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'We have broken speed of light'
Telegraph ^
| 8/16/07
| Nick Fleming
Posted on 08/16/2007 10:15:43 AM PDT by LibWhacker
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To: NoControllingLegalAuthority
pi are not squared. They are round.Unless it's a Sheperd's Pie.
221
posted on
08/16/2007 11:42:50 AM PDT
by
CougarGA7
(It's up to us to keep it all from unraveling)
To: 1L
“Dumb question alert: why is the speed of LIGHT specifically supposedly the ceiling on speed?”
I always questioned that myself. The answer that I was told back in college was that light is the fastest thing known and the only thing known not to be subject to relative motion.
Quick example: You are traveling on a train going 60 MPH and you toss a ball to your friend sitting a few feet in front of you. To you and your freind (both sitting on the train) the ball is going 20 MPH (from your toss). To some-one sitting next to the tracks outside the train to ball is traveling at 80 MPH.... the train imparts it’s relative motion (60 MPH) to the ball. This behavior seems to hold true for pretty much every object they’ve been able to test.... except light, which is the fastest thing ever observed. Light appears to always travel at a constant speed regardless of the speed of the object that generates it.
That’s my dime store explanation of it. Note I’m not a scientist (nor was I even a science major).... so if the explanation is off a bit some-one please feel free to beat me with a rubber chicken.
The thing I always wondered, was why people always assumed the phenominom was due to some sort of universal law....rather then just some funky quality of light itself.
222
posted on
08/16/2007 11:43:08 AM PDT
by
Grumpy_Mel
(Humans are resources - Soilent Green is People!)
To: RightWhale
we wouldn't be wasting our valuable time Everybody on this thread needs a "TIME OUT"
This whole thread is way too funny
223
posted on
08/16/2007 11:44:05 AM PDT
by
BOBTHENAILER
(One by one, in small groups or in whole armies, we don't care how we do it, but we're gonna getcha)
To: 1L
Dumb question alert: why is the speed of LIGHT specifically supposedly the ceiling on speed? Not a dumb question, but it's not practical to answer it here. Einstein's General Theory of Relativity implies this (his earlier, Special Theory of Relativity didn't go far enough to be definitive).
Of course, if one actually understands the "General Theory", it still leaves a tiny amount of room for doubt, since it's unlikely we have final and complete understanding on this subject.
224
posted on
08/16/2007 11:44:27 AM PDT
by
3niner
(War is one game where the home team always loses.)
To: TommyDale
No, you’re stating that to be the case if something travels faster than light - I’m merely asking for an explanation of whay that HAS to be the case. Intuition says something traveling faster than light will naturally arrive before something traveling slower - I can’t see how the leap is made to that FTL object arriving BEFORE it was sent.
To: Post-Neolithic
I read somewhere that Science Fiction is the history of the future. Truer words were never said.
As a big fan of science fiction from my childhood to the present, I'd have to disagree with this. For every example like Clark's idea about geostationary satellites, there have been a thousand or more wildly mistaken, hopelessly outdated ideas. And there are numerous technologies today that were never imagined 50 years ago by any of John W. Campbell's writers.
I doubt that any writers today come close to portraying the world of 2057, either. I'd like to hope that authors like Vernor Vinge and Peter F. Hamilton are somewhere in the ballpark, though.
To: LibWhacker
Interesting enough to bump for later reading.
227
posted on
08/16/2007 11:49:04 AM PDT
by
Kevmo
(We should withdraw from Iraq — via Tehran. And Duncan Hunter is just the man to get that job done.)
To: Liberty Tree Surgeon
The people here were jumping to the conclusion that “faster than the speed of light” meant time travel. Nonsense. Maybe the speed of light can be exceeded, but I would like to see how it is proven. Measuring a delta time between two prisms only 3 feet apart seems far fetched.
228
posted on
08/16/2007 11:49:20 AM PDT
by
TommyDale
(Never forget the Republicans who voted for illegal immigrant amnesty in 2007!)
To: Frank_2001; Paradox; Redleg Duke
Frank_2001: Muhammad Ali was the first to break the speed of light. He said he was so fast that he would flip off the light switch in his hotel room and be in bed before it got dark!
:') I think that was originally said of Satchel Paige. :')
229
posted on
08/16/2007 11:53:27 AM PDT
by
SunkenCiv
(Profile updated Tuesday, August 14, 2007. https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/)
To: LibWhacker
The pair say they have conducted an experiment in which microwave photons - energetic packets of light - traveled "instantaneously" between a pair of prisms that had been moved up to 3ft apart. Instantaneously?
If it's in fact instantaneous, then it's not about speed.
Maybe "spooky action" at a distance, but not speed.
To: TommyDale
As one who earns a living off lightwave and lasers, I say Hogwash!
I agree. I think this is another "cold fusion" story waiting to be exposed.
To: wolfinator
Do photons have mass?
Yes, they have mass.
One must be careful about the language. There seem to be two classes of objects, the ones that can stand still and the ones that can't. One that can (like an apple) has a "rest mass", that is, its mass when it is not moving. Its mass when it is moving will be higher, because of the energy it's carrying (note that this is subjective-- what you think is moving, I may think is standing still). You can give it as much energy as you like, it will get very fast but never reach C. Things like photons cannot stand still, they are always flying around at the speed of light (in whatever medium they're in). Do they have a rest mass? We say that they have a rest mass of zero, that way we can use the same equations to describe both types of object. But a photon in flight has mass, because it has energy. A green photon has a mass of about 4x10^-36 kilograms, about 4 millionths of an electron's rest mass.
To: LibWhacker
So I’ can’t use the excuse that I was stuck in a traffic jam on my way to work anymore? Oh great.
233
posted on
08/16/2007 12:02:49 PM PDT
by
McGruff
To: Gator101; Millee; carlr; Maximus of Texas; EX52D; StephenTX; wallcrawlr; Auntbee; Shimmer128; ...
Re:
Oh yeah?...
well how fast can they do the Kessel run? Well...
in the story it says: "For instance, an astronaut moving faster than it would theoretically arrive at a destination before leaving."
So the answer, Han, old sport...
is pretty damned fast!
Han, as much as I hate to say it...
Bender is correct.
Dammit! He...
sure is!
Can we...
get a second opinion?
Dammit, Lrrr! I...
was the second opinion!
Then, how's about...
a third opinion?
Okay, besides being fat and ugly...
you smell like pig poop!
So, Lrrr, get used...
to disappointment.
Around Bender...
that is the norm!
That...
and the smell of pig poop.
With friends like this...
the smell keeps them at arms length!
Well, if you make any new friends...
I will have to start charging you overtime!
234
posted on
08/16/2007 12:02:59 PM PDT
by
Bender2
(I'd feel a helluva lot better if just one of them had ever run for Country Sheriff.)
To: McGruff
Im no rocket scientist but, how do you measure something thats going 186,000 miles between a pair of prisms that had been moved up to 3ft apart? Very carefully. 8>)
To: 1L
Dumb question alert: why is the speed of LIGHT specifically supposedly the ceiling on speed?
Not a dumb question at all. Light is what people were studying when they discovered the strange things that happen at high speeds. Nature seems to have a fundamental maximum speed, and light travels at that speed (or very, very close to it).
To: LibWhacker
This article was worth posting if just for the amount of witty and amusing replies it generated. My thanks to all for an entertaining collection of imaginative posts.
To: LibWhacker
An electron - traveling as a photon of light in the vacuum of space - actually has to be traveling at slightly GREATER than the speed of light, is it is also oscillating up and down on a plane within a wavelength of radiant energy. The shorter the wavelength, the faster the photon has to be oscillating within the amplitude of the wave.
238
posted on
08/16/2007 12:17:25 PM PDT
by
alloysteel
(Never attribute to ignorance that which is adequately explained by stupidity.)
To: Bender2
"The only reason for time, is so that everything doesnt happen at once." - Buckaroo Bonzai: Bonzai Institute
239
posted on
08/16/2007 12:19:09 PM PDT
by
Illuminatas
(Being conservative means never having to say; "Don't you dare question my patriotism")
To: LibWhacker
We have broken speed of lightBig deal. Hellary has been doing that for years anytime she`s asked about Juanita Brodderick.
240
posted on
08/16/2007 12:28:22 PM PDT
by
Screamname
(The only reason time exists is so everything doesn`t happen all at once - Albert Einstein)
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