Happy birthday to the most wonderful father of the best kid ever - wish I could down a drink or two or three with you in the Shot in the Dark, or the Tun-n-Shive - and then we could all play a bit. Here's to doing this some time soon, no matter when.
Love ya, kids!
Lena

Following a new link from a common acquaintance (see 'LinkedIn'), I followed through to the 'eye in the sky' research at Cambridge (US) and considered the following.

Apart from seemingly slowing the wavefront by freezing the medium it travels through, thanks to our Lord ... Kelvin, can we also contend with the issue of slowing (not stopping, heaven forbid!) life itself! For a growing number of us, it's becoming ridiculous!

With global warming and melting ice caps, we (as humans) appear to be moving in the opposite direction to what appears to happen to the 'little' coherent light pulse-wave (photons/wavelet) passing through a medium of properties that interact with the atoms (wave) by compressing (ie. increasing) its wavelength on one hand and decreasing its relative velocity on the other(?). What happened to constant 'c' or are we all drinking too much coffee ('j***')! The fact that it (the contempory wave) makes a 'full recovery' after passing through such a 'distortional matter' ... is there hope for us getting through global warming without all becoming cooked?
ie. Spontaneous emission without spontaneous combustion!

Another dilemma for us all ... should we really be concentrating on the flip-flop transisions (digital quanta) between 'troughs and peaks' themselves or do we simply cycle (analogue wave) away from it?

Practise makes perfect but ... is there time?

c and e - I'm not worried about them - photons are much smaller than me, and c is a constant related to vacuum anyway. Better still, I'm clueless with regards to quantum mechanics.

What I find cool, even more than amazing, apparently that is a cornerstone of quantum mechanics, is the informational nature of light, and these experiments are a kind of proof, I suppose. It's just exciting. Yep, it might be ridiculous, but nevertheless it is quite fun. Especially when doing clueless speculations (in my case).

I admit, after reading this I was thinking about the possibility of the improbability drive. That would be a feat. Not teleportation, but observing the probable states and locations, thus fixing them, and this way manipulating the continuum to get to the most improbable place :) That is cool, and bless me Saint Douglas for not loosing faith, if that is becoming more probable.

Melting ice caps and global warming? That is a different matter. You won't get cooked or drowned, if you are not in one of the ovens or world sinks. Fortunately, for the enlightened society, it is the nowadays world 'ruffians' who are going to bite it. In some circles it is believed that global warming is a good thing, since it is going to cull the unproductive, uneducated population, but they have ideological fights - that's why the incoherent response. If the said population is going to disappear, where to get the modern day sugar cane plantations? Or lab humans? or .... (fill the blank)

I still think it would be good if I can get a wi-fi implant with my SOB. I want wikipedia access down the pub - it's a license for a free tab.

Not wanting to hijack this blog from the main subject of 'discrete mechanics' (the word quantum will simply switch people off), a few comments first ... off the beaten track

a) First of all, be wary of E/M radiation in the low GHz range. If this is not an issue, consider 'WiMAX' with greater field intensities (more reliable connections) and faster traffic flow (bandwidth). Urban deployment of this technology would more than cover the majority of public houses in the coverage area! What sort of user interface do you have in mind, direct neuron interaction ... but what about exceptions in the case of overload! Refer to what's happening at Reading University's Robotics Department for more on current implant technology.
b) Although not advised to do so, unless we can steer the depleted region of ozone (so-called 'hole', just above the ionosphere, I think) over the continents where there is a population explosion, there appears to be a diminishing hope for mankind unless it is 'one for all and all for one'.

Now back to the primary subject-matter of 'slowing things down'. 'c' (universal speed of e/m radiation across a broad spectrum, not just of light) is generally considered constant (especially so in a vacuum) so how come it supposedly slows down to a snails pace through the 'bl**dy cold' medium then speeds up (probably in an instant) after exiting. Is it simply emulating what would happen to a human in similar circumstances? My conclusion to this paradox is that we need to develop a slightly different set of measuring instruments that indicate/display 'quantum' changes (with discrete probability properties) as opposed to the current 'run-of-the mill' analogue wave changes (with seemingly continuous properties). Object-orientated instead of procedural, if one likes. However, the opposite (traversal speed) seems to be true in the case of extremely cold super-conductors ... but these are supposedly electrons with fewer restrictions in travel (resistance), not photons! What are the protons up to (unless they really are stationary), let alone all the individual sub-atomic particules/entities (?)

For now, a question to finish on.
Is the world ultimately digital (quanta/particle) or is it analogue (wave)? My thoughts were always geared towards the latter (wave) but the more I think about it, perhaps it is the discrete former (particle) ... somehow, I do not believe it can ever 'truely' be both! We are simply accustomed to thinking/expressing things in the analogue (visual) way, especially if all our man/machine interfaces are built this way ... roll-on mathematical logic entering the mainstream ... possibly! Who rolled the dice first? ... 'maybe' ... everyone

Both, I suppose. Just a matter of scale and dimension. The 'sub-world' is supposedly of quantum nature. I'm writing with a caution here, since I gave up on reading that part of physics, regardless how fascinating it is. I might need to reconsider this. My primitive understanding is that we 'fix' the world by observation. Then when not watching the world goes back to its funny business - being naughty and generally trying to confuse us.

Unfortunately logic won't help us. There isn't, yet, a logic system that can cope with resources and time at the same time. Linear logic comes close, but it has no account of time of truth. There are temporal logics out there, but most of the ones I looked at were left wanting.