[Lightknight]

Has anyone else heard of the breaking of the speed of light that was announced yesterday?

It, of course, has tons of interesting applications. But what is the news thus far?

[DaGeek]

Whoa... Bizarre.

[Lightknight]

Has anyone else been hearing about this? It's epic news if true.

[Andrew]

I have read two news articles on it, and it's bogus, as far as I am concerned.

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post...-think-so.html

[bowstaff981]

Weird. So I could go back to cpf, where things were less confusing, before I leave this one?

[JerryLove]

Only passingly. There's apparently a rebuttal on the conclusions... but I cannot comment without more reading.

If relativity did get broken (something Quantum predicts is possible by moving through extra-dimensional space), it would be about the first time QM came out on top in a QM-vs-GR competition.

[Lightknight]

To Jerry: Definitely.

Though I could think of a few rebuttals myself. Namely the concept of arriving before leaving. Perhaps Simultaneous leaving and arrival, but not arrival before the leaving.

If this is true, then the applications (although probably well after my lifetime) should become astounding.

[JerryLove]

Originally Posted by Lightknight

If this is true, then the applications (although probably well after my lifetime) should become astounding.

Unless they arrive before they are developed

[Lightknight]

Hurrah!

[+SEAL+]

Perhaps they've already arrived?

Anyway, interesting thought.

[nate95366]

Though I could think of a few rebuttals myself. Namely the concept of arriving before leaving. Perhaps Simultaneous leaving and arrival, but not arrival before the leaving.

I think the "arriving before leaving" concept was based on a misconception of the journalist who wrote the article. Even if something is travelling faster than light, it still takes time to get there. We could talk about the relative observations of observers and go around and around about what they would observe in a "faster than light" system, but in an objective frame of reference, nothing happens before it happens.

Nate

[cfkeeper800]

interesting... well... it doesn't really make sense. How'd they come up with that much energy anyways? still... Yeah they wouldn't be there before they left, it would take them time... Like light could hypothetically go around the world like 6 times/second. So going faster would be like 7-8 times a second... But anyways, if they did, optimistically, that would be the biggest discovery since a split atom...

[Lightknight]

Originally Posted by nate95366

I think the "arriving before leaving" concept was based on a misconception of the journalist who wrote the article. Even if something is travelling faster than light, it still takes time to get there. We could talk about the relative observations of observers and go around and around about what they would observe in a "faster than light" system, but in an objective frame of reference, nothing happens before it happens.

Nate

I generally adopt the story involving two doors closing on a train (how it's possible to see one door close before the other from one standpoint while seeing them both close from another). I say, if a Hobbo is sitting on a train with his feet hanging out a door and the doors begin to close at different speeds so he pulls his feet inside. But while he pulls them inside before the door they were hanging out of closes, he does this after the one behind him closes. So, if a person is at the standpoint where they see both doors close at the same time, do they see feet being chopped off? If that person then goes to check on the Hobbo, does he have any feet?

*sigh*, there's something wrong with it.

Originally Posted by cfkeeper800

interesting... well... it doesn't really make sense. How'd they come up with that much energy anyways? still... Yeah they wouldn't be there before they left, it would take them time... Like light could hypothetically go around the world like 6 times/second. So going faster would be like 7-8 times a second... But anyways, if they did, optimistically, that would be the biggest discovery since a split atom...

They didn't. It didn't require as much energy as Einstein said it would. If they are being honest, Einstein was simply wrong. This would indeed be a major discovery/achievement.

[BillSPrestonEsq]

Originally Posted by Lightknight

They didn't. It didn't require as much energy as Einstein said it would. If they are being honest, Einstein was simply wrong. This would indeed be a major discovery/achievement.

If they are being honest and their data is correct. Thats a pretty big if at this point as the experiment would have to be repeatable with consistent results. There are always times where experimental data comes out strangely for unaccounted for reasons.

[nate95366]

Originally Posted by Lightknight

I generally adopt the story involving two doors closing on a train (how it's possible to see one door close before the other from one standpoint while seeing them both close from another). I say, if a Hobbo is sitting on a train with his feet hanging out a door and the doors begin to close at different speeds so he pulls his feet inside. But while he pulls them inside before the door they were hanging out of closes, he does this after the one behind him closes. So, if a person is at the standpoint where they see both doors close at the same time, do they see feet being chopped off? If that person then goes to check on the Hobbo, does he have any feet?

This would be a good illustration of what I was talking about when I said:

Originally Posted by nate95366

We could talk about the relative observations of observers and go around and around about what they would observe in a "faster than light" system, but in an objective frame of reference, nothing happens before it happens.

Nate