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scpg02

'We have broken speed of light'

This is really cool and way over my head scientifically.

'We have broken speed of light'

By Nic Fleming, Science Correspondent

Quote:
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.


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/.../earth/2007/08/16/scispeed116.xml
Andre

The relativity theories are based on the absoluteness of the speed of light. No matter what the speed of light emitting obects is or the speed of the observers, the speed of light that they encouter/measure is always constant. This implies that some distortion takes places while moving around, distortion of time and length as well as mass. Not Einstein but Lorentz calculated this distortion or transformation factor to be SQR(1-(V^2/C^2)). V is the relative speed of the source and observer. C is the speed of light.

Now what Einstein did was take these transformations to do some elementary power/energy calcutions and when he stripped all factors at the end of the page it said E=mc^2.

That's the formula that makes nuclear bombs work as well as nuclear powerplants. But it is based on the speed of light being insurpassable due to mass getting infinite large. So if they beat that, then how come that nuclear powerplants still work?
scpg02

well its actually quantum tunneling. If one person goes over the mountain at 75mph and one goes through at 45mph and the one going through arrives first he did not break the 75mph speed limit. Same thing sort of, they didn't go faster they just took a short cut.

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