Speed of light, a law, or just a good idea?

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From: Raleigh McLemore (raleighmclemore@yahoo.com)
Date: Tue Apr 22 2003 - 19:30:17 PDT 

Message-ID: <20030423023017.46460.qmail@web40202.mail.yahoo.com>
Date: Tue, 22 Apr 2003 19:30:17 -0700 (PDT)
From: Raleigh McLemore <raleighmclemore@yahoo.com>
Subject: Speed of light, a law, or just a good idea?

While reading the April 19th issue of Science News,
the only other journal I keep up with other than the
Enquirer, I found an article stating that "Light
rambles through room-temperature ruby." I don't claim
to understand most of what I read, although I try, but
I was baffled. The story goes on to say scientists
have slowed laser light "to a crawl". "By firing a
specially tuned green laser...through a...ruby" the
scientists have "...decelerated light pulses to the
57-meter-per-second clip of an express train." The
article states that this is an important development
in optical-communication systems.

The article also states that they are sometimes
"...stopping light cold within frigid gasses and
solids."

Can this be explained to me without giving me a brain
clot? So far I haven't seen any confirmation of this
in the Enquirer.

With firm handshake,
Raleigh

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