'We have broken speed of light'
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...source (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2007/08/16/scispeed116.xml)

I don't think that you would actually travel back in time... it makes more sense to me that the measure by which we guage time is now more precise. It isn't getting there before it left... it is just 'that much' closer to the exact moment than it was previously (an second in instantanious when compared to a week).

This is still pretty cool though. :smiley_thumbs_up:

Interesting... I have a feeling it will be another 50 years or so before they figure out how to wrangle this concept into something that is remotely useful for humans, though.

I question the "instantaneoulsy" comment...
Since the speed of light is as fast as currently assumed to be possible:
983,571,056 ft/sec which is 10,353,379 times faster than you driving on the highway (65 MPH or 95 ft/sec)...

to travel 3ft it takes .000000003 sec...

do we really have instruments that are capable of that kind of accuracy yet?
Any instrument that is only accurate to .000001 (1 millionith)...
which by the way is pretty damn accurate...
it would appear to get there "instantaneously" (0 time).
The test would have to be over the distance of 300 ft to even register on that instrument as something other than 0.

Just some perspective.

You should see how fast my paycheck gets from my hand to the wifes hand. I guess that would be the laymans perspective. :doh:

it is so fast in my household that I don't even get the check...

something else that I forgot to mention:
one year at the Indy 500 a guy had a shirt that on the front said
"Indy Speed Limit 230 MPH"
on the back it said
"670 million MPH, it's not only a good idea. It's the law!"

Note that if we have broken the speed of light then accordingly one can travel back in time as well. I think Ill wait on this till more facts come out.

No, it'll just be dark when we get there...lol.

No, it'll just be dark when we get there...lol.

Headlights will be of no help either...

I'm going to raise the BS flag on this experiment for the moment. There probably are scientists working on this issue right now, but how in the world would it be possible to do this experiemnt on such a small scale and claim it sucessfull?

I'm going to raise the BS flag on this experiment for the moment. There probably are scientists working on this issue right now, but how in the world would it be possible to do this experiemnt on such a small scale and claim it sucessfull? Yup and I've got that nuclear fusion reactor in the basement too! If we exceed the speed of light it means Einstein was wrong with the theory of special relativity.

Note that if we have broken the speed of light then accordingly one can travel back in time as well. I think Ill wait on this till more facts come out.

I don't think that you would be traveling back in time. Only traveling faster than the light waves carrying your image in the same direction... To make things more interesting you will encounter the light waves in front of you in the inverse ratio of those your leaving.. so they will appear to be speeding up at the same rate as the rear view appears to slow down.

I am not sure about the views to the side yet....

I don't think that you would be traveling back in time. Only traveling faster than the light waves carrying your image in the same direction... To make things more interesting you will encounter the light waves in front of you in the inverse ratio of those your leaving.. so they will appear to be speeding up at the same rate as the rear view appears to slow down.

I am not sure about the views to the side yet....

I'll have to check that out :icon_rolleyes:

I don't think that you would be traveling back in time. Only traveling faster than the light waves carrying your image in the same direction... To make things more interesting you will encounter the light waves in front of you in the inverse ratio of those your leaving.. so they will appear to be speeding up at the same rate as the rear view appears to slow down.

I am not sure about the views to the side yet....
Exactly. Just look at what happens when moving at a speed faster than the speed of sound. That's a "model" that we can comprehend. There's no reason to believe that going faster than the speed of light would result in time travel... or the simultaneous implosion of the matter/anti-matter universes.

My understanding based upon a cartoon level knowledge of the Theory of Special Relativity holds that the faster an object travels towards the speed of light the slower time passes with regards to a stationary object. This has been validated with atomic clocks losing time on space ships after extended travel. At the speed of light you would not sense any change in time but there would be no passage of time compared to a stationary object. Some have postulated that travelling faster than the speed of light would result in traveling back in time.

I'm so lost!

I'm so lost!

Hmmm... your Location tag says you are on Woodward... stop by Athens and have a coney for me...

srothfuss,

Just remember no matter where you go there your are.

Just think of Planet of the Apes. They traveled and returned to earth several hundred years in the future. Instead of being frozen as in the movie think of the ship traveling at the speed of light for a century or two. The people on the space ship would age only slightly. We verified this effect during the Apollo missions where the atomic clocks lost time due to the 17000 mph speed of the craft.

Yup I need to get a life.

Just to put things back into perspective from a different view....

If you are able to throw a baseball at 60mph (for example sake) and you get stand on a flat car of a train moving at 40 mph then throw the ball forward at that 60 mph rate... it would be traveling at 100 mph relative to the ground.

Now, if you held your flashlight straight forward on that train and turned it on, the light would be traveling at "the speed of light" + 40 mph and thus relative to the ground be traveling in excess of the speed of light.

Now, if you held your flashlight straight forward on that train and turned it on, the light would be traveling at "the speed of light" + 40 mph and thus relative to the ground be traveling in excess of the speed of light.

Except that light is a an electromagnetic wave, just like sound is a wave. If you were in a car on that flatcar and honked your horn, the observer on the ground would measure the sound wave to go past him at about 1100 feet per second if the flatcar were standing still. If the flatcar were moving, he would STILL measure the speed of sound to be 1100 feet per second, although he would notice a Doppler shift in the apparent frequencies making up the horn's sound.

The speed of a wave is dependant upon the properties of the media it travels through not upon the speed of the source.

Except that light is a an electromagnetic wave, just like sound is a wave. If you were in a car on that flatcar and honked your horn, the observer on the ground would measure the sound wave to go past him at about 1100 feet per second if the flatcar were standing still. If the flatcar were moving, he would STILL measure the speed of sound to be 1100 feet per second, although he would notice a Doppler shift in the apparent frequencies making up the horn's sound.

The speed of a wave is dependant upon the properties of the media it travels through not upon the speed of the source.

Light is travels in waves and as particles (photons i believe)

srothfuss,

Just remember no matter where you go there your are.

Yes, and therein lies the rub. You cannot move relative to the space time continuum which you are embedded in. Other things can move relative to you, but you are always where you are at.

The speed of light in your space depends upon the properties of your space, it's permitivity and reactance and such. It does not depend upon the velocity of the source. Since in your space you are always at rest, you will always see the velocity of light as a constant.

Even if you are driving a Patriot.

Light is travels in waves and as particles (photons i believe)

Light travels as a small localized packet of waves called a photon. The packet because of it's localized nature can be thought of as a "particle". The light carries energy because of it's wave nature. It is localized to a small region of space giving it a particle nature.

If it were a sound wave, it would be a small localized "toot" of horn, and it would bounce off of things making an echo.

Light travels as a small localized packet of waves called a photon. The packet because of it's localized nature can be thought of as a "particle". The light carries energy because of it's wave nature. It is localized to a small region of space giving it a particle nature.

If it were a sound wave, it would be a small localized "toot" of horn, and it would bounce off of things making an echo.

I understand what you are saying as I am well versed in EM theory, IR theory, and Radar theory, but I believe when working w/n quantum physics light is considered as both (I know there is still debate but when isn't here in science). Of course as soon as we observe a photon we destroy it by the very observation so I guess it doesn't matter too much.

I understand what you are saying as I am well versed in EM theory, IR theory, and Radar theory, but I believe when working w/n quantum physics light is considered as both (I know there is still debate but when isn't here in science). Of course as soon as we observe a photon we destroy it by the very observation so I guess it doesn't matter too much.

In quantum physics, you can treat it as one, or you can treat it as the other, but you can;t treat it as both. As soon as you make the observation it is determined how you have treated it. It isn't the photon which is destroyed so much as it is your option as to whether you will observe wave or particle.

In quantum physics, you can treat it as one, or you can treat it as the other, but you can;t treat it as both. As soon as you make the observation it is determined how you have treated it. It isn't the photon which is destroyed so much as it is your option as to whether you will observe wave or particle.

in some circles it is said that the photon is destroyed as soon as it observed. :) I know that matter exists in every possible state until it is observed and then it is locked into one definite state (that is unless we started to speak about the multiverse, then it would still exist in all states again). I love science.:doh:

And in some circles it is said that the photon does not exist UNTIL the observation of it. Indeed, there is some experimental evidence that the origination of the photons flight, back in the past, is created by the observation here in the present. The "photon" itself being merely an energy transfer between sink and source, a sort of tunneling between then and now.

The quantum world is a weird place.

Of course that may be only because it (the quantum) is the true reality and what we think of as "real" and logical is only an optical illusion based upon our (finite) observations of an infinite multiverse.

Question:

What came first, the chicken or the egg?:banana::blah::pepper:

Question:

What came first, the chicken or the egg?:banana::blah::pepper:

Depends on whether you are talking any old egg or specifically chicken egg.

If you mean chicken egg, then the question is whether you define a chicken egg to be an egg laid by a chicken or rather an egg out of which hatches a chicken,

Most people would say an egg laid by a chicken since many such eggs get turned into somebody's breakfast without ever hatching into anything at all, yet are still considered to be chicken eggs.

In that case the odds would be in favor of the chicken coming first since anything could lay the egg the first chicken came out of but only the pre-existing chicken could lat the first chicken egg. Indeed the pre-existing chicken didn't even need to come from an egg in the first place.

On the other hand, if you mean any old egg, I am pretty sure there were eggs long before there were chickens.

The chicken and egg are lying in bed.

The chicken is smoking a big cigar and has a big smile on its face.

The egg is just lying there expressionless.

The chicken turns to the egg and says, gloatingly, "Well, I guess we finally answered that question. :doh:

The chicken and egg are lying in bed.

The chicken is smoking a big cigar and has a big smile on its face.

The egg is just lying there expressionless.

The chicken turns to the egg and says, gloatingly, "Well, I guess we finally answered that question. :doh:

"In Japan, men come first and women come second."

"Or sometimes not at all!"
Austin Powers

:Na_Na_Na_Na:

Question:
What came first, the chicken or the egg?:banana::blah::pepper:

What seems like an innocent question is in fact one which people have fought over and at times shed blood over. Religion vs evolution. Did God create the chicken or did the chicken evolve into being from another bird....

Breaking the speed of light isn't really very surprising when we realize that the actual speed light travels is not constant. (http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2005-08/epfd-ltt081905.php)

Going with the fun of the thread:

From Spaceballs the Movie -

Col Sanders: "Prepare ship for light speed."
Dark Helmut: "No, no, no. Light speed is too slow!"
Col. Sanders: "Light speed too slow!!??"
Dark Helmut: "Yes, we must go right to Ludicrous Speed!"
Col. Sanders: "Ludicrous Speed, but Sir the ship has never gone that fast."
Dark Helmut: "What's the matter Col. Sanders, chicken??"
Col. Sanders: "Prepare ship for ludicrous speed..."
Dark Helmut: "Stop preparing and go!"
Col. Sanders: "Sir, hadn't you better buckle up."
Dark Helmut: "Ahh, buckle this! Ludicrous Speed GO!!!"


Other thoughts and observations:

Question: If a person #1 stands facing north, and person #2 is standing just to the right of person #1, is person #2 east or west of person #1?

Answer: Yes, they are barely East or a hell of a long way West. Just depends on you perspective.

That is kind of like: If a fence is around some sheep, are they inside or outside the fenced area? Which side has the greener grass?


Procrastination: Right now it is today (while I am typing this it is about 9:20PM on 08/30/07), as 12:00 AM and 08/31/07 approaches it appears that tomorrow is just about to get here. As you wait in anticipation for the clock to tick from 11:59 PM (and tomorrow to arrive) you suddenly realize at 12:00 AM it is still today and tomorrow has narrowly escaped you again. No matter what the calenday day is: It is always today, never was yesterday, and never will be tomorrow!

Life: From the moment that I was conceived I have been terminally ill.

Death: Speed doesn't kill, it is that huge sudden change in momentum.