YouTubers caught the speed of light on camera at 10 trillion frames per second
- Two YouTubers captured the speed of light on camera
- It looks like an eighties film effect – but it’s actually real
- It was captured at an incredible 10,000,000,000,000 frames per second
Published on Jan 29, 2024 at 4:49 PM (UTC+4)
by Amelia Jean Hershman-Jones
Last updated on Jan 30, 2024 at 7:12 PM (UTC+4)
Edited by
Alessandro Renesis
A pair of tech-minded YouTubers have actually captured the speed of light on camera.
That meant filming at an incredible 10,000,000,000,000 frames per second.
‘The Slow Mo Guys’, Gavin Free and Daniel Gruchy, have a YouTube account with 15 million subscribers.
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They are best known for their hypnotic footage of thousandth-of-a-second events that are so quick they’re virtually invisible to the naked eye – think mouse traps going off and water balloons popping.
But this video went one step further at 20 million times faster than anything they’d ever filmed before.
To put that into perspective: the speed of light travels at the absolute speed limit of the Universe.
That’s 300,000 kilometers per second (186,000 miles per second).
In other hard-to-get-your-head-around news, a supercomputer simulating an entire human brain will be switched on later this year.
That means it’s capable of an incomprehensible 228 trillion synaptic operations per second.
‘The Slow Mo Guys’ headed to CalTech University to use its specialist equipment.
There they met with postdoctoral scholar, Peng Wang, at the Compressed Ultrafast Photography department.
He explained to them that light would move the length of a bottle in 2,000 picoseconds of footage.
The speed of sound has also been in the news recently, with NASA unveiling a revolutionary jet set for commercial supersonic flights.
The YouTubers pondered if they’d be able to capture the “fastest thing known to man”.
“Now, we’ve filmed at some very high frame rates, we’re talking up to about half a million,” said Dan,
“Which is not to be sniffed at,” the pair agreed in unison.
CalTech’s camera shoots at an incredible 10,000,000,000,000 (10 trillion) frames per second.
This meant that the video sequence had to be measured in picoseconds (1/1,000,000,000,000th of a second).
What we actually see on camera when that footage is slowed is a ” blue-ish laser light”.
While “it almost looks like sort of an ’80s film effect” – it’s actually happening constantly.
What you’re seeing is photons being refracted.
To the naked eye the scientific duo claim that it looked like “it was constantly lit up”.
In other never-before-caught-on-camera discoveries, NASA’s spectacular new images of Uranus will leave you speechless.
Amazed viewers took to the comment section.
“It’s unreal that humanity has something that allows you to see the speed of light. This is really mind blowing,” said one.
“It really does feel like something we shouldn’t have seen it’s insane,” said a second.
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All Supercar Blondie contributors undergo editorial review and fact-checking to ensure accuracy and authority in automotive journalism. After gaining her BA Hons in French and English at the University of Nottingham, Amelia embarked on a vocational diploma from the National Council for the Training of Journalists (NCTJ). This led to numerous opportunities, from interning at Vogue to being on the small team that launched Women’s Health magazine in the UK, which was named the PPA Consumer magazine of the year for three years running. As Health, Beauty and Fitness editor, Amelia personally received a Johnson & Johnson Award and was shortlisted for both PPA and BSME titles. Since then, Amelia has created content for numerous titles and brands, including the Telegraph, 111 Skin, Waitrose, Red magazine, Stylist, and Elle, as well as being Head of Content at Vitality and Editor in Chief at INLondon magazine. “My superpower is translating technical jargon about the mechanical workings of a supercar into a relatable story you’ll want to share with your friends after you’ve read it.” After joining the SB Media family as a senior journalist in September of 2023, Amelia’s role has evolved to see her heading up the SEO output of the editorial team. From researching the most ‘Google-able’ key terms to producing evergreen content - it’s been a time of hard work, growth, and success for the editorial team and the Supercar Blondie website. “I like to think of myself as a ‘method journalist’. In other words: I live and breathe whatever I am writing about. When writing about fitness, I trained as a personal trainer, and as a beauty editor, I completed an ‘expert’ in scent diploma with the Fragrance Foundation. “During my tenure at Supercar Blondie, however, I did something I never thought possible: I passed my driving test at the age of 36. One day I’d love to train as a mechanic to better understand what happens under the hood, too. “My sweet spot is providing readers with a ‘takeaway’ (read: something new they didn’t know before) after reading every one of my stories. While I don’t claim to be an expert in the automotive world, I know the experts and bodies in the field to rely on to provide our readers with an informative and thought-provoking story every time they visit the site.”
