Posted on 05/21/2021 7:15:00 AM PDT by Red Badger
Sailing through the smooth waters of vacuum, a photon of light moves at around 300 thousand kilometers (186 thousand miles) a second. This sets a firm limit on how quickly a whisper of information can travel anywhere in the Universe.
While this law isn't likely to ever be broken, there are features of light which don't play by the same rules. Manipulating them won't hasten our ability to travel to the stars, but they could help us clear the way to a whole new class of laser technology.
Physicists have been playing hard and fast with the speed limit of light pulses for a while, speeding them up and even slowing them to a virtual stand-still using various materials like cold atomic gases, refractive crystals, and optical fibers.
This time, researchers from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California and the University of Rochester in New York have managed it inside hot swarms of charged particles, fine-tuning the speed of light waves within plasma to anywhere from around one-tenth of light's usual vacuum speed to more than 30 percent faster.
This is both more – and less – impressive than it sounds.
To break the hearts of those hoping it'll fly us to Proxima Centauri and back in time for tea, this superluminal travel is well within the laws of physics. Sorry.
A photon's speed is locked in place by the weave of electrical and magnetic fields referred to as electromagnetism. There's no getting around that, but pulses of photons within narrow frequencies also jostle in ways that create regular waves.
The rhythmic rise and fall of whole groups of light waves moves through stuff at a rate described as group velocity, and it's this 'wave of waves' that can be tweaked to slow down or speed up, depending on the electromagnetic conditions of its surrounds.
By stripping electrons away from a stream of hydrogen and helium ions with a laser, the researchers were able to change the group velocity of light pulses sent through them by a second light source, putting the brakes on or streamlining them by adjusting the gas's ratio and forcing the pulse's features to change shape.
The overall effect was due to refraction from the plasma's fields and the polarized light from the primary laser used to strip them down. The individual light waves still zoomed along at their usual pace, even as their collective dance appeared to accelerate.
From a theoretical standing, the experiment helps flesh out the physics of plasmas and put new constraints on the accuracy of current models.
Practically speaking, this is good news for advanced technologies waiting in the wings for clues on how to get around obstacles preventing them from being turned into reality.
Lasers would be the big winners here, especially the insanely powerful variety. Old-school lasers rely on solid-state optical materials, which tend to get damaged as the energy cranks up. Using streams of plasma to amplify or change light characteristics would get around this issue, but to make the most of it we really need to model their electromagnetic characteristics.
It's no coincidence that Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory is keen to understand the optical nature of plasmas, being home to some of the world's most impressive laser technology.
Ever more powerful lasers are just what we need for a whole bunch of applications, from ramping up particle accelerators to improving clean fusion technology.
It might not help us move through space any faster, but it's these very discoveries that will hasten us towards the kind of future we all dream of.
This research was published in Physical Review Letters.
Pingy....................
You mean Warp Speed isn’t possible, Captain James T. Kirk ordered it up many, many times...
WARP speed.
Sort of like Star Trek.
re: “Physicists Have Broken The Speed of Light With Pulses Inside Hot Plasma”
I’m going to take the side of the “house” and bet this is _not_ true ... whether it is an observation error, due to a scaling error in some parameter, or some other you-name-it factor, I’ll bet they did not break the light-speed barrier.
“Hasten us towards the kind of future we have always dreamed of”
Yes...lI’ve always dreamed of a future where light could travel faster than light.
Nope.
Usually my dreams involve Marie Osmond.
re: “From a theoretical standing, the experiment helps flesh out the physics of plasmas and put new constraints on the accuracy of current models. “
QM ‘models’, no doubt ... those are flawed from the get-go.
re: “ever more powerful lasers are just what we need for a whole bunch of applications, from ramping up particle accelerators to improving clean fusion technology. “
*** This means MORE billions spent with NO result (from ‘hot’ fusion efforts). ***
ITER Fusion - an “EATER”
(Bear in mind, as you watch this video, that the SunCell today has actually been proven to work. (Hot) Nuclear Fusion? Not so much, as Krivit shows that ITER *is* a “useless eater”.)
—————A Steven Krivit film —————
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xnikAFWDhNw
In a 1993 hearing, nuclear fusion research representatives convinced the U.S. Congress to spend public money on ITER, the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor. ITER, they said, was the way to fusion energy. Elected officials in Europe, Japan, and the Soviet Union also agreed to fund ITER. Later, China, India, and South Korea joined the partnership.
The evidentiary foundation for ITER, they said, was the Joint European Torus fusion reactor, which, they implied, produced thermal power from fusion at a rate of 66 percent of the reactor input power. That foundation, as it turns out, was flawed.
Sometime around 2045, the $65 billion ITER project is expected to run its final experiments, which should produce, for 500 seconds, a thermal power output rate equivalent to the overall reactor electrical power input rate. Although this result would accomplish its scientific objective, the overall reactor output will be equivalent to a zero net-power reactor.
Instead, the fusion representatives told Congress, the public, and the news media that the ITER reactor would produce millions of Watts of power, ten times the power the reactor would consume. They said it would prove that fusion on Earth is commercially viable.
But the scientists didn’t disclose that the reactor would also consume millions of Watts of electrical power. They didn’t explain that the reactor is designed only for a power gain of the physics reactions, rather than a power gain of the overall reactor. If ITER works as designed, the 70-year research program will end up with a reactor that produces no overall net energy.
ITER, The Grand Illusion: A Forensic Investigation of Power Claims, featuring members of Congress, prominent representatives of the fusion community, and the two former spokesmen of the ITER organization, reveals the details of this story.
I don’t believe it. They use White Supremacist math logic here, the same stuff that they claim 2+2=4 with. Until they can inject some CRT equations into the mix, I’m skeptical.
Light speed limit = scientific consensus.
I agree. White people shouldn't even thinking of this stuff.
What has it ever done to feed a hungry Black child?
I doubt it, the math says that if you can transmit information FTL then you can tap energy from black holes and actually make time run backwards. In a small region. Continuous discontinuties, anyone?
Haha!
Where is the proof?
“smooth waters of vacuum”
I stopped reading right there.
The “group velocity” — a wave — exceeded the speed of light. The individual particle velocity did not.
All right! I may get my death ray gun yet.
Thanks Red Badger. Is there still a sci-fi list? Because, y'know, Ursula K. LeGuin.
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