German physicists claim to have broken the speed of light

Discussion in 'General' started by high as hell, Aug 17, 2007.

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

    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.

    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."
     
  2. I think its bull shit, like the chinese hair creme in seinfeild. Or how the japs faked getting to heaven in southpark.
     
  3. This has been done in the past. In one experiment they sent photons through some chamber filled with gas, and the photons sped up faster than the speed of light and effectively left the chamber before entering /

    Edit: Isparkmygreens: this is real
    second edit: i think they send particles faster than the speed of light in particle accelerators often as well.
     
  4. these dudes are basically saying Einstein was wrong.

    they are wrong.
     
  5. And Einstein was never wrong? What about his "cosmological constant" crap that he clung to for years, before finally acknowledging that it couldn't actually mathematically be proven, and ultimately he admitted he was incorrect and that the idea of the "Big Bang" was a more plausible explanation that had some actual evidence?

    There are paradigm shifts in physics and in science all the time. It's normal. Without them, the fields of science would not advance. Remember, many scientists once believed that the earth was the center of the universe, and anyone who thought otherwise was "denying common sense."

    Shift happens.
     
  6. i would believe it if energetic photons were massless, and if someone replicated this.
     
  7. I know in some nuclear power generators things a blue glow is emitted by electrons (which do have a very small mass of course) going faster than the speed of light. So if one thing with mass can break it, we just need to know how to control the engery to make more mass do it and BOOM! Crazy shit about the universe and everything.

    All of this is too much for me to type out high like i am but i can think about it and understand it and be blown away. but what i said about the blue glow is true, if what i read is.
     
  8. Quantum objects won't have a problem traveling faster than the speed of light. But sending macroscopic information has different properties and sending that information faster than the speed of light has not been done and its possible its impossible.
     
  9. Im not so sure this is true. The Germans claimed to have invented cold fusion too, but then they failed to repeat the experiment and no experiment since then has been succesfull. The calibration and other stuff that goes into these tests is so sensitive that it is easy to fool yourself. Once some other scientists repeat the experiment a few dozen times I will accept it as reality. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Extraordinary evidence is the experiment repeated by different scientists multiple times using independent set ups and measuring equipment.
     
  10. Einstein has been proven wrong before.. A famous quote by him says "God doesn't play dice". He never accepted Bohr's approach to physics through quantum physics. Bohr was right, Einstein was wrong.. there is a lot of probability and chance in how the universe works.
     
  11. i think its pretty much total bullshit that if you travelled at the speed of light that you would end up in the future

    cuz think of it, you n ur friend are smokin a blunt right, n ur boys all like "dude, i can fly at the speed of light" n ur all like "man what the fuck is you trippin ons" and then he gets up, goes around the world at the speed of light and ends up in the same location, guess what, its still the same day, because the worlds patern didnt change, he just circled it in a split second, kinda like if a plain flies around the world it takes however many days due to speed but its still on the time track, except it would just be instant.. cuz time doesnt exist really, we invented pretty much, found a mathematical calculation of how long it took for an hour glass to drain, and then seen how many times the hour glass had to be turned over before it was sunrise again, n it was 24 n they did the math from there haha, then they probably modified it a little bit so that they could get even numbers for hours minutes n seconds, or at least thats what i'd do if i was inventing time
     
  12. Neg: It's more like think of how long it takes you to travel between two light poles at 2mph compared to 50mph. When you begin to go fast enough time becomes more or less meaningless. The realitivity between the experience of time and speed have been proven many times, even by putting atomic clocks on commercial airliners and keeping some on the ground (the clocks were thrown off due to the planes speed)

    Shasta: Did you see the links i posted??
     
  13. Lots of things would have to be changed if c is not the limit.. Much of our understanding would be bunk. Sketch.
     
  14. Only in the terms of what I said before: If you got in a spaceship that could go the speed of light, traveled out say 3 light years from earth, then headed back, you would've aged 6 years but the earth would've aged many more years.
     
  15. alright, well heres a good test for em to do (in reference to the atomic clock thing), have 2 people or 2 machines perform the same task over n over again at a similar pace, and see which one performs more, because if your doin em at a similar or exact pace then if time is sped up you'd have different amounts of numbers of how many tasks were completed correct?

    of course, i dont have the means to do this myself or i'd give it a shot, but i jus think time travel is lame, n it wouldnt be possible anyway, at least not for a human, because like i said in the other time travel thread, the G's would kill you

    i mean i'm not really knowledgeable on the subject, but its jus what i think
     
  16. With one guy shooting the gun moving at or near the speed of light? The guy on earth would finish first, but to the guy in the spaceship shooting the gun it would seem to empty the magazine at a normal rate because the gun is moving at the same velocity as he is. If the guy who was in the spaceship returned exactly after finishing one magazine the guy on earth could of shot off many magazines, though to each person the gun would be firing at the same rate.
    This is not to say this is currently possible for humans to do, but it is scientifically proven that time and space are relative
     
  17. Yea its called a nutrieno. Or " the ghost particle"
     
  18. i got a question, how can you measure the speed of light between a 3ft distance, is there some kinda super slow motion camera like they use on mythbusters that can see bullets, or are they just like "that was "instantaneous", its faster than the speed of light"
     

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