Slashdot Mirror
Speed of Light Exceeded?
PreacherTom writes "Scientists at the NEC Research Institute in Princeton, NJ are reporting that they have broken the speed of light. For the experiment, the researchers manipulated a vapor of laser-irradiated atoms, causing a pulse that propagates about 300 times faster than light would travel in a vacuum. The pulse seemed to exit the chamber even before entering it." This research was published in Nature, so presumably it was peer-reviewed. It's impossible from the CBC story to determine what is being claimed. First of all they get the physics wrong by asserting that Einstein's special relativity only decrees that matter cannot exceed the speed of light. Wrong. Matter cannot touch the speed of light in vacuum; energy (e.g. light) cannot exceed it; and information cannot be transferred faster than this limit. What exactly the researchers achieved, and what they claim, can only be determined at this point by subscribers to Nature.
I wrote this yesterday.
This story is from November 2000.
So the dupe will be posted 6 years ago? Awesome! I'm looking forward to it.
"Good. No, the answer is an orange and two lemons."
"Lemons?"
"If I have three lemons and three oranges and I lose two oranges and a lemon, what do I have left?"
"Huh?"
"Okay, so you think that time flows that way, do you?"
-Mostly Harmless
Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
Farnsworth: These are the dark matter engines I invented. They allow my starship to travel between galaxies in mere hours.
Cubert: That's impossible. You can't go faster than the speed of light.
Farnsworth: Of course not. That's why scientists increased the speed of light in 2208.
Summation 2
Shouldn't you be looking backward to it?
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
On my google startpage I have the 'quotes of the day'. Just now I noticed there was a quote from Woody Allen : "It is impossible to travel faster than the speed of light, and certainly not desirable, as one's hat keeps blowing off."
You moron! Can't you see that the information contained in the article appeared back in November 2000 yet the test was conducted on March 2007? This is further PROOF that they have exceeded the speed of light as the information contained in the article appeared six years prior to the tests being reported at Slashdot.
:)
So: kdawson's integrity remains intact.
Good security is based upon reality and common sense. Common sense is a function of having common knowledge.
So YOU were the one causing that damn red blob when I was trying to watch the eclipse? Go test out your new laser toy elsewhere!
== Jez ==
Do you miss Firefox? Try Pale Moon.
It's exactly the same experiment we've seen time & time again, and it's meaningless because no information is transmitted.
Well, I guess that explains why we keep seeing dupes about it.
Dang, no wonder I missed it next time around.
A nice example, but what is it supposed to show?
:-)
Sufficient amounts of ingested caffeine can make everything seem faster! I like experiements which require one to consume an entire can of coffee in order to cut slots it in to do psudo-physics research.
"You're young, you're drunk, you're in bed, you have knives; shit happens." -- Angelina Jolie
you're just lucky you're not in soviet russia- where i understand the subject and objects of a statement are reversed for the sake of comedy
--AlexC
Just because I dont agree with climate change doesnt make me a troll
Maybe it's due to the time bending effects of this, but the space shuttle already beat them.
j pg.html
CNN doesn't lie!
http://fire-eyes.org/gal/v/hmr/cln/shuttleisfast.
-- Note: If you don't agree with me, don't bother replying. I won't read it.
We do! We just send some stuff to other places in the past to make you feel better about yourselves.
Exactly. And it's gotten a lot easier now that we've figured out how to break the speed of light.
I've upped my standards, so up yours.
In soviet russia, the subject and objects reverse YOU!
Obligatory Steven Wright:
"I put instant coffee in a microwave oven and almost went back in time."
From the "100 reasons why coffee is better than women": instant coffee.
What changed under Obama? Nothing Good
Then you should make a killing making 'optical occlusion' interconnects for processors. Think how you could dominate those silly optical interconnects :) Freaking lowly 'c' speed...
-knewter
Breaking the speed of light is easy. Any child can do it.
Get a flashlight. A "torch" for the Brits. Any flashlight will do for the most part.
Put in a set of really fresh batteries and turn it on. Verify that it works by shining it on walls or the floor or whatever.
Do NOT aim at face.
Now, with the flashlight running, put your hand over the lit end so the light is blocked.
Congratulations, you've broken the speed of light.