"We have broken the speed of light"

[Nick333]

A pair of German physicists claim to have broken the speed of light - an achievement that would undermine our entire understanding of space and time.
According to Einstein's special theory of relativity, it would require an infinite amount of energy to propel an object at more than 186,000 miles per second.

However, Dr Gunter Nimtz and Dr Alfons Stahlhofen, of the University of Koblenz, say they may have breached a key tenet of that theory.
The pair say they have conducted an experiment in which microwave photons - energetic packets of light - travelled "instantaneously" between a pair of prisms that had been moved up to 3ft apart.
Being able to travel faster than the speed of light would lead to a wide variety of bizarre consequences.
For instance, an astronaut moving faster than it would theoretically arrive at a destination before leaving.
The scientists were investigating a phenomenon called quantum tunnelling, which allows sub-atomic particles to break apparently unbreakable laws.
Dr Nimtz told New Scientist magazine: "For the time being, this is the only violation of special relativity that I know of."

www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/3303699/We-have-broken-speed-of-light.html/

Pretty damn cool if its true.

[The_Librarian]

Cool - so I can arrive at work before the crisis happens and fix it, or stop it in its tracks :cool: :D

[Jabberwocky]

haha those wacky Germans....

[smokey]

Sweet.

[Devill]

I iza Teleporting!!!!!

Damn this will open so many new possibilities.

Beam me up scotty!

[Gekco]

"Sorry
We cannot find the page you are looking for.

* The page may have been moved, updated or deleted."

Now how quick was that?

[HapticSimian]

Beam me up scotty!

...that's not funny, Scotty... Now, beam up my clothes! :mad:

[Jabberwocky]

all they have to do now is find a way to turn astronauts into microwave photons

[Jabberwocky]

"Sorry
We cannot find the page you are looking for.

* The page may have been moved, updated or deleted."

Now how quick was that?

maybe they found out they were wrong because one of the scientists forgot to press the stopwatch button and thought it was instantaneous.

[porn$tar]

"Sorry
We cannot find the page you are looking for.

* The page may have been moved, updated or deleted."

Now how quick was that?

They've broken time, so the page hasn't been created yet.

[Devill]

maybe they found out they were wrong because one of the scientists forgot to press the stopwatch button and thought it was instantaneous.


...that's not funny, Scotty... Now, beam up my clothes! :mad:

ROFL @ you 2!

Now my day is going better already.

[Geriatrix]

Microwaves. They stop time.
http://dblawg.files.wordpress.com/2009/02/stop-time.jpg

[Aqua_lung]

Yeah well Einstein has to be proved wrong in future anyway, to travel across space we need to go faster than the speed of light or else what's the point of having such a big universe. I think it is possible personally.

[Kompete]

Like I said, just 1 observation can completely change long held beliefs and theories.

[Wino]

Like all theories, if enough learned people agree with it, and no-one can prove it wrong, it becomes one of 'our' facts, until someone can prove it wrong, then he needs a few people to agree with him, and no-one to prove him wrong, then he collects his Nobel and goes into the history books, until someone proves him wrong, then he needs a few people to agree with him, and .....................etc

[timgaul]

Er...


By Nic Fleming, Science Correspondent
Published: 12:01AM BST 16 Aug 2007

This article is over two years old!

Though have a look here:

Light seems to defy its own speed limit (http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2007-08/ns-lst081607.php)

[Jonny Two Shoes]

maybe they found out they were wrong because one of the scientists forgot to press the stopwatch button and thought it was instantaneous.

Nah. Those dimwits had the high speed camera closer to the destination prism so the light from it reached faster to the camera than the original :) thats why they couldn't move it more than 3ft apart otherwise the end prism was further away and they couldn't get their results. :rolleyes:

[DigitalSoldier]

Like all theories, if enough learned people agree with it, and no-one can prove it wrong, it becomes one of 'our' facts, until someone can prove it wrong, then he needs a few people to agree with him, and no-one to prove him wrong, then he collects his Nobel and goes into the history books, until someone proves him wrong, then he needs a few people to agree with him, and .....................etc

Actually all scientific theories are backed by evidence ;)

[Nick333]

Er...



This article is over two years old!

Though have a look here:

Light seems to defy its own speed limit (http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2007-08/ns-lst081607.php)

Ja, my OP one popped up on stumble for some reason. Heres a similar one thats even older:

http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/generalscience/faster_than_c_000719.html

[Nick333]

Like all theories, if enough learned people agree with it, and no-one can prove it wrong, it becomes one of 'our' facts, until someone can prove it wrong, then he needs a few people to agree with him, and no-one to prove him wrong, then he collects his Nobel and goes into the history books, until someone proves him wrong, then he needs a few people to agree with him, and .....................etc

Yep, sort of. I guess thats why most people prefer religion. Its unyielding, unchanging and doesn't rely on any sort of facts at all. ;)

[hj2k_x]

Very interesting indeed.

Blows the mind that you'll arrive somewhere before you leave. :eek:

[Kompete]

Actually all scientific theories are backed by evidence ;)

Really???

Einstein concieved and first published the special theory of relativity, without any maths or experiments. AFAIK he never got a Nobel price for his relativity theories, he did for his work on photon theory (others have recieved Nobel prices for experimentally proving his theories on relativity).

So not all scientific theories are backed by evidence.

[mercurial]

Very interesting, but as previously said, this is not exactly new :)

[Devill]

Very interesting indeed.

Blows the mind that you'll arrive somewhere before you leave. :eek:

Its because we still think of time as linear.

But I agree it is hard to grasp because all our senses tell us that it is linear.

[mercurial]

Time is just an abstract idea that we use to keep track of events past, present and future and to us it seems logical to think of it as linear.

[hj2k_x]

Indeed.

I thought they announced this a while back. The same kinda story, but nothing more came of it?

[Devill]

Indeed.

I thought they announced this a while back. The same kinda story, but nothing more came of it?

I think I know what you are thinking of.... It was a tad different IIRC.

http://www.livescience.com/strangenews/080813-spooky-limit.html

Maybe soemthing like that?

[Belgarath]

Being able to travel faster than the speed of light would lead to a wide variety of bizarre consequences.
For instance, an astronaut moving faster than it would theoretically arrive at a destination before leaving.

This sounds wrong.

[mercurial]

Yeah, I would think that he would arrive there once he departs from his destination, and not before he leaves.

[SlinkyMike]

...aaand Vulcan arrival in 5.4.3.2....

[tco21]

Microwaves. They stop time.
http://dblawg.files.wordpress.com/2009/02/stop-time.jpg

local?

[smokey]

Er...



This article is over two years old!

Though have a look here:

Light seems to defy its own speed limit (http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2007-08/ns-lst081607.php)

:rolleyes:

The article arrived before they did the experiment...

[Wino]

Actually all scientific theories are backed by evidence ;)

But evidence is only accepted as evidence when no-one can dispute it?

[DigitalSoldier]

But evidence is only accepted as evidence when no-one can dispute it?

Typed out my own explanation to that and then the stupid computer crashed!!

Anyhoo... I then turned to the almighty (www.google.co.za) and got another explanation :D


Evidence in science

In science, evidence is the only thing that prevents people from making up whatever they want. But evidence is not as simple as a "good explanation". Evidence, by nature, must be falsifiable. If it ain't falsifiable, it ain't evidence.

Let's take for example the theory of evolution. Evolution does not simply look at facts and then conjure up some kind of explanation that just seems to work really well; in fact, evolution makes a lot of predictions that allow the theory to be falsified. Evolution makes predictions about how genes will replicate, what kinds of animals we will find (living and dead), where we will find them, how old they will be, etc. etc. In other words, evolution makes many falsifiable predictions. To use an extreme example, the discovery of humanoid life dating back 2.5 billion years would falsify the theory of evolution, as would the discovery of various species simply popping into existence. All scientific theories work this way. Even higly conjectural science such as theoretical physics must make falsifiable predictions – string theory, for example, predicts the existence of certain particles and various properties of spacetime. Our inability to test many of string theory's predictions is largely a limitation of technology, but the theory is fully falsifiable...

[bekdik]

Sometimes an experiment only works after consuming a bottle of scotch ...

[Palimino]

Yeah well Einstein has to be proved wrong in future anyway, to travel across space we need to go faster than the speed of light or else what's the point of having such a big universe. I think it is possible personally.

My theory (which could be related to the Germans) of FTL space travel. Einstein proved that matter cannot exceed the speed of light. In quantum physics (I am a bit muddled as to detail) they (Stephen Hawking – A Brief History of Time - I no longer have my copy [a pox on careless brothers-in-law]) and other quantum physicists have found that the direction of ‘spin’ of an electron is instantaneously (FTL) influenced by the ‘spin’ of a similar electron. They don’t know why (just that it is). This has huge ramifications for FTL travel. It does not contradict Einstein’s theory because it is not matter but INFORMATION that travels FTL. Clockwise and anti-clockwise spin can be easily translated to binary (computer language) or whatever finally results. And what is a human (or anything)? A huge mass of extremely high density information that maps all matter. This implies that if humans can be specified (mapped) as information (possible, but not with current computing power - it is a LOT of information) they can travel FTL to anywhere as information, to be reconstructed as humans (by the Reconstructor-O-Matic – still to be invented) at their destination. Your atoms would be different, but you would be identical in all respects to the ‘you’ that started the trip. Travel would initially be slow and dangerous until the reconstructor receiver was in place, than it would be instantaneous.

Hyperdrive is so yesterday. The ‘Enterprise’ is passé.

[ghoti]

Like all theories, if enough learned people agree with it, and no-one can prove it wrong, it becomes one of 'our' facts, until someone can prove it wrong, then he needs a few people to agree with him, and no-one to prove him wrong, then he collects his Nobel and goes into the history books, until someone proves him wrong, then he needs a few people to agree with him, and .....................etc

:rolleyes:

[NoLimit]

Like all theories, if enough learned people agree with it, and no-one can prove it wrong, it becomes one of 'our' facts, until someone can prove it wrong, then he needs a few people to agree with him, and no-one to prove him wrong, then he collects his Nobel and goes into the history books, until someone proves him wrong, then he needs a few people to agree with him, and .....................etc

:D

Alternatively to reach a state of 'factness' combine the Theory with facts already accepted by everyone as being undeniable, in a book. Add the association that the facts actually directly come from the Theory, so if you believe in those facts then you have to believe in the Theory (which then also becomes a fact). Then surreptitiously endow the Theory with attributes 'reward' and 'punishment' to close the loop. You will soon have a growing army of believers (measured in millions) firmly of the conviction that they are from another time and that your destiny is pre-ordained (past has been manipulated). :)

[ghoti]

Wino doesnt understand a scientific theory tries to explain a fact. A theory never becomes or is a fact. He has a very wrong and warped understanding of how science theory works... from his post you can see he doesnt even understand the basics.

[NoLimit]

Wino doesnt understand a scientific theory tries to explain a fact. A theory never becomes or is a fact. He has a very wrong and warped understanding of how science theory works... from his post you can see he doesnt even understand the basics.

True

[scotty777]

...that's not funny, Scotty... Now, beam up my clothes! :mad:


I iza Teleporting!!!!!

Damn this will open so many new possibilities.

Beam me up scotty!

I'm I missing something here?


As for this science bizz-nizz, perhaps it's possible to break the speed of light, but I have one little, infinitesimal concern...

Anyone ever hear of the "Sonic boom"? well, since the sonic boom is described by using the doppler effect, and basically, there's just a massive compression of sound, you get a loud (maybe destructive) "bang".

Now since we know light is effected by the Doppler effect since it is a wave (or acts like a wave), what will the sonic boom (electromagnetic-boom?) be like :eek:.

just a concern

[NoLimit]

I'm I missing something here?


As for this science bizz-nizz, perhaps it's possible to break the speed of light, but I have one little, infinitesimal concern...

Anyone ever hear of the "Sonic boom"? well, since the sonic boom is described by using the doppler effect, and basically, there's just a massive compression of sound, you get a loud (maybe destructive) "bang".

Now since we know light is effected by the Doppler effect since it is a wave (or acts like a wave), what will the sonic boom (electromagnetic-boom?) be like :eek:.

just a concern

Does this allay your fears and are you ready to book your flight? :)


A sonic boom is a shock wave which propagates from an aircraft or other object which is going faster than sound through the air (or other medium). In subsonic flight air is deflected smoothly around the wings. In supersonic flight this cannot happen because the effect of the aircraft wings pushing the air ahead cannot travel faster than sound. The result is a sudden pressure change or shock wave which propagates away from the aircraft in a cone at the speed of sound.

It is thought that objects cannot travel faster than c, the speed of light in vacuum (see Relativity FAQ article on FTL travel.). Furthermore there is no ether to act as a medium being pushed aside like the air is pushed by an aircraft. Therefore no light equivalent of the sonic boom can occur in vacuum.

http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/Relativity/SpeedOfLight/cherenkov.html

[hj2k_x]

Does this allay your fears and are you ready to book your flight? :)

Does FTL travel have to occur in a vacuum?

[NoLimit]

Does FTL travel have to occur in a vacuum?

Collision at FTL with a single atom would spell utter distruction.

[Electrra]

Here's a reasonable explanation of what happened:
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2007-08/ns-lst081607.php
It was indeed tunneling, and it also does not violate SR. As is typical with science reporting, the reporter seized upon the most fantastic interpretation of the results, and not the sober analysis presented at the end. We did not break the speed of light, end of story.

Source: http://stupac2.blogspot.com/2007/08/we-have-not-broken-speed-of-light.html

[bekdik]

If you break the speed of light you will have to repair it or buy a new one.