The Slow Mo Guys (Gavin and Dan) visit a lab and witness a camera capable of filming at 10 trillion frames per second, capturing the speed of light. They meet Lihong, one of the camera's inventors, who explains how the camera works, using a digital micromirror device to encode and decode images. The camera can capture extremely short time intervals, allowing for the observation of phenomena like the propagation of light pulses in space. The technology has potential applications in fields such as physics, biology, and surveillance. The Slow Mo Guys also experiment with simulating what it would be like to film everyday events, like a lightning strike or a human blink, at extremely high frame rates, resulting in absurdly long playback times.
Here are the key facts extracted from the text:
1. A camera can capture 10 trillion frames per second.
2. The camera was used to film the speed of light.
3. The maximum speed of the camera is 10 trillion frames per second.
4. A standard streak camera can only capture 1-D movies.
5. The camera uses a digital micromirror device to encode objects.
6. The camera can generate a 2-D movie by decoding the encoded object.
7. A laser pulse is used to capture images because it can be made very short.
8. The laser pulse turns on within a femtosecond scale.
9. The camera can capture images in picosecond differences between frames.
10. The camera's technology allows it to look at very short time intervals.
11. The technology could be used to study fundamental physics.
12. There is an optical counterpart to sonar called lidar.
13. Lidar detects round trip time to measure distance.
14. The technology could be used to see around corners.
15. The technology could be used to see through fog or clouds.
16. The technology could be useful for autonomous cars.
17. The technology could be used to detect damage in the brain.
18. The technology could potentially be used to read brain activity.
19. The camera can capture images at 100 billion frames per second.
20. The camera can capture images at 10 trillion frames per second.
21. If a lightning strike were filmed at 100 billion frames per second, it would take almost four months to watch the whole clip.
22. If a lightning strike were filmed at 10 trillion frames per second, it would take 32 years to watch the whole clip.
23. If a tank firing a Sherman round were filmed at 100 billion frames per second, it would take eight years to watch the whole clip.
24. If a human blink were filmed at 100 billion frames per second, it would take 19 years to watch the whole clip.
25. If a human blink were filmed at 10 trillion frames per second, it would take 1,900 years to watch the whole clip.