By proving a single photon can't travel faster than light, scientists say they have proven time travel is impossible.
Posted on 01/29/2014 11:10:03 AM PST by lbryce
By proving a single photon can't travel faster than light, scientists say they have proven time travel is impossible.
THE GIST
Hong Kong physicists say they have proven a single photon cannot travel faster than the speed of light.
This demonstrates that time travel is impossible, they say.
Hong Kong physicists say they have proved that a single photon obeys Einstein's theory that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light — demonstrating that outside science fiction, time travel is impossible.
The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology research team led by Du Shengwang said they had proved that a single photon, or unit of light, "obeys the traffic law of the universe."
"Einstein claimed that the speed of light was the traffic law of the universe or in simple language, nothing can travel faster than light," the university said on its website.
"Professor Du's study demonstrates that a single photon, the fundamental quanta of light, also obeys the traffic law of the universe just like classical EM (electromagnetic) waves."
The possibility of time travel was raised 10 years ago when scientists discovered superluminal — or faster-than-light — propagation of optical pulses in some specific medium, the team said.
It was later found to be a visual effect, but researchers thought it might still be possible for a single photon to exceed light speed.
Du, however, believed Einstein was right and determined to end the debate by measuring the ultimate speed of a single photon, which had not been done before.
"The study, which showed that single photons also obey the speed limit c, confirms Einstein's causality; that is, an effect cannot occur before its cause," the university said.
"By showing that single photons cannot travel faster than the speed of light, our results bring a closure to the debate on the true speed of information carried by a single photon," said Du, assistant professor of physics.
"Our findings will also likely have potential applications by giving scientists a better picture on the transmission of quantum information."
The team's study was published in the U.S. peer-reviewed scientific journal Physical Review Letters.
Nope. They just sit there turned on.
‘What is relevant and much more practical is to consider that all one has to do is to travel to one of the infinite number of parallel universes that is some precisely measured amount of time different (+ or -) than ours.’
Gmta. I had the same idea, though admittedly in a fictional format.
Thanks!
I was just discussing this with someone next week.
Regarding time travel, I think these guys are off base and so was Einstein, a bit. How can a universal constant use a time division unique to only one planet in the universe?
It has long been established that the rules of normal space are such that the speed of light cannot be transcended within it. But that is just normal space. So for years theorists have supposed an alternative space with different rules.
It’s funny but just last week I laughed at your joke all day.
“Maybe they should test a faster proton.”
Or how about a Tachyon?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tachyon
I’m thinking that in order to “time travel” we need to step into another dimension. The speed of photons has nothing to do with it. The Risen Christ’s comings and goings on the first Easter Suggest to me that He merely switched from our dimension to another to deliver His she blood to the Heavenly Mercy Seat, and be back again in just a few hours to walk with Mr. & Mrs. Cleopas to their home in Emmaus, etc. Just my humble opinion.
You got me curious about the permutations of Fuddruckers...
...originally it’s “Fuddruckers,” then “Futtbuckers” and then “Buttruckers,” and finally arrives at the obvious obscenity...
I put them over there, next to the Tachyoffs.
“Anyone get the above reference?”
“A Sound of Thunder”:
A 1950’s short story by Ray Bradbury
A 2005 movie with Heike Makatsch playing the part of Alicia Wallenbeck.
Time travel is impossible because it offends reason. Time is fixed, and is not a malleable “dimension”. There was one 1960 and that’s it. You can’t go fast enough and live through last week again. Where does it exist? This alternate Nebraska, with an alternate family, cooking last weeks dinner.
It should be way past obvious that sci-fi and string hypothesis (not a theory since no repeatable experiments demonstrate it) have taken physics into a deep error.
We have flipped the model and made a grave error. When the math does not describe the observable universe we should look at the math model and look for the errors. Instead, we decide the math model is accurate if the calculations are right, and try to make the observations fit the math.
In 500 years they will laugh at us.
They made a movie of “a sound of thunder”?
I remember the last line of the story “and there was a sound of thunder” (as the main character was shot)
You don’t wanna know... let’s just say it’s a tacky thing to ponder.
The filming was so good. The shot of Joe, nice-guy/relatively innocent [i.e.: he never did catch onto Rita’s line of work/’art’] taking in the name of the restaurant, and then looking down at the sweet group of little kids eating there. You could just see the cogs in his brain moving, trying to put two and two together.
It really is a good movie. The outtakes aren’t bad either. I watched some on Youtube.
[The scene w Joe noticing the name of the restaurant happens, I believe, a little bit further into the movie. The opening scene set it up well, though. Very nicely done throughout.]
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