Warp Factor 1.1

Gonz

Gonz

molṑn labé
Staff member
So much for a speed limit.

By Ker Than LiveScience Staff Writer
posted: 19 August, 2005 3:41 pm ET]

Researchers in Switzerland have succeeded in breaking the cosmic speed limit by getting light to go faster than, well, light.

Or is it all an illusion?

Scientists have recently succeeded in doing all sorts of fancy things with light, including slowing it down and even stopping it all together. Now a team at the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland is controlling the speed of light using simple off-the-shelf optical fibers, without the aid of special media such as cold gases or crystalline solids like in other experiments.

“This has the enormous advantage of being a simple, inexpensive procedure that works at any wavelength,” said Luc Thévenaz, lead author of the study detailing the research.

Using a technique called Stimulated Brillouin Scattering, the researchers were able to slow down or ratchet up the speed of light like the gas pedal on a car. They succeeded in reducing the speed of light by almost a factor of 4 (although that’s still plenty fast at 46,500 miles per second), but even more dramatically, the team was also able to speed up the speed of light.

Light in a vacuum travels at approximately 186,000 miles per second, but a popular misconception is that, according to Einstein’s special theory of relativity, nothing in the universe can travel faster than this speed.

This seeming paradox can be resolved because a pulse of light is actually made up of many separate frequency components, each of which moves at their own velocities. This is known as the pulse’s phase velocity. If all the frequency components have the same phase velocity, then the overall pulse will also appear to move at that velocity.

However, if the components have different phase velocities, then the pulse’s overall velocity will depend on the relationships between the velocities of the separate components. If the velocities differ, the pulse is said to be moving at the group velocity.

By tweaking the relationship between phase velocities, it’s possible to adjust the group velocity and create the illusion that parts of the pulse are traveling faster than the speed of light.

One area where such an advance could be enormously beneficial is in the telecommunications industry.

Although information can be channeled through fiber optics at the speed of light, it can’t be processed at this speed because with current technologies, light signals must be transformed into much slower electrical signals before they are useful.

Thevenaz’s technique would essentially allow light to be processed with light without a costly electrical conversion.

The group’s research will be published in an August 22nd issue of the journal Applied Physics Letters.
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Live Science
 
create the illusion that parts of the pulse are traveling faster than the speed of light
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Oh well, don't stop trying.
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unclehobart said:
I always thought that the speed of light as a maximum was a crock of shit. Theres always ...something.
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I can actually explain (more or less) why it is the maximum (in this universe), but I don't feel like typing that much.
Short and dirty:
Two important questions arise if you pass the speed of light:
1. What is the square root of -1?
2. Where will you get the infinite energy required to accelerate infinite mass?

These are hardly the only stumbling blocks, just the biggest ones (IMO). I personally prefer the idea of not exceeding light speed but rather dropping out of "normal" space at one point and dropping back in to it at another "far, far away." :D The problem with that solution is there is no real evidence that "normal" space has an outside or if it does that we can use it in this way. I still suspect that this, rather than faster-than-light travel is the solution, if one exists.
 
I agree with Unc. 100 years ago man couldn't fly. 50 years ago man couldn't surpass the speed of sound. 20 years ago there was no Starbucks, Creativity abounds when demanded.
 
Gonz said:
I agree with Unc. 100 years ago man couldn't fly. 50 years ago man couldn't surpass the speed of sound. 20 years ago there was no Starbucks, Creativity abounds when demanded.
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I completely fail to see Starbucks as an advance of any kind, but I take your point.

The difference is that 100 years ago, everyone involved understood the physics of flying, the rest was simply r&d. Same with breaking the sound barrier. The people who said it couldn't be done were not the people who understood the problem. Those people knew it could be done, understood the science of how to do it and did. The speed of light, on the other hand, the physics (as we understand it today) says it can't be done. The math gets really weird and the energy required becomes very nearly infinite. It's nothing like the sound "barrier." That was a stability problem. even piston engined planes could make the energy to pass the speed of sound. You just couldn't get a propellor to function at the rpms needed to go that fast. Even if, however, you have a limitless energy source (all the sun's output is a drop in the ocean) you still have to figure out what happens with the square root of -1. An interesting suggestion I've heard is that all the physics reverses and it takes that same infinite amount of energy to drop back below the speed of light. I am in no way saying it can't be done, but unlike flight or the speed of sound, no one has any real idea of how it can be done. :shrug: The case for parallel realities (or stepping outside normal space) is not much better, but at least the math supports it.

Don't get me wrong, I think we need to discover the solution and I hope we will. Thinking that it's another case of discovering flight or breaking the sound barrier shows a lack of understanding. I don't personally think we'll learn how to do it unless we first discover the unified field equations, and we're a lot farther from that than most people think.

BTW, do you know what the square root of -1 is?
 
Luis G said:
i or j ;)
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Is that why they say 'i ,i captain' on Star Trek whenever they go to warp? ... Its just Sulu expressing the mathematical notation for the sqaure root of -1 ... erm.. squared back up again. Thats warp!
 
in fact, since every number has 2 square roots, then it's worth mention -i (or -j) too ;)
[/smart-aleck]
 
I'm no physic, but here's what I know and think. When you reach speeds close to that of the light, your time changes (everything else goes faster, or you go slower). I assume that when reaching speed of light your time stops while the rest is moving, in a relation given by 1/0 and you might end up in an uncertain time (probably millions or trillions of years in the future).

When going faster than light, well........I believe it will be possible someday or at least someday it will become theoretically possible, but I can't even imagine what would happen.
 
Luis G said:
I'm no physic, but here's what I know and think. When you reach speeds close to that of the light, your time changes (everything else goes faster, or you go slower). I assume that when reaching speed of light your time stops while the rest is moving, in a relation given by 1/0 and you might end up in an uncertain time (probably millions or trillions of years in the future).

When going faster than light, well........I believe it will be possible someday or at least someday it will become theoretically possible, but I can't even imagine what would happen.
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Physicist is the word you're looking for there, Luis. Neither am I but I used to think I would be so I'm an interested amatuer. My problem with FTL is it completely ignores the physical laws as we understand them. It's certainly possible we're wrong, but they work so well above the quantum level. OTOH, stepping around normal space (several theories allow for the possiblility) means you never have to actually approach the speed of light. No imaginary numbers involved, no time dilation, no infinite energy supply required. I won't live to see the solution (unless extra-terrestrial civilization brings the secret) and I doubt you will. I think we're just too far away from reconciling quantum and macro physics.
 
For the record...never been there, never will go there, don't drink coffee & even if I did it ain't worth (fill in exuberant amount here).

It just came to mind as I was typing. :shrug:
 
Gonz said:
For the record...never been there, never will go there, don't drink coffee & even if I did it ain't worth (fill in exuberant amount here).

It just came to mind as I was typing. :shrug:
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I've been twice, once to see what all the shouting was about (still don't know) and once to meet someone who was offering me a job (cost him almost twenty bucks for me to turn him down).

BTW, I.C. Caramel from Panera Bread. It's got espresso (kind of coffee) in it but it's really dessert. You should try it.
 
It's all theoretical math anyways. If an object reaches infinite mass as it approaches the speed of light, and light 'particles' are going at that speed, then light particles MUST have infinite mass.


When was the last time that a truck got flattened by a light particle because it got let out in the sun?

There's got to be an error in computation somewhere...a point at which the calculations change.
67f5e88da5c023b4bf0592bd6379951e.png
*

*Yes...i know that it's erronious, but it's fun to see :)
 
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