-- The OLD 911oz Forum (Read Only) --

[able]

Nic Fleming
London Telegraph
Thursday, August 16, 2007

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."

www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2007/08/16/scispeed116.xml
_________________
what if i say i will never surrender?

[dazzassj6]

amazing! we can start warping abouts

[Erik]

maybe Aliens found out about this before us??


_________________
Come to http://vtil.org/bbs/ for more alternative information.

On some positions, Cowardice asks the question, "Is it safe?" Expediency asks the question, "Is it politic?" And Vanity comes along and asks the question, "Is it popular?" But Conscience asks the question "Is it right?" And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but he must do it becuse Conscience tells him it is right. - M. King

[dazzassj6]

if you can travel faster than light then u're actually time travelling forward.

[Y]

Quantum tunnelling is something that physicists have been aware of since the early 1900’s. It was the popular accepted explanation as to why atomic isotopes emitted radiation. The key to understanding this is realising that an atom, at the atomic level is not a ‘material thing’ but more of a ‘region’ where it is more likely for a coalescence of energy to exist. The closer you get to the centre of this region, the more likely this energy density is: think of it as a cloud.
Lets say I hit an atom (informally of course) with a thin sheet of metal (for sake of comprehension). Some of the ‘cloud’ (read likely region for energy to exist) would exist on the ‘other side’ of the sheet. It is possible for the atom therefore to exist on the ‘other side’ of the sheet, and ‘pass through’ it OR ‘tunnel’ through it. This is called quantum tunnelling. [I generalise in saying ‘thin sheet metal’, but the nature and sequence of materials used to induce this tunnelling must be very specific].

Check this out
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6LKjJT7gh9s


This passing through the medium happens instantaneously and does not conform to Einstein’s principle of relativity. Saying that is offcourse assuming that it ‘moves’ at all. Things get weird at this stage.

In the early 1900’s this tunnelling was seen as the means to explain how radiation was emitted from unstable atoms. Now we can exploit this property as a means to visualise material at the nano level with quantum tunnelling microscopy.
Pretty cool stuff. You can actually obtain images of a surface at an atomic level. We use this at uni.

There are other examples of the speed of light being ‘exceeded’ (using the term loosely). Google Cerenkov radiation. Just as cool.
_________________
"In a world filled with darkness, it is better to light a single candle than to curse the darkness."
-- Chinese Proverb

www.youtube.com/concernedcitizen9

[Y]

[rob_mcc]

[Me]

I will believe it when i see it

erm

hold on

if it happens faster than the speed of light i will never see it.....

now theres a problem

seriously though...

Im sure that some race somewhere in the universe has mastered this trick.... but thats another story............. oops can i say that???



_________________
Job DONE