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Germans Challenge Einstein's Theory

Posted August 29, 2007 8:45 AM

From The Australian:

HAMBURG: Two German physicists claim to have done the impossible and broken the speed of light. If their claims are confirmed, they will have proved wrong Albert Einstein's special theory of relativity, which requires an infinite amount of energy to propel an object at more than 299,792km a second. However, Gunter Nimtz and Alfons Stahlhofen, from the University of Koblenz, say they have possibly breached a key tenet of that theory. They say they have conducted an experiment in which microwave photons -- energetic packets of light -- travelled "instantaneously" between a pair of prisms that had been moved from a few millimetres to up to one metre apart.

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#1

Re: Germans Challenge Einstein's Theory

08/30/2007 8:46 AM

I remember seeing a program on some TV show like the Discovery Channel a few years ago in which a physicist claims to have transmitted microwaves through a tuned cavity faster than the other half of a split microwave beam, thereby proving (to himself, at least) that it is possible to break the speed limit of electromagnetic wave propagation.

Has anyone else heard about this prior to reading it here?

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#2
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Re: Germans Challenge Einstein's Theory

08/30/2007 9:15 AM

There was also a lot of discussion, ~ 1950's, re microwave (radar) energy being propagated down a microwave wave guide by reflecting from side-to-side, at an angle, and therefore the line-of-sight speed of propagation was greater than c. This was at White Sands PG.

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#4
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Re: Germans Challenge Einstein's Theory

09/01/2007 2:17 AM

Yes, I saw the same show, but it wasn't a "tuned cavity," but a "tunneling diode" that they used to transmit the electric field.

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#3

Re: Germans Challenge Einstein's Theory

08/30/2007 9:45 AM

I heard somewhere this is a documentary film coming out in 2008 that is quite serious about its subject called "Einstein Wrong - The Miracle Year". I heard it has two distributors already interested in the project.

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