Speed of light broken with basic lab kit

New Scientist.com ^ | 16 September 02 | Charles Choi

[xsmommy]

max, is this the kind of stuff you play around with all day?

[mercy]

This is weird BUMP.

[BenLurkin]

Amazing! Faster processing time means another step towards meaningful artificial intelligence. This means another step towards autonomous battlefield "robots". (Pretty scary in way)

(If Bell Laboratories can hire these guys, maybe Lucent stock will become worth something again.)

[r9etb]

Signals also get weaker and more distorted the faster they go, so in theory no useful information can get transmitted at faster-than-light speeds, though Robertson hopes his students and others can now rigorously and cheaply test those ideas.

Given that the peak can be observed, and its speed measured, this statement seems to be incorrect. A frequency modulation scheme would seem to offer a way of transmitting information.

[ikka]

Signals also get weaker and more distorted the faster they go, so in theory no useful information can get transmitted at faster-than-light speeds,

That is not true, since by accurately timing the distortion you could take it into account. As well, sending a known test signal down the line before transmitting data would allow you to adjust for any slight differences due to temperature, etc.

[dogbyte12]

Alot of the slowdown in the future is not going to be the rate at which our computers receive data, but at how it processes it. You throw 200 GB in one second at your computer and see what happens.

[Centurion2000]

bump .... so where's the warp drive already ? ;)

[FreedomFarmer]

Speed of light broken with basic lab kit...

Wasn't me, I was taking a shower!

I hope this isn't series.

[aculeus]

Now physicists at Middle Tennessee State University have broken that speed limit over distances of nearly ...

Another reason not to fixate on "prestige" universities.

[Tired of Taxes]

Ha! And I've been snickering at my six-year-old son's plan to build his own rocket. When I explained that he'd have to study and then work for NASA, he said, "No, we can just go shopping at Home Depot." Maybe the kid is right.

[Notforprophet]

I think it's very series. One day we will be able to send messages from the Moon to the Earth at faster than the speed of light. Then a father could explain to his kids that the Moon isn't made of cheese, while his son could tell the father all about how a moose bit his sister..., and all in record time.

[RightOnline]

"In a related announcement, the staff of Middle Tennessee State University have 'solved' the Unified Field Theory utilizing six soda straws, three empty beer cans, a ten-year-old Timex man's watch (leather band), twenty feet of plastic tubing (1/4" diameter), and duct tape."

[Robert A Cook PE]

Well, of course this isn't really news....

The National press corpse used to get their daily fax followup questions and spin briefing from the dnc even before the the media broadcast the first batch of lies from Hillary's White House.

[r9etb]

Maybe the kid is right.

In a sense he is right. You really can build most of the necessary stuff from readily-available materials and get to some sort of orbit.

The cost comes when you start trying for high performance, precision, reliability, and (for manned flight) getting the crew home alive.

[FreedomFarmer]

Some politician is gonna demand a speed limit be set and enforced, for 'da chilwrens', with his sister's cousin's second step-critter in charge of 'rite'n dem speeders up' for life.

[ArcLight]

I knew that appointing Jethro Bodine to the Middle Tennessee faculty would finally pay off!

[Pining_4_TX]

LOL! Now if they could just solve the problem of chewing tobacco dribble, they'd be state heroes!

[Teacher317]

NYTimes: "Speed of Light Broken: Women and Minorities Hit Hardest."

[webboss]

QUESTION TO ALL:

 

Doesn't Einstein's theory imply that if something travels faster than the speed of light, it would travel backward in time?

 

That means if an electronic signal is traveling along a certain length of cable then the signal would arrive at it's destination at a point in space time prior to the point in space time that the switch was thrown to SEND THE SIGNAL in the first place. (Theme to jeopardy playing in background) 

 

Any thoughts?.....And the SURVEY SAID?: