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.
And that speaks for any attempts at time travel as means to changing history. So, you might as well conjure up some other scenario for the failure of Obama-Don't-Care.
This merely proves (if correct) that a packet with zero rest mass cannot travel faster than light. That’s has been known from the math behind special relativity for a long time.
This can’t be true. I saw the movie Peggy Sue God Married—not to mention Back to the Future. Time travel all over the place. It happened in one of Ray Bradbury’s short stories too. How many examples do I have to give?
Dammit. I wanted to go back and get some cars.
“This merely proves (if correct) that a packet with zero rest mass cannot travel faster than light. Thats has been known from the math behind special relativity for a long time.”
True. And it is not true that faster than light travel necessarily equates to time travel. All of relativity is based on the idea that nothing can travel faster than light, and all of the related math flows from that premise.
“Simpsons did it”
I didn’t know about that one. But as seen above, it’s in Men in Black too. Now the Simpsons.
The evidence just keeps piling up. I’d call it ‘settled science’ at this point.
I read about this in June 2045.
Yes, of course, but this will not put an end to the wild-eyed believers who are absolutely convinced that “time travel” is possible.
Time is the measurement of motion. (St Thomas of Aquinas. Right then, right now, right always.)
As such, there is no way to travel in it.
Tell me that story again, Grandpa!
“Dammit. I wanted to go back and get some cars.”
Fret not, there’s still Cuba. But, then again, it’s in a different time dimension too :)
So that means we’re STUCK here??!!!!
Maybe they should test a faster proton. The one they picked might have been an out of shape overweight smoker.
Yep. That’s what we thought in 2025, too.
There certainly is a “consensus”.
I believe it was one of the Halloween specials...
“The possibility of time travel was raised 10 years ago when scientists discovered superluminal or faster-than-light propagation of optical pulses”
And at the time I said that “time travel” was impossible.
IOW, light cannot travel faster than the speed of light.
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