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The fastest camera available so far is capturing 10 millions images per second. https://www.shimadzu.fr/hyper-vision-hpv-x2

In the scenario of the currently known physics, but in the hypothesis where technology would allow to have a video camera so fast that it would be able to store images at roughly the frequency of the corresponding light frequency of visible light (770 THz - 400 THz), would it allow theoretically, once the video would be displayed in a slow speed, to visualize the variations of the amplitude of the light ?

Or would the experiment (with a camera having this technology) show no variation ?

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  • $\begingroup$ I'd love to Edit "the frequency of the corresponding frequency " but I can't be sure what was meant. Can anyone help? Either way, doesn't the whole Question turn on how fast is "very fast"? If the camera's frame rate is at least equal to the greatest frequency of visible light, would that not "visualize the variations…"? $\endgroup$
    – Robbie Goodwin
    Aug 13, 2020 at 23:32

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That depends on your specific setup. There are light detectors that are sensitive to the total light intensity (which is constant over time) and there are detectors which are sensitive to the electric field only (which varies with time). There is active research in measuring the temporal variations in the amplitude of light as you describe it. This technique is known as field-resolved spectroscopy.

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the film is exposed to the intensity of the wave, the time for one of your fast pictures would not get a whole photon and so not get anything at all.

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MIT effectively achieved a trillion frames per second by creating frames at successively later times in a train of identical pulses. They made some amazing photos of the propagation of a pulse of light.

See Femto-Photography: Visualizing Photons in Motion at a Trillion Frames Per Second

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    $\begingroup$ this is interesting, but this is the propagation of light, while I'm discussing about the oscillation of light. But maybe the second picture at the right is showing that ?!? $\endgroup$
    – Mathieu Krisztian
    Aug 13, 2020 at 15:40
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    $\begingroup$ It does not achieve a trillion frames per second. Each frame is created with a different light pulse. The frames are then compiled together to create what looks like a trillion frames per second video. $\endgroup$
    – noslenkwah
    Aug 13, 2020 at 21:18
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    $\begingroup$ Also, this doesn't answer the question at all, why's it being upvoted? $\endgroup$
    – pho
    Aug 13, 2020 at 21:54

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