Man Builds Two Billion FPS Camera That Literally Records At The Speed Of Light

In a remarkable feat of experimental science and DIY engineering, Brian Haidet, the creator behind the YouTube channel AlphaPhoenix, has achieved what once seemed impossible: recording a laser beam traveling at the speed of light, captured at an astounding two billion frames per second (FPS). Using a custom-built setup in his own garage, Haidet managed to visualize the motion of light itself as it bounced across the room.

Haidet, who holds a PhD in Materials Science, has been developing high-speed imaging systems for years. His latest creation builds upon his previous one billion FPS camera, with what he describes as improvements to “virtually everything” over the past year. The design, though intricate, remains impressively minimalistic consisting of a mirror, a lens, two tubes, cables, a uniquely engineered flash bulb, and just a few hundred lines of Python code.

As Haidet enthusiastically explains in his video, “It’s not only fast enough to watch light move, it’s fast enough to see the past.” Each frame of his new system captures light traveling about six inches (15 centimeters), a measurement that corresponds to the true speed limit of the universe. “Light in any reference frame will never move any faster or any slower than this speed,” he emphasizes, underscoring the precision of the experiment.

Despite the stunning results, Haidet admits there’s a catch. His two-billion-FPS camera can only record in 1×1 pixels, meaning it captures just a single point of light per recording. To create a full image, he must repeatedly aim the camera at different directions and then “tile” the resulting videos together, a process similar to how astrophotographers stitch together high-resolution images of the night sky.

“If all these videos are synchronized and we take many, many, many one-pixel videos, we can tile these videos next to each other and play them all back at the exact same moment,” Haidet explains. “That gives something that looks like a video.”

He insists, however, that this approach doesn’t compromise the authenticity of the result. According to him, even a fully functional multi-pixel two-billion-FPS camera “really wouldn’t give any better results,” but would cost astronomically more to build.

This isn’t Haidet’s first viral experiment. He previously created an “infinite loop” timelapse of the night sky, using a Sony A6000 and a Samyang 12mm lens to track the North Star. By rotating his setup at the exact speed of Earth’s rotation, he created a mesmerizing illusion in which the stars appeared perfectly still.