surprised that light "twists like a tornado", and I don't really understand from TFA how that relates to the poincare sphere. Does someone know more about it?
Multiplexing (Score:2)
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I.. ohh boy. I should know or at least understand basically what is going on here. It's all physics after all.
after careful consideration and research... I. ohh. man.
it's magic.
ok, ok, it's only half magic. I tried tackling it from the Poincare end first, but that.. that uh, no. Then I RTFA :D
It looks like this is just using Poincare magic to understand and map how polarized light travels through fiber optic cables, and more specifically how circularly polarized light behaves -- the end result bein
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Is circular polarization not preserved in fiber optic cables?
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I'm pretty sure it involves routing something through the main deflector. Probably also going to need some inverted tachyons. I think I have some lying around somewhere I can let go at a discount.
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Having eventually found the actual paper [doi.org], it looks like it's trying to describe beams with orbital angular momentum (where, if you cut through the beam, the phase of the light depends on the position) in a similar way to that used for linearly or circularly polarized light. The paper itself is entirely theoretical work, but the results will hopefully be used in future experiments to carry more data, pretty much as the parent post says.
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Poincare conjectue (Score:3)
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no joke, i'm pretty impressed. i couldn't even understand the poincare problem, let alone the solution, and it looks like these guys saw it and already had a problem sitting around waiting for Poincare to allow them to solve it. sometimes, humanity.. sometimes you're alright.
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Good News, Everyone! (Score:3)
Now light-speed communications are even faster, since they raised the speed of light in 2011!
I can has more Porn? (Score:2)
Paper on PRL (Score:3)