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'We have broken speed of light'
Telegraph ^ | 8/16/07 | Nick Fleming

Posted on 08/16/2007 10:15:43 AM PDT by LibWhacker

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To: agere_contra
...if gravity propagated at c, then the Earth would be attracted to where the Sun was eight minutes ago...

That's right, it is.

The result would be that the two bodies would develop a couple, and crash into each other.

That's right, given enough time. This has been experimentally observed in neutron stars spiraling toward each other. (Some gamma ray bursts may be from them colliding.)

A full, not-too-technical explanation of the experimental proofs for the very-fast speed of gravity can be found here[link]. Highly recommended.

I'm sorry to have to break it to you, but that essay is wrong. Gravity propagates at the speed of light.
241 posted on 08/16/2007 12:28:50 PM PDT by xenophiles
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To: TommyDale

“Carying this a step further, if they truly “broke the speed of light” then the light arrived before it even left the point of origin. Totally impossible.”


I don’t see why it should be impossible. Might be impossible to measure using light as a measurment medium... but that doesn’t make it impossible.... just unverifiable.

Lets say, for the sake of arguement, that you could make a baseball travel twice the speed of light in a vacum..... and that the baseball would travel from it’s point of origion to a point in space 1 light year distant.

Day 1- Baseball leaves point of origin.

6 Months - Baseball arrives at destination.

1 Year - IMAGE (i.e. light) of baseball leaving the point of origin arrives at destination.

The light didn’t arrive at the destination before it left it’s point of origin.... it arrived before it was DETECTED (at the destination) to have left. HUGE difference..... the former represents a logical paradox, the latter simply represents our limitations of being able to MEASURE a phenominom.


242 posted on 08/16/2007 12:34:56 PM PDT by Grumpy_Mel (Humans are resources - Soilent Green is People!)
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To: xenophiles

Assuming these scientists have it right and I am traveling in excess of the speed of light, where am I? Where I started, where I am going, or what?

And more importantly, how do I stop?


243 posted on 08/16/2007 12:43:09 PM PDT by crazyshrink
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To: Bender2
You put in more thought to one of your posts then I do in a month.

And it shows. ;o)

244 posted on 08/16/2007 12:43:14 PM PDT by Millee (Tagline free since 10/20/06)
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To: 1L
Dumb question alert: why is the speed of LIGHT specifically supposedly the ceiling on speed?

My guess is that it causes problems with the math.

How do you deal with negative/infinite frequencies (which implies negative time) in the real world . The math works better when velocities don't exceed c.

e.g.


245 posted on 08/16/2007 12:50:34 PM PDT by Donald Rumsfeld Fan (NY Times: "fake but accurate")
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To: LibWhacker

But Zephram Cochran did that...I saw it on star trek!!!

This is series!


246 posted on 08/16/2007 12:52:15 PM PDT by Armedanddangerous (Master of Sinanju (emeritus))
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To: 1L

“Dumb question alert: why is the speed of LIGHT specifically supposedly the ceiling on speed?”

It’s is partially due to this equation...

a = F/m (more commonly seen as F=ma)

...and partially due to this equation...

m = m0/sqrt(1 - v^2/c^2)

That’s mass dilation.

So, as an object accelerates close to the speed of light, it gains mass. The more mass it gains, the more energy is required to accelerate the object. If v=c in the second equation, then mass is infinite. Any finite number over infinity is zero, so the acceleration is zero. That is, you can’t go any faster.

Theoretically.

(I believe this can be broken.)


247 posted on 08/16/2007 12:53:01 PM PDT by bolobaby
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To: crazyshrink
Assuming these scientists have it right and I am traveling in excess of the speed of light, where am I? Where I started, where I am going, or what? And more importantly, how do I stop?

If you're serious... the short answer is that you can't travel faster than light. The long answer is that if you did, you could send messages back in time, and it takes a lot of work to devise a theory of the universe in which that can happen without contradictions.
248 posted on 08/16/2007 12:58:38 PM PDT by xenophiles
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To: Grumpy_Mel

Show me a method to detect that arriving light, and give firm proof that it can be done, and I will accept it. Otherwise, I will wait for real proof.


249 posted on 08/16/2007 1:00:55 PM PDT by TommyDale (Never forget the Republicans who voted for illegal immigrant amnesty in 2007!)
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To: TommyDale
The people here were jumping to the conclusion that “faster than the speed of light” meant time travel. Nonsense. Maybe the speed of light can be exceeded, but I would like to see how it is proven. Measuring a delta time between two prisms only 3 feet apart seems far fetched.

No, the clock only has to run backwards (time travel). LOL, I agree it cannot be measured.....mho

250 posted on 08/16/2007 1:27:24 PM PDT by From One - Many (Trust the Old Media At Your Own Risk)
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To: hophead
This throws a wrench into Einsteins theory. Just like Einstein’s theory threw a wrench into someone else theory.

Theories don't exactly throw wrenches into other theories.

The evidence throws a wrench into Theory A, and then Theory B tries to avoid the wrench.

251 posted on 08/16/2007 1:29:00 PM PDT by Erasmus (My simplifying explanation had the disconcerting side effect of making the subject incomprehensible.)
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To: TommyDale

“Show me a method to detect that arriving light, and give firm proof that it can be done, and I will accept it. Otherwise, I will wait for real proof.”


Tommy,

I’m not arguing that the experiment proves that the speed of light was breached. I didn’t conduct the experiment ( not even a scientist) so I couldn’t.

I am just trying to illustrate that something traveling faster then the speed of light does NOT require arriving at a destination before it left the origin (a logical paradox and therefore impossible).

I don’t know of a method for detecting the light nor do I have a proof that it can be done. That doesn’t make it impossible...it just means that it can’t be proven, YET.

Go back in history 2,000 years. There was no method to proves that atoms exist, let alone sub-atomic particals. Does that mean that they were impossible....or just that they couldn’t be observed?

You are right to wait for real proof of something before accepting it. You are wrong to assume that because you don’t have it, that it is impossible or even improbable (IMO).


252 posted on 08/16/2007 1:32:23 PM PDT by Grumpy_Mel (Humans are resources - Soilent Green is People!)
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To: 70times7

Sometimes photons are very particular, and sometimes they wave all requirements.


253 posted on 08/16/2007 1:34:34 PM PDT by Erasmus (My simplifying explanation had the disconcerting side effect of making the subject incomprehensible.)
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To: xenophiles
This has been experimentally observed in neutron stars spiraling toward each other.

Neutron stars (heavy masses) in close orbit throw off huge amounts of gravitons. They spiral in and crash due to conservation of angular momentum.

If the Earth really were attracted to where the Sun was eight minutes ago - well, I admit I was wrong about them crashing into each other. The signs are the wrong way around :0) If gravity propagated outward from the Sun at the speed of light then its mostly radial effect would also have a small transverse component because of the motion of the target. This would act to speed up the Earth in its orbit, sending it slowly away from the sun.

How slowly? The magnitude of the tangential force acting on the Earth would be ES/GS of the Sun’s radial gravitational force, where ES is the earth's orbital speed and GS is the speed of Gravity.

ES = 30 kms/second. If GS = a mere 3 million kms a second then ES/GS is 1 in 10,000. 99.999 % of the Suns gravity would act radially on the Earth - the other fraction would run tangentially. Earth would gradually increase its distance from the sun, doubling the distance in about a millenia.

If GS is infinite, or very very large indeed, then the tangential force falls to zero, in line with observation.

254 posted on 08/16/2007 1:35:09 PM PDT by agere_contra
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To: Grumpy_Mel
arriving at a destination before it left the origin (a logical paradox and therefore impossible).

Time travel is possible. Physics does not balk at a logical paradox.

255 posted on 08/16/2007 1:35:47 PM PDT by RightWhale (It's Brecht's donkey, not mine)
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To: Grumpy_Mel

I’m not arguing, I already said that my comments were to those who were already claiming time travel and other crap. My main
argument is the same as yours. There is currently no way to measure it accurately, and there is certainly no way to prove it with two prisms only 3 feet apart.


256 posted on 08/16/2007 1:37:14 PM PDT by TommyDale (Never forget the Republicans who voted for illegal immigrant amnesty in 2007!)
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To: windcliff
...say they may have breached a key tenet of that theory.

Using photons? Doubtful. I'd like to see their work.

257 posted on 08/16/2007 1:38:14 PM PDT by onedoug
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To: Grumpy_Mel
I am just trying to illustrate that something traveling faster then the speed of light does NOT require arriving at a destination before it left the origin (a logical paradox and therefore impossible).

What you suggest can be proved with pencil and paper, but where one happens to be in space and time (location, distance to and back, etc.), determines the necessary increases C times 9 (for earth to our sun and back) to C^infinity (and beyond). Each time and space location and distance is not equal to the speed necessary to travel to produce a time shift using paper and pencil.....

I'll shut up now, my head hurts....LOL

258 posted on 08/16/2007 1:39:15 PM PDT by From One - Many (Trust the Old Media At Your Own Risk)
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To: LibWhacker

Quantum tunnelling has always been considered to be instantaneous. In fact, I just read that yesterday in one of Michio Kaku’s books. What is the big deal (other than the distance traveled)?


259 posted on 08/16/2007 1:40:25 PM PDT by steve86 (Acerbic by nature, not nurture)
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To: From One - Many

It doesn’t require time travel, any more then centuries ago travelers arriving in the New World before the official notice of thier departure did.

You’re conflating our ability to measure something with the thing itself.


260 posted on 08/16/2007 1:44:43 PM PDT by Grumpy_Mel (Humans are resources - Soilent Green is People!)
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