We have broken speed of light' claim German physicists

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'We have broken speed of light' claim German physicists





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We've broken the sound barrier so should the possibility of breaking the speed of light be far behind? Well, it a couple of decades behind, but if we believe Dr Gunter Nimtz and Dr Alfons Stahlhofen, of the University of Koblenz, then breaking the speed of light has been achieved. They say that 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. This experiment is big deal because 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. That means if an astronaut is moving faster than the speed of light; theoretically he would 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."

Source: 'We have broken speed of light' claim German physicists - Newlaunches.com

 
^ Omg this is amazing!

But they haven't really disclosed what source of energy they used to move the photons, and if I'm not being too sceptical the mass of a photon is well, negligible compared to even a grain of sand.

Nevertheless, something to ponder upon :D
 
Alright....good...but they r never gng to get any vehice to travel that fast...

They say time travel can be made possible at that speed...But common sense says no, after all time is just a sense of being in a way...
 
^ Everything has a way.. Will eventually find a way.. Human nature to search for answers :)

Great news if its true. Let them release some more information on it.
 
Its probably again another wrong interpretation of group theory. Has been happening for a while now. The basic gist is that what relativity states is that no single photon can have a speed faster than speed of light. However a collection of photons may interfere in various ways and form a shape which appears to an external observer to be travelling at a speed faster than light even though the individual photons are still travelling at the speed of light.
 
According to GR, the velocity of light in vacuum (c) is constant all the time. It can and does become slower in different mediums. But then, relativity does not explain quantum mechanics and its puzzles. Besides, it doesn't make any sense to discard new observations just because they aren't in agreement with some observations made a century ago. This is exactly what science is all about.
 
Everything we have learned as a species has been proven wrong or inaccurate over time. Thats what science is. Its the best possible explanation of things that happen around us.

Quantum physics itself assumes soo many things that if one day its proven wrong then noone should be surprised.

We even assume mass of photon as 0. still we observe soo many things even today that contradicts this theory. We have seen the effect of gravity on light.

In short dont disregard anything. A good scientist can play down some theory but a good scientist will not disregard anything without having a look at what someone else has to say.

This may well be a misinterpretation of findings but then again, you never know whats possible.
 
I believe something to this effect, i.e. surpassing the rules of quantum physics was done last year or even earlier with light. Remember reading about it. Is this some new development that is different in any way from the old experiment?
 
leomax said:
If we had something faster than light,basically we have a time machine.
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Err ...no. It's not that simple. Time machine has little credibility, if any, outside Sci-Fi novels and movies. People have always misinterpreted GR and time-travel concepts, for there are a few who actually understand what time is.
 
Yamaraj said:
Err ...no. It's not that simple. Time machine has little credibility, if any, outside Sci-Fi novels and movies. People have always misinterpreted GR and time-travel concepts, for there are a few who actually understand what time is.
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What is GR ?? General Relativity ?
 
its actually a simple concept. A traveling wave can be though of sea waves. When you see the waves moving on beach, the speed appears to be more than that of the actual wave speed. th Vg in this case represents the apparent movement of the wave which combined with the phase velocity equals twice the actual velocity.(which is how it should be.) ie Vg x Vp =c^2.

However this is not the first time and certainly not the last

Sound Pulses Exceed Speed of Light | LiveScience

The interesting thing is not to discard the theory. The major problem is that you are looking to accelerate a 0 mass substance to greater than speed of light(which has no problems in relativity, the problems set in with non zero rest mass which required either infinite acceleration(impossible) or a collapse due to mass gain.

Another facet to look at it is that relativity is based on vaccum as the standard. However that leaves other mediums open for discovery. Space time graph is after all humand made to explain the present and in no way a finality.
 
Yamaraj said:
Err ...no. It's not that simple. Time machine has little credibility, if any, outside Sci-Fi novels and movies. People have always misinterpreted GR and time-travel concepts, for there are a few who actually understand what time is.
Click to expand...

Of course i wasnt talking about time machine as in those movies.

More like you can see the past et all,travel through time when SR violation is possible..

And If i remember correctly superluminal travel is indeed possible but superluminal speed is not possible without violating SR.
 
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