YouTubers capture the speed of light on camera filming at 10,000,000,000,000 frames per second

If you've ever spent time on YouTube, there's a good chance you're familiar with the tech enthusiasts known as 'The Slow Mo Guys.' With a subscriber count exceeding 14 million, Gavin Free and Daniel Gruchy swiftly gained online fame for their slow-motion shots, often providing detailed frame-by-frame footage of explosions that viewers can observe at a thousandth of a second. It's undeniably captivating to watch, to say the least.

They've shared videos ranging from a massive 6ft water balloon bursting at 2,500 frames per second to clips of Will Smith wielding a flamethrower and James Corden getting hit in the face, the latter being one of their most popular uploads for some inexplicable reason.

Equipped with advanced technology, the duo pondered whether they could challenge themselves by capturing the 'fastest thing known to man.' This phenomenon happens to be the speed of light, the absolute speed limit of the universe, which travels at a rate of 300,000 kilometers per second (186,000 miles per second).

In a video where they visited CalTech to utilize its specialized equipment, they conveyed to viewers, "Now, we've filmed at some very high frame rates. We're talking up to about half a million, which is not to be sniffed at."

With that frame rate, postdoctoral scholar Peng Wang, who assisted Gav and Dan in the Compressed Ultrafast Photography department, assured them that they could capture the speed of light. To be more precise scientifically, they would witness light covering the length of a bottle in 2,000 picoseconds of footage.

The challenge for Gav and Dan, however, lay in figuring out the process - how do you film something at the speed of light? It turned out to be quite a formidable task.

Ultimately, the YouTubers employed CalTech's camera, capable of shooting at an astonishing 10,000,000,000,000 (10 trillion) frames per second. The video sequence had to be measured in picoseconds, representing a mere 1/1,000,000,000,000th of a second.

The results were pretty amazing to say the least.

It's truly remarkable to consider the technology that enables us to capture this phenomenon on camera, and equally remarkable that these individuals painstakingly edited it frame by frame for everyone to witness.

Numerous viewers have expressed their thoughts in the video's comments section. One remarked, "It's unreal that humanity has something that allows you to see the speed of light. This is truly mind-blowing." Another added, "It really feels like something we shouldn't have seen; it's insane." A third commented, "Can we just take a moment to realize how genuinely insane this technology is."

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