Speed of light no longer the speed limit.

Have we learned nothing from Event Horizon? These scientists are meddling with powers they cannot possibly understand

quote:

---

Scientists have apparently broken the universe’s speed limit.

---

Jimmy John's has been using this technology for a while now.

Interesting but appears an academic exercise only.

Also appears the test sorta "cheated" and the speed of light is still the maximum speed outside of artificial lab conditions to amplify and add energy in a medium that does not exist naturally, only in a lab.

Interesting, but the speed of light is still the speed limit.

A wise man, perhaps Solomon wrote on the topic of knowing.

quote:

---

When I gave my heart to know wisdom and to see the task which has been done on the earth (even though one should never sleep day or night), and I saw every work of God, I concluded that man cannot discover the work which has been done under the sun. Even though man should seek laboriously, he will not discover; and though the wise man should say, "I know," he cannot discover.
Ecclesiastes 8:16?-?17

---

There is so very much that we can never comprehend and this makes life most enjoyable.

quote:

---

In the latest experiment, researchers at NEC developed a device that fired a laser pulse into a glass chamber filled with a vapor of cesium atoms. The researchers say the device is sort of a light amplifier that can push the pulse ahead.

---

quote:

---

Wang said the effect is possible only because light has no mass; the same thing cannot be done with physical objects.

---

quote:

---

Aephraim Steinberg, a physicist at the University of Toronto, said the light particles coming out of the cesium chamber may not have been the same ones that entered, so he questions whether the speed of light was broken.

---

As I said.

They're lucky they didn't rip a hole in spacetime.

It is pretty funny that they boosted something past light speed for what appears to be no reason.

Like, WEEEEEEEEEE!

quote:

---

Have we learned nothing from Event Horizon? These scientists are meddling with powers they cannot possibly understand

---

Where we’re going you don’t need eyes to see...

quote:

---

Wang said the effect is possible only because light has no mass; the same thing cannot be done with physical objects.[

---

The speed of light is the limit for particles with mass. These particles of matter are aberations in the Higgs Field. Higgs bosons assign mass to particles as they move through spacetime.

Photons don't have mass so they're not subject to the same laws as are matter particles. Some experiments, such as the double-slit and entanglement experiments, show that light does not act like matter. The double-slit experiment illustrates the dual nature of photons. They can exist in both a wave and particle form.

Entanglement shows that two photons can apparently transmit information across unlimited distances instantly. Many scientists are saying this is because the two photons don't travel at all relative to each other. This is certainly counter-intuitive to what we observe but it seems obvious that the other dimensions of spacetime are in effect and presently beyond our ability to detect, or even understand them.

This may be happening in the experiment in the OP. Photons may be using the other dimensions to either travel across the cesium vapor or could be transmitting information through the spacetime field it lies in. Photons are apparently not restricted at all by the Higgs Field and the bosons that regulate ot.

quote:

---

I maintain my contention that the theory (or law) of faster than speed of light travel has not been violated by the experiment.

---

Nothing in my post says that I'm in disagreement with you. I don't think photons in the experiment broke their speed limit either.

Here's a better-worded statement from Physics:

quote:

---

I think [some people] may be confusing group velocity and phase velocity. The thing that we usually call the "speed of light" refers to the group velocity - how fast light can carry information from A to B.

When you look closely at the waves in a medium other than a vacuum (which is "no medium"), a packet of finite duration can be thought of as having a mixture of frequencies present. If the medium is dispersive, not all those frequencies travel at the same speed. When you put them all back together, it looks as though there is a wave traveling faster than c. However, when you look at the envelope, it always travels at a speed =c.

---

WaPo has a better article.

quote:

---

Although the pulse in the new experiment clearly exceeded the speed of light in a vacuum, it did not convey any information--thus leaving intact the belief of virtually all experts that no meaningful signal or energy can exceed light speed.

---

Einstein's theories of special and general relativity are constantly challenged but have never been altered. This experiment doesn't do that either.