"Hunh, I never stopped t' think that it was SPACE that was movin'!"
Posted on 10/13/2012 11:15:49 AM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach
Step 1: Researchers announce that they have surpassed the speed of light!
Step 2 (some months later): Researchers find a flaw in their experiment. Speed of light not surpassed after all.
The paper proposes two sets of equations -- one based on an invariant set of "frame transitions", the other based on a "frame transition" with the invariance limitation removed. The authors suspect that if faster than light travel is possible, that the physical behavior of the faster-than-light travelling object is described by one of these equations.
Waiting for the "Oh crap, another bad cable connection found" article to come out.........Just saying.
But can they make the Kessell run in under twelve parsecs?
mark...
I hear you. But any equation is highly suspect if it does not have repeatable experimental evidence to back it up.
I'll follow this story with interest, but also with great skepticism. My money is still on Big Al (Einstein, that is).
QED.
fyi
I thought the Michelson-Morley experiment put paid to that.
/johnny
/johnny
"Hunh, I never stopped t' think that it was SPACE that was movin'!"
What happens when a spaceship traveling the speed of light turns on its headlights? :-)
I’d like to comment, but I’m just not up to speed on this.
Relative to each other.
Any measurement value re: the speed of something, is relative to the speed of the measurement frame.
To the best of my knowledge, if you are traveling at a velocity (a vector quantity with magnitude and direction) less than the speed of light you cannot exceed the speed of light because your mass will become infinite, i.e., blow up. However, the equation is also quite specific. If your velocity is greater than the speed of light, an object can exist. The question is how to get it going at those velocities.IMHO
I put my brain is in the freezer today. Hard to even contemplate on this news. Meanwhile I just got a call from my one brother that is returning from a European vacation and is going to stop by shortly. So guess I’m logging out for the duration.
Michalson and Morley proved that there were no interference patterns for beams going with each other, against each other or at 90 degrees to each other.
Earth orbit was chosen for the experiment because it was pretty darn handy, and everything else wasn't.
Once again, I'm just a cook, exploring the mysteries of physics.
/johnny
That's Newton's theory of relativity. It is a good approximation for relative speeds under about 100,000 kilometers per second.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.