August 17, 200718 yr 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." I'm a bit of a junkie on physics, but all that I have learned is from the Science Channel so it's pretty limited. I do know that it's supposed to be impossible to do this though. They say it traveled instantaneously, but I want to know how they would have known it traveled faster. I don't think they could have used a high speed camera, because as far as I know it still wouldn't measure fast enough. Anyways, what do you guys think about this? This is my original signature. You can't touch this.
August 17, 200718 yr 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." I'm a bit of a junkie on physics, but all that I have learned is from the Science Channel so it's pretty limited. I do know that it's supposed to be impossible to do this though. They say it traveled instantaneously, but I want to know how they would have known it traveled faster. I don't think they could have used a high speed camera, because as far as I know it still wouldn't measure fast enough. Anyways, what do you guys think about this? That's not possible. Ah, this reminds me about the noob on the Runescape forums who was upset with the quest "Cold War" because apparently his grandparents died in the war. :wall:
August 17, 200718 yr I knew it could be done. "Lightspeed has nearly the infinite speed." So 187,000 mph is infinite? :lol: Unless I'm missing something here... "The cry of the poor is not always just, but if you never hear it you'll never know what justice is."
August 17, 200718 yr llamster, its all a distortion. Pluto is five "light hours" away. If you flew to the Pluto instantaneously and took out a telescope and looked back at Earth you would see 5 hours into the past. You would see yourself walking around doing things that took place 5 hours before you went to Pluto. If this technology is true, one could travel 1000 light years away and theoretically look back at earth and see 1000 years into the past. Fascinating indeed
August 17, 200718 yr That's not possible. I wouldn't dismiss it that fast. People used to say it wasn't possible to travel to the moon, but we did it. I think that even if they had actually managed to make something go faster than the speed of light, it would still be pretty impractical as far as travel. And Eintein's theory of relativity is just that, a theory. That doesn't make it true.
August 17, 200718 yr I know that. But what that said was that the astronaut would be literally traveling back in time, which is impossible. Ah, this reminds me about the noob on the Runescape forums who was upset with the quest "Cold War" because apparently his grandparents died in the war. :wall:
August 17, 200718 yr That's not possible. I wouldn't dismiss it that fast. People used to say it wasn't possible to travel to the moon, but we did it. I think that even if they had actually managed to make something go faster than the speed of light, it would still be pretty impractical as far as travel. And Eintein's theory of relativity is just that, a theory. That doesn't make it true. I meant going back in time. Ah, this reminds me about the noob on the Runescape forums who was upset with the quest "Cold War" because apparently his grandparents died in the war. :wall:
August 17, 200718 yr Wow, I like thinking about that - ll, like Trapical said, it's a distortion. It would appear he was there before he left, because the light of him being in one spot couldn't move fast enough to be the same in both conditions. VERY interesting, indeed. me and kashi are running for president in '08.
August 17, 200718 yr Oh, I get it now. He wouldn't actually be going back in time, but it would appear like it. Ah, this reminds me about the noob on the Runescape forums who was upset with the quest "Cold War" because apparently his grandparents died in the war. :wall:
August 17, 200718 yr Oh, I get it now. He wouldn't actually be going back in time, but it would appear like it. Yeah. I was talking about the speed of light from the sun to Earth is 8 seconds or minute (I believe it's minutes), and if the sun were to some how be sucked into a black hole, moved, exploded, etc, we wouldn't know about it for 8 minutes due to the speed of light. me and kashi are running for president in '08.
August 17, 200718 yr if this is true then the theory of time machines = reality? :shock: Proud Retired Council of The GladiatiorzClick here for our website - 110+ F2P Combat Requirements
August 17, 200718 yr if this is true then the theory of time machines = reality? :shock: I can goto the 50s! :D :D :D :D :D To be honest Antrune, you are a bit of a toff really aren't you?
August 17, 200718 yr Time travel is absolutely, undeniably impossible. Period. Ah, this reminds me about the noob on the Runescape forums who was upset with the quest "Cold War" because apparently his grandparents died in the war. :wall:
August 17, 200718 yr if this is true then the theory of time machines = reality? :shock: Perhaps, but so far we see different times not be at them. If they ever make a time machine, I'm buyin a Delorrean and putting it in there. 8-) "The cry of the poor is not always just, but if you never hear it you'll never know what justice is."
August 17, 200718 yr if this is true then the theory of time machines = reality? :shock: Not really. You can't physically go back in time. If you use the Pluto example you could see 5 hours into the past, but if you actually traveled back to earth you would be back at the present, since what you saw on Pluto wasn't the actual physical past, it was just a delay in the signal. It's hard to explain but if you think about it, it makes sense. You can look into the past, but you cannot go to the past Time travel is absolutely, undeniably impossible. Period. Not exactly, you can travel to the future. True going back in time is pretty much impossible, but traveling to the future is possible, but you could never go back to the "present" if you did. Going to the future involves a process that isn't really related to what we were just talking about. In short, if you go fast time slows down. If you ride in a plane all day and your watch was an atomic clock, by the end of the day your watch would be about a second slower than an atomic clock that was on the ground. :uhh: This doesn't have any big implications but if you traveled like 10x the speed of light time really slows down. If you flew in a circle at 10x the speed of light for about a year and then came back to earth, what was 1 year to you and your ship was actually something like 1000 years to everyone else on the earth :-s
August 17, 200718 yr Time travel is absolutely, undeniably impossible. Period. Einstein himself states that it IS possible, and will come in due time.
August 17, 200718 yr Latest "faster than the speed of light" claims wrong (again) Beat me to it. It's another example of the media overhyping a curious experiment, but it's been debunked anyway. The paper in question has no data at all so; although it asserts that it has measured superluminal velocities, it offers nothing to back that up. It also has very little in the way of experimental detail, so we can't determine with certainty what they are measuring, making it very difficult to evaluate their claims. We'll take as close a look as we can, given these limitations. The rest of the article then goes into more detail about the physics. By the way, Einstein was fairly ambiguous about time travel. There's nothing in his theories which explicitly forbids it, but if it was ever to be possible it's unlikely it would take the form of a time machine which could travel anywhere. "Da mihi castitatem et continentam, sed noli modo"
August 17, 200718 yr So if you went into the future, you can't go back to the present? And even if you could, would it create a paradox? SWAG Mayn U wanna be like me but U can't be me cuz U ain't got ma swagga on.
August 17, 200718 yr I understand the concept Trapical, I'm just wondering though. What exactly is an atomic watch? :uhh:
August 17, 200718 yr I understand the concept Trapical, I'm just wondering though. What exactly is an atomic watch? :uhh: A watch that measures time by the vibration of atoms. Ah, this reminds me about the noob on the Runescape forums who was upset with the quest "Cold War" because apparently his grandparents died in the war. :wall:
August 17, 200718 yr As others said before me, it has already been debunked. I don't think anything can go faster than the speed of light. It would undermine all that physics is based on. You can't ever find a place that's nice and peaceful, because there isn't any. You may think there is, but once you get there, when you're not looking, somebody'll sneak up and write "(bleep) you" right under your nose. Try it sometime. I think, even, if I ever die, and they stick me in a cemetery, and I have a tombstone and all, it'll say "Holden Caulfield" on it, and then what year I was born and what year I died, and then right under that it'll say "(bleep) you."
August 17, 200718 yr I understand the concept Trapical, I'm just wondering though. What exactly is an atomic watch? :uhh: Eh, they don't excist really, it was just an example. And atomic clock is the world's most accurate clock, there used to be one of these clocks and it was kept in a bunker in Nevada. All of the world's official times were based off of it. Now there are many such clocks, most major counties have their own, and they are all synchronized with each other to have the exact same time. Saying an "atomic watch" is just saying a watch that is 100% accurate so you can't say it's a second slow just by chance. If an atomic clock (or watch if there was such a thing) is one second slow... that doesn't mean the clock is slow, it means the rest of the world is 1 second in the future (hope that wasn't too confusing)
August 17, 200718 yr I know that. But what that said was that the astronaut would be literally traveling back in time, which is impossible. Time is relative, even if you could go back and look at earth from a distant place, when you got back there time would still be going on... as you left it
August 17, 200718 yr If this is true then almost all advanced formulas or methods in mathematics and physics will be debunked becuase they all have the same variable as a constant "The speed of Light." Which the only constant not being constant our formulas would have to be wrong but for some reason they have still worked, so using the backwards-logic something must be wrong with the experiment. Maybe instead of the deflected beams that had to go around the object being faster than the one that wen't straight. Maybe the straight beam slowed down and the ones on the outside maintained the speed of light. Even if this is the case that means light has either slowed down or sped up which once again means that the speed of light isn't a constant. Any ideas on this? Looking for someone to teach me how to Armadyl farm - pm me10,200th Person to Achieve 99 Magic on 1/10/08
Create an account or sign in to comment