FREAKING HELL! Speed of light broken by European scientists.
- Thread starter K.I.L.E.R
- Start date
uhm........ faster than light?
The article spends a great deal of time on decreasing the speed of light, but almost nothing on the more interesting part, the increasing.
...because there is little practical uses in sight for a light faster than light?
Figures them Europeon speed freaks would be the first to beat the speed of light. 
The speed of light in a vacuum is the only magical number, so I fail to see how slowing down photons and then accelerating them again to any velocity still below c to have any signifigance in terms of "breaking the speed of light". Are you sure you don't mean "braking the speed of light"?
Supposedly the speed of light in a vacuum is the top speed. It suggests these guys have a material that it is faster than that in.Crusher said:
Next step is to somehow apply this to a DeLorean and we should be all set....
This is the actual press release by the university conducting the research:
http://actualites.epfl.ch/index.php?module=Presseinfo&func=view_com&id=288
http://actualites.epfl.ch/index.php?module=Presseinfo&func=view_com&id=288
Neeyik said:
So wouldn't these findings break the Theory of Relativity? Even if its light that goes faster than light?
EPFL said:
...woah...
No - to quote the press release: "They were also able to create extreme conditions in which the light signal travelled faster than 300 million meters a second. And even though this seems to violate all sorts of cherished physical assumptions, Einstein needn't move over – relativity isn't called into question, because only a portion of the signal is affected." In other words, the whole wavetrain doesn't exceed the speed of light so no breakage...BlueTsunami said:
Neeyik said:
ahhh ok, I guess its something though, especially given the fact that they stated they used off the shelf items to achieve this.
Kanyamagufa
Regular
Slowing down light sounds like it could be used in creating some ridiculously cool special effects or light shows...
Sounds like fun. Dunno how they'd do it, but it does sound interesting.
How would you store data in light, though?
Sounds like fun. Dunno how they'd do it, but it does sound interesting.
How would you store data in light, though?
Alpha_Spartan
Regular
How can light be faster than light. That's like saying that x > x.rabidrabbit said:
Light = on, 1Kanyamagufa said:
Light = off, 0
extrapolate.
Alpha_Spartan said:
LOL..thats a true statment..I guess the real question is how does light go faster than its theoretical limit (if it even was a limit, which appearently it wasn't). I guess alot of people rigidly held on to the fact that the speed of light had a max speed that couldn't be broken, even by itself.
Are they talking about phase speed faster than light? In that case it's nothing strange (or new). And it doesn't break any laws, because there isn't actually anything moving fast, it just looks like that.
Think of a an arena where the spectators are doing "The Wave".
Nobody is moving very fast, but the wave can still move around the arena in a few seconds. With some cordination you could even make it go supersonic.
Think of a an arena where the spectators are doing "The Wave".
Nobody is moving very fast, but the wave can still move around the arena in a few seconds. With some cordination you could even make it go supersonic.
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