Germans break speed of light

I never really got the business of, if you go faster than light, then you'll go backwards in time. You could do soemthing before somebody sees it, maybe, but not before it happens.
 
Yea...I remember reading about it in some books, and all this relativity stuff made sense...

But now I can't remember how :(
 
I wish I had a brain smart enough to understand all this quantum stuff, physics is a bitch though.
 
I really doubt it. And the article also stated that it was just a claim, nothing has been proven yet.
 
If, for instance, you could travel faster than light then you could arrive at a destination before the time you initially left.
Click to expand...

speed = distance / time

720,000,000 mph = 3ft / x
x = .00000000416667 seconds

did I miss something in intro to intro to physics 001?
 
I think stuff like that gets to the point where basic physics gets thrown out the window...
 
WTF happened to the shit load of energy needed to send an photon near the speed of light, let alone faster. I serisouly doubt this is true.
 
Sloth said:
I think stuff like that gets to the point where basic physics gets thrown out the window...
Click to expand...

this must mean that the ze almight lord has rewritten the laws that he put in in place!
 
Hmm... so it wasn't my connection... It does load... eventually
 
Someone said they were interpreting the results incorrectly?
 
Que-Ever said:
I never really got the business of, if you go faster than light, then you'll go backwards in time. You could do soemthing before somebody sees it, maybe, but not before it happens.
Click to expand...

Information can't be transfered faster than light, so something can't happen before it happens. Information being something that has an effect on something else. It's just that the photon (packet of energy) CAN be sent faster than light, this is not something new, this is just the largest distance it has been done over. So this has absolutely no use.

Atomic_Piggy said:
WTF happened to the shit load of energy needed to send an photon near the speed of light, let alone faster. I serisouly doubt this is true.
Click to expand...

Photons don't have mass so they don't require any energy to go at the speed of light. Besides, photons ALWAYS travel at the speed of light, by definition. Although they can be slowed down too.
 
PvtRyan said:
Information can't be transfered faster than light, so something can't happen before it happens. Information being something that has an effect on something else. It's just that the photon (packet of energy) CAN be sent faster than light, this is not something new, this is just the largest distance it has been done over. So this has absolutely no use.



Photons don't have mass so they don't require any energy to go at the speed of light. Besides, photons ALWAYS travel at the speed of light, by definition. Although they can be slowed down too.
Click to expand...

You seem to be a physics expert - what about tachyons? Are they real?
 
It is known that the phase velocity of light can travel faster than the speed of light. But the group velocity of light will not exceed the speed of light, therefore it is not possible to disseminate information or transmit energy faster than light.

PvtRyan said:
So this has absolutely no use.
Click to expand...

I believe it has uses in secure communications (quantum cryptography?), where you don't want people listening in.

what about tachyons? Are they real?
Click to expand...
Tachyons is just a word meaning faster than light particles.
Noone knows if they exist, as there is no real evidence in their favour.
 
Until there is further evedence and a better source I say:

Thats Unpossible!
 
The scientists made their breakthrough while investigating a phenomenon called quantum tunneling, which allows sub-atomic particles to break apparently unbreakable laws.
Click to expand...

[YOUTUBE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j_N8D_nJlp4[/YOUTUBE]
 
The laws of conservation are a bit weird when it comes to particle physics.

As far as I know, it's down to the oscillations. The faster particles oscillate the more highly quantised they become. It's one of the more upto date theories behind black holes, normal photons with an increasing oscillation rate as gravity pulls them in. Subsequently photons are actually accelerating faster than c at the event horizon which is why we see nothing.

They are phasing out of our reality rather than being crushed to an infinite point.

edit: Oh and I almost forgot about this

http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/astronomy/light_speed_000530.html

Dr Raymond Chiao first did the same thing in 1998, and numerous replications followed. So this is not new, mainstream dogma, I mean science, is only just waking upto the fact. They pass light through a quartz crystal barrier, the makeup of the material squeezes the particles into such a tight spin (hence the word 'tunneling') that their oscillations increase, which in turn increases their observable speed.
 
I am so calling bullshit. If this was true wouldn't it be plastered over the news by now? Or at least critiqued?
 
Seriously though, someone here must know that the speed of light was first determined by the average of several tests, and the velocity varied fractionally from season to season depending on air density and temperature.

The reason we say c is a constant is because it's easier for mathematical application within out presently accepted none unified theories, when the reality is c is an average, and varies incrementally depending on conditions.
 
The whole "happening before it actually happened" thing is a very misunderstood use of the following phenomenon:

Imagine if something were able to travel from point A to point B at faster than the speed of light. The instant it arrives at point B, the light that had bounced off its surface while it was at point A is still traveling to the viewer's eyes. So, in a sense, the object appears to still be at point A while it is actually already in point B. However, at no point in time does the viewer see the object in two places at once.
 
Smoke said:
I am so calling bullshit. If this was true wouldn't it be plastered over the news by now? Or at least critiqued?
Click to expand...

No, they went back in time. The newspapers some time in the past reported it, but now they're back in present day those newspapers have already been forgotton.
 
clarky003 said:
Seriously though, someone here must know that the speed of light was first determined by the average of several tests, and the velocity varied fractionally from season to season depending on air density and temperature.
Click to expand...

That's why when people refer to the speed of light, they mean the speed of light in a vacuum, and the experiments to determine this are also done in a vacuum.

wikipedia said:
This apparent contradiction to the universality of the constant c is a consequence of sloppy (but universally practiced) nomenclature: what is referred to as light in a medium is really a light-like hybrid of electromagnetic waves and mechanical oscillations of charged or magnetic particles
Click to expand...

When light passes through a medium such as air, the apparent speed reduces due to interactions between the light and the matter. The photons couple with optical phonons, creating a particle which has an effective mass (which hence travels slower than c).

Photons themselves do not physically slow down.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

-smash-
Valve at GDC 2019
Replies
0
Views
26K
-smash-
-smash-
MFL
Fascinating look at the ongoing psychological evolution of flat hieirarchies.
Replies
2
Views
2K
Tollbooth Willie
Tollbooth Willie
Omnomnick
The Lost Half-Life Trading Cards! - ValveTime News Round-Up (13th September 2016)
Replies
0
Views
14K
Omnomnick
Omnomnick
B
Valve offers more core virtual reality technologies to device manufacturers
Replies
0
Views
23K
Barnz
B
Omnomnick
TF2 "Tough-Break Update" Released
Replies
1
Views
9K
IJCT
IJCT
Back
Top