Speed of light broken!

[Jerk]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2007/08/16/scispeed116.xml

Yeah, right motherfu#$#ers. Einstein said you couldn't do that.


We have broken speed of light'


By Nic Fleming, Science Correspondent
Last Updated: 12:01am BST 16/08/2007


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.
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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."

[StoopTroup]

So...

Will they now put a speed limit on the Autobahn?

[SoonerBOI]

can you explain that again...:D

[OKLA21FAN]

pfffffffftttttt

James T Kirk did that on Star Trek over 30 years ago


pass the salt

[Rogue]

Will this hurt?

[GottaHavePride]

I see a flaw in the data. If it's moving instantaneously, it isn't traveling the intervening distance and is therefore not breaking the speed of light. They've discovered wormholes, or hyperspace, or quantum tunnelling, or something.

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. advertisement

Everyone knows hype travels faster than light.

[Jerk]

I see a flaw in the data. If it's moving instantaneously, it isn't traveling the intervening distance and is therefore not breaking the speed of light. They've discovered wormholes, or hyperspace, or quantum tunnelling, or something.

Second:



Everyone knows hype travels faster than light.

The thing that I don't understand, and could never understand, because I wouldn't be capable of understanding, is how in the hell do they even have the instrumentation to make these kind of precise measurements? I guess they didn't use Barney Fife's radar gun. How do you clock something that goes faster than light?

[GottaHavePride]

Man, they have some crazy technology now. I don't ahve a clue how they do it.

[OCUDad]

The thing that I don't understand, and could never understand, because I wouldn't be capable of understanding, is how in the hell do they even have the instrumentation to make these kind of precise measurements? I guess they didn't use Barney Fife's radar gun. How do you clock something that goes faster than light?You wrote that post sometime next week, didn't you?

[swardboy]

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.

So, if we ever achieve such a thing, we'll know beforehand because someone will be sent from the future to say, "Hey, you're gonna achieve faster-than-light travel and........HEY! HOW DO I GET HOME?

[proud gonzo]

I see a flaw in the data. If it's moving instantaneously, it isn't traveling the intervening distance and is therefore not breaking the speed of light. They've discovered wormholes, or hyperspace, or quantum tunnelling, or something.


The thing that I don't understand, and could never understand, because I wouldn't be capable of understanding, is how in the hell do they even have the instrumentation to make these kind of precise measurements? I guess they didn't use Barney Fife's radar gun. How do you clock something that goes faster than light?
yeah... considering they said it moved what, three feet? At the speed of light that'd be 3.050 x 10^-9 second...now, maybe they have some way of measuring increments that small, or possibly they don't and they measured it as "instantaneous". At numbers like that, a tiny difference is pretty significant. I'm much more inclined to believe their claim's a load of waffle.

[GottaHavePride]

What is the Planck constant again?

Wait, nevermind. Planck time is 5.39 x 10 ^-44. So 1.017 x 10^-9 is quite a lot larger than that.

[josh09]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2007/08/16/scispeed116.xml

Yeah, right motherfu#$#ers. Einstein said you couldn't do that.


We have broken speed of light'


By Nic Fleming, Science Correspondent
Last Updated: 12:01am BST 16/08/2007


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.
advertisement

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."

So, Einstein wasnt all that cool after all....

[proud gonzo]

What is the Planck constant again?

Wait, nevermind. Planck time is 5.39 x 10 ^-44. So 1.017 x 10^-9 is quite a lot larger than that.Don't ask me, I got a C in AP Physics ;)

[StuIsTheMan]

What is the Planck constant again?

Wait, nevermind. Planck time is 5.39 x 10 ^-44. So 1.017 x 10^-9 is quite a lot larger than that.


WOW no wonder your a Mod...your smart;)

[proud gonzo]

I hope that winky was because of the improper "your" x2 ;)

[Fraggle145]

where's Ike to explain this mess..

[proud gonzo]

I dunno--maybe he's with the question mark from the end of your sentence ;)

[soonerboomer93]

so when they fix the speed of light, will that correct global warming?

[VeeJay]

A pair of German physicists

Heh.

[OUDoc]

We should work on making light even faster, like with headers or fuel injection (olevet could figure it out). Then everything's okay again.

[Tulsa_Fireman]

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.

I STILL don't get this.

Seems to me the principle is the same as the supposedly unbreakable sound barrier. Bear with a dumb ol' fireman's example...

1,000,000 miles to cover.

What's the speed of light again? 1.21 jiggawatts? 186,000 miles per second?

So that photon would take a little over 5 seconds to traverse that distance in a vacuum with nothing in the way.

Let's break the speed of light. Let's say we bump the horsepower up a tad and get 250,000 miles per second.

We've broken the speed of light, and it would take 4 seconds to traverse 1,000,000 miles.

Granted, there's a buttload of other factors involved, but when speaking of matter, if able to get to such speeds, the blue collar logic tells me A) a 20 ton fire truck is still 20 tons at rest or at 70 mph. A baseball, however much mass it may have, has the same at rest or at 100 mph. B) A velocity is just that. Simply a measurable factor. With no external forces acting upon it, a fire truck or a baseball, theoretically speaking, could travel up to and beyond the speed of light. I don't remotely comprehend how in theory a baseball's mass would increase as its velocity increased. It seems like the mass would be constant. C) Ike explained this once to me already and I didn't get it then because of my redneck preconceived notions.

But that's just me. It seems the limiting aspect isn't that Einstein and God knows who else said it's impossible through mathematics I'll never understand. The difference in 55 mph and 186,000 mps is simply a measurement of velocity in my eyes. Just like the difference between the baseball and the shuttle in orbit. Other than the practical limitations posed by propulsion, in all seriousness, why not? Why can't matter in theory be propelled beyond the glass wall of 186,000 miles per second?

[My Opinion Matters]

I STILL don't get this.

Seems to me the principle is the same as the supposedly unbreakable sound barrier. Bear with a dumb ol' fireman's example...

1,000,000 miles to cover.

What's the speed of light again? 1.21 jiggawatts? 186,000 miles per second?

So that photon would take a little over 5 seconds to traverse that distance in a vacuum with nothing in the way.

Let's break the speed of light. Let's say we bump the horsepower up a tad and get 250,000 miles per second.

We've broken the speed of light, and it would take 4 seconds to traverse 1,000,000 miles.

Granted, there's a buttload of other factors involved, but when speaking of matter, if able to get to such speeds, the blue collar logic tells me A) a 20 ton fire truck is still 20 tons at rest or at 70 mph. A baseball, however much mass it may have, has the same at rest or at 100 mph. B) A velocity is just that. Simply a measurable factor. With no external forces acting upon it, a fire truck or a baseball, theoretically speaking, could travel up to and beyond the speed of light. I don't remotely comprehend how in theory a baseball's mass would increase as its velocity increased. It seems like the mass would be constant. C) Ike explained this once to me already and I didn't get it then because of my redneck preconceived notions.

But that's just me. It seems the limiting aspect isn't that Einstein and God knows who else said it's impossible through mathematics I'll never understand. The difference in 55 mph and 186,000 mps is simply a measurement of velocity in my eyes. Just like the difference between the baseball and the shuttle in orbit. Other than the practical limitations posed by propulsion, in all seriousness, why not? Why can't matter in theory be propelled beyond the glass wall of 186,000 miles per second?

Man, you need a fire to put out or something. ;)

[yermom]

relativistic effects have been measured at high velocities somewhat approaching c

[StuIsTheMan]

I dunno--maybe he's with the question mark from the end of your sentence ;)

QUIT BUST'N MAI BALLS WOMAN GEESH!:D

http://www.indiepool.com/myspaceimage/busting_balls_rev_notop.jpg

[IronSooner]

We should work on making light even faster, like with headers or fuel injection (olevet could figure it out). Then everything's okay again.

Stickers and a wing on the back should do the trick ;)

[proud gonzo]

I STILL don't get this.

Seems to me the principle is the same as the supposedly unbreakable sound barrier. Bear with a dumb ol' fireman's example...

1,000,000 miles to cover.

What's the speed of light again? 1.21 jiggawatts? 186,000 miles per second?

So that photon would take a little over 5 seconds to traverse that distance in a vacuum with nothing in the way.

Let's break the speed of light. Let's say we bump the horsepower up a tad and get 250,000 miles per second.

We've broken the speed of light, and it would take 4 seconds to traverse 1,000,000 miles.

Granted, there's a buttload of other factors involved, but when speaking of matter, if able to get to such speeds, the blue collar logic tells me A) a 20 ton fire truck is still 20 tons at rest or at 70 mph. A baseball, however much mass it may have, has the same at rest or at 100 mph. B) A velocity is just that. Simply a measurable factor. With no external forces acting upon it, a fire truck or a baseball, theoretically speaking, could travel up to and beyond the speed of light. I don't remotely comprehend how in theory a baseball's mass would increase as its velocity increased. It seems like the mass would be constant. C) Ike explained this once to me already and I didn't get it then because of my redneck preconceived notions.

But that's just me. It seems the limiting aspect isn't that Einstein and God knows who else said it's impossible through mathematics I'll never understand. The difference in 55 mph and 186,000 mps is simply a measurement of velocity in my eyes. Just like the difference between the baseball and the shuttle in orbit. Other than the practical limitations posed by propulsion, in all seriousness, why not? Why can't matter in theory be propelled beyond the glass wall of 186,000 miles per second?unfortunately, that buttload of other factors is rather significant in making pure logic fail to explain these things accurately.

[Ike]

So a few things...to measure the time, there do exists devices sensitive enough to do so. And what the measured was a time difference between light taking two different paths. One path where light did not pass through a "barrier" for lack of a better term, and one path where it did...when light (or a particle) pass through a barrier that it's not supposed to pass through classically, its known as quantum tunneling, and is a well known and well documented effect. So in essence, what they were trying to measure is the time it took for quantum tunneling to take place. Incidentally, in the summary paper they released on arXiv, they seem to imply that this is a predicted effect from QED, which for laymans purposes can be interpreted as the theory that merges quantum mechanics WITH relativity. In other words, a quantum-relativistic theory predicted a wierd result which they measured as predicted. So what I think really is that there is probably some problem with their interpretation of the results, and that the speed of light was never actually broken.

[sooner_born_1960]

So, a firetruck probably can't go faster than light?

[Tulsa_Fireman]

So, a firetruck probably can't go faster than light?

LIES!

Dirty damned lies!

[Ike]

So, a firetruck probably can't go faster than light?

Most certainly not.

A few more things, just to go all completely nerdy on y'all...I hope I can do this justice in laymans terms...

So first off, what they claim broke the speed of light was light itself. Which has no mass. Massless things are the only things allowed to travel at the speed of light. But it gets wierder, because this is a tunneling effect, the tunneled light is referred to as a "virtual" particle. Which means that the mathematical equations for it have only imaginary components, which also mean that the bit of light that actually does the tunneling can never be observed directly. It serves soley as an intermediate state. If they placed their detectors in the gap that the light went tunneled through, they would observe light travelling just as fast as it always should because they would no longer be observing tunneling.

But I digress...for massive objects, as you approach the speed of light, the energy needed to gain just a little bit of speed blows up and goes toward infinity. However, if you are the massive object, you never really notice. time slows down for things going really fast, so it seems to them that they can just keep accelerating normally. If you are going exactly the speed of light, you will never experience the passage of time. It's wierd, but thats the way it works out.

[Fraggle145]

QUIT BUST'N MAI BALLS WOMAN GEESH!:D

http://www.indiepool.com/myspaceimage/busting_balls_rev_notop.jpg

:D

[Fraggle145]

Most certainly not.

A few more things, just to go all completely nerdy on y'all...I hope I can do this justice in laymans terms...

So first off, what they claim broke the speed of light was light itself. Which has no mass. Massless things are the only things allowed to travel at the speed of light. But it gets wierder, because this is a tunneling effect, the tunneled light is referred to as a "virtual" particle. Which means that the mathematical equations for it have only imaginary components, which also mean that the bit of light that actually does the tunneling can never be observed directly. It serves soley as an intermediate state. If they placed their detectors in the gap that the light went tunneled through, they would observe light travelling just as fast as it always should because they would no longer be observing tunneling.

But I digress...for massive objects, as you approach the speed of light, the energy needed to gain just a little bit of speed blows up and goes toward infinity. However, if you are the massive object, you never really notice. time slows down for things going really fast, so it seems to them that they can just keep accelerating normally. If you are going exactly the speed of light, you will never experience the passage of time. It's wierd, but thats the way it works out.

so this is like saying if I were to use a fart as a surrogate for light, it would appear to come through my pants and stink faster to somebody outside my pants than if i had someone in the in my pants where it would actually be going at the speed of smell? :eek: ;)

[Ike]

so this is like saying if I were to use a fart as a surrogate for light, it would appear to come through my pants and stink faster to somebody outside my pants than if i had someone in the in my pants where it would actually be going at the speed of smell? :eek: ;)


If your fart had to use quantum tunneling to get through your pants, the person just outside your pants would smell the stank at the same time as the person inside your patns.


Also, due the the fact that the efficiency for quantum tunneling is pretty small, the person in your pants would experience a far greater intensity of stink than the one outside.

[Pricetag]

We should work on making light even faster, like with headers or fuel injection (olevet could figure it out). Then everything's okay again.
This is how you could make light faster:

http://www.completerunning.com/running-blog-mark/wp-content/chickensmall_01.jpg

It would be greasy fast then.

[stoopified]

Warp factor 7. Engage!

[MiccoMacey]

There are many ways to make things faster.

1) First off, heat = energy. So, make light hotter, it will speed up. Light from a heat lamp will travel much faster than light from a cold lamp.

2) Reduce the mass of an object. How do you do that? Well, if heat = energy, and calories are a measurement of heat, and heat rises, then if you drink through a straw and drink from the bottom of the can upwards, all the calories are rising to the top. Leave the 1/10 of your soda that has the calories in the can. Simple math.

There are more, but I'd hate to overload some of you.

[Fraggle145]

If your fart had to use quantum tunneling to get through your pants, the person just outside your pants would smell the stank at the same time as the person inside your patns.


Also, due the the fact that the efficiency for quantum tunneling is pretty small, the person in your pants would experience a far greater intensity of stink than the one outside.

excellent, thanks for clearing that up :D I guess I need to try to get more people in my pants. :twinkies:

[Fraggle145]

There are many ways to make things faster.

1) First off, heat = energy. So, make light hotter, it will speed up. Light from a heat lamp will travel much faster than light from a cold lamp.

2) Reduce the mass of an object. How do you do that? Well, if heat = energy, and calories are a measurement of heat, and heat rises, then if you drink through a straw and drink from the bottom of the can upwards, all the calories are rising to the top. Leave the 1/10 of your soda that has the calories in the can. Simple math.

There are more, but I'd hate to overload some of you.

Light a fire under its a$$! :texan:

[MiccoMacey]

Let my mom hear you say the "GD" word.

There is a complete vaccuum of where she was to where she would be standing whooping your behind. Not only is it lightning fast, the vaccuum is capable of swallowing unsecured rocks and boulders.

[Jerk]

Well, I tried reading Ike's post on this, but I might as well have been reading Chinese. Not a dig on Ike, I'm just not that smart.

A cool thing I did read once stated that if you went faster than the speed of light, that you would travel back in time. However, what was really going on is that you really weren't going back in time, it's that the rest of the universe was continuing forward in time without you. So, you'd still end up in the past.

It takes me about 60 seconds to go from 0 to 60mph, so I have a ways to go.

[TUSooner]

Is it fixed yet?

[OCUDad]

excellent, thanks for clearing that up :D I guess I need to try to get more people in my pants. :twinkies:Remember that this is all relative. You will achieve the same result if you get into more people's pants.

[Fraggle145]

Remember that this is all relative. You will achieve the same result if you get into more people's pants.

Good point, I'll have to try that. :D

[SoonerKnight]

A cool thing I did read once stated that if you went faster than the speed of light, that you would travel back in time. However, what was really going on is that you really weren't going back in time, it's that the rest of the universe was continuing forward in time without you. So, you'd still end up in the past.

Except once you stopped you cease to exist as you would die from your molecules being scrambled at least from what I understand Einstein saying.......Of course if you returned before you left you might just litterally run into yourself and that would cause problems too.:pop: