Fascinating...
Posted on 08/16/2007 10:15:43 AM PDT by LibWhacker
A pair of German physicists claim to have broken the speed of light - an achievement that would undermine our entire understanding of space and time.
According to Einstein's special theory of relativity, it would require an infinite amount of energy to propel an object at more than 186,000 miles per second.
However, Dr Gunter Nimtz and Dr Alfons Stahlhofen, of the University of Koblenz, say they may have breached a key tenet of that theory.
The pair say they have conducted an experiment in which microwave photons - energetic packets of light - travelled "instantaneously" between a pair of prisms that had been moved up to 3ft apart.
Being able to travel faster than the speed of light would lead to a wide variety of bizarre consequences.
For instance, an astronaut moving faster than it would theoretically arrive at a destination before leaving.
The scientists were investigating a phenomenon called quantum tunnelling, which allows sub-atomic particles to break apparently unbreakable laws.
Dr Nimtz told New Scientist magazine: "For the time being, this is the only violation of special relativity that I know of."
pfft..my ex-wife broke that barrier years ago when at 2 a.m. she would show up at the front door ready to fight before I got the dang car in the garage..
No warp drive. Tunnel drive and or worm hole. either works for me!!!
What is your basis for this claim? I hope you aren't one of those folks who confuses phase velocity with group velocity or does not know how to calculate a spherical wavefront.
I would give my left one to go with him. Maybe he will be back this week and we can work it out!
Mike
If the Earth really were attracted to where the Sun was eight minutes ago - well, I admit I was wrong about them crashing into each other. The signs are the wrong way around :0) If gravity propagated outward from the Sun at the speed of light then its mostly radial effect would also have a small transverse component because of the motion of the target. This would act to speed up the Earth in its orbit, sending it slowly away from the sun.
Don't be silly. It isn't as if the Sun is on the telephone with the Earth asking it where to direct its gravitational force (which would cause a 16 minute delay for that conversation). If you consider gravity being propagated as a spherical wave front with no knowledge of what it is going to affect then all of your problems will go away. And if you want some actual calculations/derivations, read here. I also suggest you read up on how central forces work. This logic you used with gravity would cause the exact same problem in electrodynamics. But in those cases there would be a much larger fractional difference between the two objects. If your assumptions were true you would never see stable cyclotron motion (like an electron in a constant magnetic field).
Fascinating...
We shouldn’t be so harsh. Grammer policing allows an English major to participate in an educated conversation.
Hum.... to be honest it smells like “Cold Fusion” all over again. I heard Linus Pauling speak on that Matter at Oregon State University. I wonder what he would say now? Most likely, to what decimal degree was the TIME measured to. Because 1) 3 feet is not real far apart, and 2) More than likely there IS a time lag, they were simply not capable of measuring. Get those crystals a MILE apart and then we will have some idea of the accuracy of their claim. Until they can do this over a distance, one great enough to actually measure the difference with currently existing measuring equipment. The closer one gets to the speed of light the more infinitely short the time period becomes, it may LOOK like 0, but it isn’t. Any more than they can calculate the EXACT value of Pi.
The first offence results in a reprimand, but further incursions may result in fines or imprisonment...
BTTT
No joke! My EDMs may be lying to me. (and, can you imagine all the speeding tickets that may get jury trials)
But can they fix the check engine light on my BMW ? NOOOO!
So Obama can correct himself before he puts his foot in his mouth on foreign policy. Or Hillary can correct herself before she claimed she had never advocated socialized medicine. Or Edwards would never need another haircut - think of the money he will save. Wow.
If I'm not mistaken E=MC2 solved for C equated to mass becoming infinite, not energy.
While you are at it, why not ask the other question: Does light ever slow down and stop? ;o)
around 5-10 years ago, three different labs around the world independently demonstrated the ability to accelerate a photon to something like 500, yes, 500 times the speed of light. Yet so little has been said about this...
It's only a logical paradox IF (big if) your understanding of space-time is correct. But what if your understanding of space-time is not correct? It's possible to be formally logical correct under a certain set of assumptions, and still be wrong.
There are a lot of things in relativistic and quantum physics that "conventional" logic would deem impossible.
Indirectly, I suppose, but only because kinetic energy would be subject to the [sqrt(1-v2/c2]-1 term.
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