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Visualizing video at the speed of light — one trillion frames per second

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)1 HN recommender · recommended in 1 month, 2011–2025
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demo · general · evergreen · 2011–2025 on HN

MIT Media Lab shows an imaging system capturing a trillion frames per second, fast enough to film light pulses travelling through objects in slow motion.

HN cites it as the original and still-wow reference whenever newer ultra-high-speed light imaging comes up.

9 comments from Hacker News

@bXVsbGVy2022-05 · in “Exporting Data from Old Gear Through LCD Sniffing”

Since you are finding about femto-photo today, I think you are gonna love this: link ▶ this video By the way. Femto laser are somewhat common nowadays. They are used in eye surgery and microscopy. I even seem papers talking about using them in finger print scanners! See Optical coherence tomography for more info.

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@jval432025-10 · in “A laser pointer at 2B FPS [video]”

The original MIT video from 2011: "Visualizing video at the speed of light — one trillion frames per second" ▶ this video (project site: link ) He mentions this as the inspiration in his previous video ( link ).

@westurner2025-10 · in “Man Builds Two Billion FPS Camera That Records at the Speed of Light”

"Visualizing video at the speed of light — one trillion frames per second" (2011; MIT) ▶ this video "Single-shot real-time femtosecond imaging of temporal focusing" (2018) link "Filming the Speed of Light at 10 Trillion FPS" (2019; The Slow Mo Guys) link

@getpost2025-08 · in “Los Alamos is capturing images of explosions at 7 millionths of a second”

It's an apples-to-oranges comparison, but I'm reminded of the ~10^12 fps (1.7 ps exposures) demonstrated in work at MIT[0], which was for a completely different application. [0] link EDIT: Video with explanation. ▶ this video

@westurner2025-05 · in “'Strange metals' point to a whole new way to understand electricity”

Photons certainly appear to have a real physical location with 1e9 FPS imaging capabilities: "Visualizing video at the speed of light — one trillion frames per second" (2012) ▶ this video But is there an identity function for a photon(s), and is "time-polarization" necessary for defining an identity function for photons?