Speed of Light Broken?
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fredofmars
SOC-12
2300 FTL drives, here we come!
Agreed that the article is too short to be useful.
Disagree that the results are meaningless. If this can, in fact send something FTL, even if the only datum is that something was sent FTL, the ability to send something FTL establishes two key elements:
1) C is not the universal speed limit
2) Any process of sending something can be a method of sending data, if that sending is reliable as to speed and frequency (neither of which is established in the article.)
point 1 is the key. It opens many doors for speculation...
Disagree that the results are meaningless. If this can, in fact send something FTL, even if the only datum is that something was sent FTL, the ability to send something FTL establishes two key elements:
1) C is not the universal speed limit
2) Any process of sending something can be a method of sending data, if that sending is reliable as to speed and frequency (neither of which is established in the article.)
point 1 is the key. It opens many doors for speculation...
Andrew Boulton
The Adminator
One of my favorite examples of how easy it is to make "something" FTL but not actually be useful for transmitting information is here:
http://gregegan.customer.netspace.net.au/APPLETS/20/20.html
(Greg Egan is an amazing SF author, highly recommended.)
More mundan examples are long scissors (if you had blades 1ly long and used rockets along the length to synchronize the closing, the contact point would travel FTL) or just scanning a laser across a sufficiently distant surface (e.g. across the face of the moon in < 1/100th of a second).
In all cases, the effect is FTL, but it's not useful for transmitting information.
http://gregegan.customer.netspace.net.au/APPLETS/20/20.html
(Greg Egan is an amazing SF author, highly recommended.)
More mundan examples are long scissors (if you had blades 1ly long and used rockets along the length to synchronize the closing, the contact point would travel FTL) or just scanning a laser across a sufficiently distant surface (e.g. across the face of the moon in < 1/100th of a second).
In all cases, the effect is FTL, but it's not useful for transmitting information.
In both those cases, nothing is being sent, per se, an effect happens but there is no "sending" happening, as the effect is actually a series of localized observations of local interactions.
The critique, however, gives enough data to discredit the original source, if credible itself.
The critique, however, gives enough data to discredit the original source, if credible itself.
squimbolio
SOC-1
i read the article. scant help there. But if microwave photons 'travelled' instantaneously any distance, well, they didn't really travel at all, did they? There was never a point in time when the photons occupied a point real space between their origin and destination. Therefore, you can't identify causally one photon from the next, and saying it travelled is not correct. You can't prove it 'jumped' either - in fact you can't really identify a photon that is acting according to the usually observed models either. I'm gonna check this out more thoroughly.
as to c being the speed limit, Einstein took it as a priori, because nothing has been observed to move faster than it. It may turn out to be more of a statement about what we can know rather than what can happen.
as to c being the speed limit, Einstein took it as a priori, because nothing has been observed to move faster than it. It may turn out to be more of a statement about what we can know rather than what can happen.
squimbolio
SOC-1
i found this, it has a little more meat to it.
http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20000610/fob7.asp
http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20000610/fob7.asp
