Yes, there is a distinction.  The way the physicists stopped the light
retains all the quantum information.  In a normal recording, you can only
measure some aspects of a photon's quantum state and lose all the other
information.  With a normal recording, you can play back what you measured
any number of times.  With the stopped light, once it is played back, all
the information is gone.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Steve Dirickson" <[log in to unmask]>

> I guess I'm dense, but I don't see anything in this indicating that light
> was "stopped" or "stored", any more than a tape recorder "stops and
stores"
> sound. In both cases
>    1) The incoming energy is recorded onto a storage medium
>    2) In the process of 1), the incoming energy is absorbed/destroyed
>    3) The recorded information is later retrieved by application of
> additional energy to the storage medium.
>
> Or perhaps charging a battery is a better analogue: absorption/destruction
> of the incoming energy causes a change in state of the medium from a state
> of lower "potential" (in this case electrochemical rather than electron
> excitation) to a higher-potential state, and the energy is later retrieved
> by causing the medium to revert to the lower-potential state. I don't
think
> any of us think of a battery as a box containing a bunch of little
"stopped
> electricity blobs" that we can let out when we want them.
>