Brian Haidet recently showcased an incredible experiment on his AlphaPhoenix channel: a laser beam recorded at an astonishing 2 billion frames per second. Well, sort of. The trick? The video itself is only one pixel by one pixel. However, by repeating this tiny video over and over, Brian is able to build up a full rendering that reveals fascinating details about the laser’s motion.
For this project, Brian went back to the drawing board and completely rebuilt his entire apparatus from scratch. Just a few months earlier, in December of last year, he had already created a video camera capable of recording at 1,000,000,000 frames per second. To reach the new milestone of 2,000,000,000 frames per second — and achieve significantly improved resolution — Brian upgraded virtually every component. This included the motors, hardware, oscilloscope, signaling system, recording software, and processing software. Essentially, everything was revamped to push the boundaries of ultra-high-speed imaging.
One of the coolest effects produced by this new setup is how the laser light appears to travel noticeably faster when moving toward the camera than when moving away from it. This is actually an artifact of the experimental setup: laser beams reflecting off fog particles closer to the camera arrive sooner than those bouncing back from particles that are further away.
In other words, what you’re seeing is a real-world visualization of special relativity, all happening in Brian’s garage. It’s an impressive feat and a delightful demonstration of both physics and engineering coming together in a stunning way. Pretty cool!
https://hackaday.com/2025/10/19/filming-at-the-speed-of-light-about-one-foot-per-nanosecond/