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.
By moving by defined wholes! You move the first half of the race course...then you move to the end of the second half of the race course...there!... You are done and you have moved the whole course and there-fore there is true movement in the universe. (solution, it was said came from Socrates as quoted by Plato).
At the quantum level lots of things offend reason. Experiments have demonstrated that entangled particles are linked not just across infinite space but also infinite time. It's possible for an event in the present to alter an entangled event that occurred in the past. Unfortunately for some unknown reason there doesn't seem to be a way to use this to pass non-random information, but the effect is real. It's a clue that time and space as we perceive them are illusions of some kind.
Particles can be quantum entangled through time as well as space
I'll be back in a few years after I find out just what "nanotech" is ...
It would seem to me that the entire universe would have to change.
An expanding universe would have to have contracted to enter an earlier time phase. And a traveler to the future would have to expand the universe from it’s current radius. It would not work in a local frame. It must be universal.
I can’t see it ever happening.
That’s just entanglement, it doesn’t involve any actual superluminal motion, or transmission of information, so it doesn’t violate the rule.
Yeah, I wuz there. I lent you a twenny for the bar tab. I knew it was a bad thing to do because you said you'd pay interest on it and now I owe you $147. Dang it.
Sure I can buy time travel. I can believe going back in time and making sure your parents fall in love.
But, the most unbelievable thing about Back to the Future, was a DeLorean reaching 88 miles per hour.
Well, the way I look at it, physics only has the ability to tell us the rules for matter and energy, which our bodies are made of. If a spirit is made of something else, then we really don’t know what the rules are that pertain to that. I figure this is probably why we’ll all need new bodies in the afterlife, since our old ones, being made of matter, wouldn’t be able to do things like travel instantaneously.
-— “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,” -—
Aristotle listed efficient causality as one his “Four Causes,” 2300 years ago.
Now *that* is funny.
“Beams of light are now traveling at twice the speed of light away from each other.”
Ah, but here is the catch: from what reference frame would you observe that? Without designating a reference frame, you cannot test the predictions of relativity properly.
“It offends reason, because nobody knows what “IT” is.”
If by “it” you mean time travel, at some point it would be encumbent upon the Time Travel, and “invisible universe in another dimension” believers to show the slightest shred of observable proof.
Fantastic mathematics are not proof. Because no matter how accurate the equation itself is, there is the basic question as to whether your initial mathematical description of the situation was accurate. The mistaken quantification in the beginning can result in a long and accurate string of equations,, that are simply dead wrong when it comes to describing reality.
Yet instead of search for the mistake when we cannot observe the predicted result. We decide that reality must be invisible. This is right in like with the logic of the Malleus Maleficarum. Those questioning the conclusion are more like Newton and Galileo,, not the other way around. You have it backwards.
“It’s possible for an event in the present to alter an entangled event that occurred in the past.”
That’s simply wrong. Nothing that happens now can change a reality that has already occurred. You can only update something that has already happened. And has never been proven to have done so.
Multiple quantum entanglement experiments have shown it is possible to alter the past. Quantum scientists know it can be done because they've done it. The past, present, and future occur simultaneously. What we sense as time is an illusion of some kind.
“What we sense as time is an illusion of some kind.”
Time is God’s way of keeping everything from happening at once. (That doesn’t rule out an illusion.)
Steven Hawking did the exact same thing. He printed up invitations, made sure it was in the papers and surprise, no one showed up. Either time travel is impossible or they think Steven Hawkins is a dick and didn’t want to go to his party.
You’re right, that pretty much proves it. I guess that I can forego any more scientific exploration on my own,
I’m just going to dump these worms back in their hole.
Be right back...
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