Faster than a speeding photon...

[California Tanker]

Error - Prolexic

Boxhead boffins claim to have broken the light barrier.

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.

Read on...

NTM

[Crumb]

For instance, an astronaut moving faster than it would theoretically arrive at a destination before leaving.

I don't understand how that follows...

[California Tanker]

Theory of relativity. The closer you get to light speed, the slower time goes for you in comparison to the stationary universe. At light speed, time is instant.

I presume they're just taking it to its logical conclusion. If, indeed, time is a dimension, I don't see why it's impossible. I just can't get my head around it, but I'm sure it's mathematically feasible, just like negative numbers.

NTM

[But]

Here is the paper:

403 Forbidden

Hmm, don't know why the automagical url thing chose that title, but I'll leave it because it's funny.

[Dragar]

They haven't really. Quantum tunneling is a well known phenomenon, which makes it appear that you have moved something faster than the speed of light. You have to be careful about what you mean by something's velocity.

For instance, If I shine a laser-pointer on the moon, it will make a spot (okay, pretend it's a good enough laser that it retains coherence and isn't absorbed by the atmosphere. And we've a good telescope to watch). A flick of my wrist can send that dot to the other side of the moon, and it won't take much to make that spot travel faster than the speed of light.

Does this violate special relativity? No, although it can be tempting to think so. But that 'dot' on the moon is not a real thing; it carries no energy nor information. So it's quite alright for it to move faster than c.

These tunelling experiments are much the same thing. If you're interested, check out this site.

Even if you don't buy that argument, I know this can't have violated causality, because the theory they have verified with these experiments (QED) is built around special relatvity and quantum mechanics combined. And theories that make predictions that contradict their assumptions are not popular in physics.

[Kyuss Apollo]

Ooooh, tachyons!

[viscousmemories]

Dragar! Good to see you.

I read about this last night at Engadget, where they also posted a link to this skeptical article.

[Crumb]

Ah, time dilation.

Thanks for the explanation, Dragar.

[-FX-]

Originally Posted by Dragar

They haven't really. Quantum tunneling is a well known phenomenon, which makes it appear that you have moved something faster than the speed of light. You have to be careful about what you mean by something's velocity.

. That phrase "You have to be careful about what you mean by something's velocity" is so wonderful, I stopped and pondered a bit.

Dragar is long gone, which is sad.

In 1994 Nimtz and Horst Aichmann[5] carried out a tunneling experiment at the laboratories of Hewlett-Packard after which Nimtz stated[5] that the frequency modulated (FM) carrier wave transported a signal 4.7 times faster than light due to the effect of quantum tunneling. Recently, this experiment was successfully reproduced by Peter Elsen and Simon Tebeck and represented at "Jugend forscht" the German pupil competition in Physics 2019.[6] They won the first prize of Rheinland-Pfalz and the Heraeus Prize of Germany.

wtf?

It was later claimed by the Keller group in Switzerland that particle tunneling does indeed occur in zero real time. Their tests involved tunneling electrons, where the group argued a relativistic prediction for tunneling time should be 500-600 attoseconds (an attosecond is one quintillionth of a second). All that could be measured was 24 attoseconds, which is the limit of the test accuracy.[23] Again, though, other physicists believe that tunneling experiments in which particles appear to spend anomalously short times inside the barrier are in fact fully compatible with relativity, although there is disagreement about whether the explanation involves reshaping of the wave packet or other effects.[14][15][24]

If this forum had any scientist still around, what a fascinating debate.

[LarsMac]

I've been annoyed with your tendency to drag old threads up from the bin, but THIS one looks to be quite the little treasure.

And, following up on some of the publications should prove very interesting.
Surely they have made some advancements in the last 16 years.

Thanks.

[-FX-]

Originally Posted by LarsMac

Surely they have made some advancements in the last 16 years.

Thanks.

I'm pretty sure I linked to a more recent source.

And you are quite welcome.