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.
Yes I know all that is true and obviously we do move, but in my small brain, it is still a paradox. “Defined wholes” .who gets to define them?
The universe is full of mysteries. What is gravity? yes I know it is a force dependent on the density of mass, but what is it made of?
I put forth the following idea. Let us say there had been throughout the ages a group of large boulders in Africa and a few in Arizona that were suspended 2 feet above the earth floating. They had been there since before recorded history. I submit that we would have long ago described the physical properties of the force that held them up, given it a name and then put it aside as something we were used to and had it all figured out.
In other words, just because we can describe and measure things, doesn’t mean we really have a handle on it. What we do know is nothing compared to what we don’t know.
No, but now that you mention it,I did see the adaptation on TV several years ago.
I wasn’t consciously thinking of that when I composed my post, but it could have been floating around in my subconscious.
You live awhile, you experience a lot, and sometimes it can be hard to distinguish original thought that may parallel someone else’s thought, from a thought you accidentally “stole”.
“What is gravity? yes I know it is a force dependent on the density of mass, but what is it made of?”
I didn’t know gravity was “made of” anything. I thought gravity was the observable effect of the activity of the family of Maxwell’s demon, using ropes and chains to hold things down.
(I hope you have a sense of humor.)
That is a brilliant point, and probably right in the bullseye.
Thank you.
whatever obama is taking us back to the seventh century
Ah, but to muzzies, the seventh century is the first century.
/bingo
Well,..... it USED to be possible, until they went back and changed it.....
may it be their last
Gravity is faster than light.
“As such, there is no way to travel in it.”
au contraire...
As a matter of fact, I have a time machine for sale on timetravel.org.
It;s not fully functional yet. The forward travel works at this point, and if you go ahead and purchase it today you get a big discount and you get free firmware downloads. So when the reverse travel is completed, you can download it...
No, because time will slow down so that no matter how you try to observe and measure them, they will be traveling apart at 1X the speed of light only.
Thanks for confirming that story. Didn’t know about it.
Steve Hawking, world famous scienist of his day, if he couldn’t get anybody to show up then it’s a fargone conclusion. But still there might be reason for people not showing up. in the many thouands of years until time travel might becomes reality, these time travel symposiums, obscure as they are in the realm of temporal exploration would very easily be overlooked not noticed by time travelers having much better, more fascination things to check out. LIke I said in a previous comment, what was it about the symposium that did Dr. Hawking offered other than rhetoric that would make true time travelers interested enough to stop by?
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