Light Breaking Speed of Light?

Nicely put. My understanding is that the term "Spin" was chosen because the external magnetic effect is equivalent to a current going in a circle. In all other respects, I believe the term to be misleading. Workers on subsequently named quantum effects apparently recognised the dangers, and used terms like "strangeness", that carried no false analogous information.

Fyz

Sorry I have just seen it refers to New Scientist. Will go and have a look.

There are two interpretations - one being that what has been reported is nothing new, but the mode of expression implies something different from what actually happened. I cover this possibility in my last paragraph below.

If (and it's a very large if) the reporting represents anything significant, and also if it is accurate, the closest thing know is quantum entanglement, where the behaviour of particles that have been closely related continues to be related in the same way even though they have been physically separated. It's by no means the only quantum effect where results appear to travel faster than the speed of light - this is an essential feature of so-called quantum field collapse, as exemplified in split-beam experiments where photons do indeed appear at just one of two detectors. It has been claimed that quantum entanglement could enable communication faster than the speed of light, but SFIK the jury is still out on this one - there being a heap of unanswered questions.

To be honest, the information aspect seems wrong to me. But then I'm not familiar with the details, having spent much of my working so-called career in measurements and as jobbing physicist/engineer. On this basis, my speculations are no better than the next man's, but I would not be surprised to discover that some combination of the necessary preparation time and/or the time for fields to be set up means that the total time from decision as to what should be communicated to arrival of data always exceeds the transit time of light (analogous to the light transmission time in quantum collapse).

The other thing is that, if they mean light tunnelling without additional entanglement, the probability reduces extremely rapidly with separation unless the gap is filled with a material of very similar index to the prisms. Another name for this is 'frustrated total internal reflection'. I've worked on this at separations of up to a few wavelengths, and there is an apparent anomaly, that the "tuneled" transmission time is less than the sum of the times through the prism material and the vacuum. However, for the situations I've calculated, the total time has always exceeded the time transmission would take through a vacuum.

Fyz

A supplementary note on refractive index:

This is really background for the "rapid" transmission of true frustrated total internal reflection (without entanglement).

Refractive index effects are generally treated as linear phenomena. But in reality they depend on the generation of non-linear signals some of which propagate through the medium at the speed of light in vacuum. Thus, there will be precursors (see "Sommerfield and Brillouin precursors" if you wish to follow this up) to the usually observed light that arrive "early". The interfaces of the prisms will modify this non-linear term, so the wave in the prisms is actually making up the time that is apparently not needed to cross the "tunnelling" boundary.

Another effect associated with tunnelling is that the totally internally reflected wave is slightly delayed, although generally not by quite as much as the non-reflected wave appears to be advanced. It could be that this is the dominant effect being seen here, however.

N.B. that, although linear theories correctly predict the 'zero' transit time, I think they lead to an apparent paradox.

Fyz

N.B. I just read the actual report. The distance between the prisms is given as a metre, so this is neither frustrated total reflection nor standard tunnelling. If accurately measured and reported, it would be the first case of communication at greater than the speed of light. I find it hard to believe that this would be quantum entanglement, because the scale and structure of a prism is such that you would expect such correlations to be lost in the time it would take to move them. SFIK, that would leave some entirely new and unpredicted phenomenon

Sounds kind of like air pssing across an airplane wing. The air on the top has to go faster because of the longer shape of the wing to meet up with the air that passed on the underside of the wing. As a result there is a reduced pressure on top of the wing which combined with the greater pressure under the wing generates lift. Bernoulli was his name. Perhaps I should have just said kind of like Bernoulli's Principal but with photons.

Hmmm...I wonder if you shot photons at an airplane wing, would the ones on top have to go faster to arrive at the same time as the ones that passed under. This might actually be a cool experiment with incredible unexpected results. If you made an airplane with a photon generator in front of the wing, pointed aft, shooting photons aft then the photon generator would provide thrust and the photons splitting to go above and below the wing would create lift and voila we have a light powered aircraft. I think the concept is fantastic. We just need a little engineering. Anyone know where I'd find an engineer?

"reduced pressure on top of the wing which combined with the greater pressure under the wing generates lift."

You could be right, if Photons had "Rest Mass" and sufficient velocity of flow commensurate with density of the Photonic "Medium" to provide positive "Lift" for the load.Pressure implies Kgf/Cm2, meaning a quantity of rest mass per unit area, which it does not possess.

Yes, for a while, the photons flowing over the wing are going faster than C!

similarly, if the photon generator, was looking ahead (forwards), the photons would have the combined velocities of the plane (Carrier) and the velocity of light, which again means faster than C!

BTW, can any one tell me what is the type of wave that is being referred to?

No... The ones going over the top of the wing would be frequency shifted toward the blue, but they would not be going faster - Ya gotta listen to the E-Man!!!

Yep, it don't matter who, what, when, where, why, two hoots or anything for that matter the speed of light the speed of light and it don't change for anybody.

Thank you, masu. You are a gentleman and a scholar!

Too you as well, which makes us the only two left!

So what happens if fireflies on a particular planet are sucked into a black hole? Because they can fly, they can escape the event horizon and that means that their light is traveling faster than light... Especially if you stick firecrackers up their bums!

Interesting concept, but wouldn't the fireflies evaporate into Hawking radiation and escape from the black hole leaving only the light orbiting the black hole in perpetuity.

Can one ever truly get rid of flies?

Have you tried zips?

I was just thinking the same thing. Now that scary serendipity on a global scale!

P.S. Wouldn't your avatar be in some difficulty if we could?

They certainly can be buggers to get rid of hence the great Australian salute and the swaggies hat, but we did manage to make some inroads with the introduction of dung beetles.

Aephraim Steinberg, a quantum optics expert at the University of Toronto, Canada, doesn't dispute Nimtz and Stahlhofen's results. However, Einstein can rest easy, he says. The photons don't violate relativity: it's just a question of interpretation.

Steinberg explains Nimtz and Stahlhofen's observations by way of analogy with a 20-car bullet train departing Chicago for New York. The stopwatch starts when the centre of the train leaves the station, but the train leaves cars behind at each stop. So when the train arrives in New York, now comprising only two cars, its centre has moved ahead, although the train itself hasn't exceeded its reported speed.

Above is something I found on the web which helps me picture what's going on. Makes sense in my mind anyway.

Hi Jorrie,

Looks like we posted this one independently. My bad.

I saw a show about this a few years ago. I don't think it's "light faster than light." Rather it's electrons faster than light...

The experimental apparatus consisted of a high frequency radio beam crossing about a foot of space, and a large tunneling diode that crossed the same distance. When the identical signal was sent through both paths, the tunneling electrons made the jump about 2.45 times faster than the speed of the radio signal.

One scientist commented that this did not violate Relativity because no information could be sent this way. The German scientist's answer was to plug his Walkman into the device. While the sound of Mozart was a little noisy, you could still hear the music. To which the German Scientist added "If that's not information, I don't know what is."

Yes, the sceptic chose the wrong grounds for the argument. For both frustrated internal reflection and electron tunnelling, my understanding is that the measured phases only arise after the appropriate conditions have been established, and these conditions only travel at the speed of light. It's relatively straightforward to set up an argument for the present (prism) experiment (for example my post #33), and SFIK the full equations would support this. Electron tunnelling is more complex, but I can't see how any of the additional features change the principles.

BTW, there is no difficulty in principle to set up a proper experiment to measure the data delay with a distance of a metre and a wavelength of a few mm. You'd need a data rate approaching the Gb/s region (for a reliable delay measure in the presence of noise level) and there is no reason to use anything other than a pseudo-random pattern that is less than an order of magnitude longer than the delay*. If Dr. Nimtz were to perform such an experiment and find that the "missing metre" was indeed indicated, I would be sufficiently astonished to sacrifice my anonymity and visit his labs (and even at my own expense!) to see if I could find the experimental flaw. (Unfortunately, I no longer have ready access to the appropriate equipment for the appropriate Friday afternoon checks just now)

Fyz

*A sequence of well-spaced regular pulses should also show the effect, but is liable to too much argument from people who don't want to believe the result (or experimental error on the other hand)

Jorrie, on a totally non-scientific platform, I have always believed that the speed of light in a vacuum was an artificial limit that we simply didn't understand how to exceed. When we see this immense cosmos, with all the galaxies, plus the "local" star systems in the Milky Way, why would it make sense to limit our space travel to our own, largely uninhabitable, solar system? Historically, science fiction writers have "created" such scientific things as nuclear weapons, lasers and "warp drives". Why should we limit our vision to things that fall into the "much lower" speeds than c? Hyper-light speed should just be one the "other side" of things that we don't yet understand. One could argue that many eons in the future, when our sun begings it's death spiral, there "must" be an avenue to move human civilization to a new, younger world.

Partical separator theory...

On a universal time scale, humanity isn't even a blip on a cosmological radar screen. What makes you think we'll even be around "many eons in the future"?

-John

Hi Cardio07.

I think Fyz answered your question competently.

I would be very surprised if Einstein was wrong on the fundamental concept that the speed of light is the same in every inertial frame of reference and that nothing can exceed that. It may however be a pleasant surprise...

This does not rule out humans migrating to faraway new 'worlds' though. All we need is a compact source of efficient and very controllable energy (and some good shields from cosmic rays and other deep space troubles) and we can travel to distant galaxies. Time dilation^[1] is the key. We can go quite far in a single generation.

Jorrie

[1] See my eBook chapter on Linear Acceleration, freely down-loadable from here, for calculations on how far one can go...

Speed of LIGHT. Please enlighten me on what is the COLOUR of light that people are referring to as LIGHT. Is it WHITE light or one of the seven VIBGYOR constituents-each with its own frequency? Isn't Speed (Velocity) = Wavelength X Frequency (Oscillations/second).If that is so, won't each colour of light have different velocity, because of the difference in both the parameters of WAVE length and FREQUENCY? Of course, White light is a complex of VIBGYOR- so are we looking at the AVERAGE speed of the different COLOURS as the SPEED OF LIGHT?

So, which SPEED of LIGHT are we referring to? Further, what about all the other phenomena ULTRA Violet and IFRA Red- what about their speeds?

Any pressure below atmospheric is what we understand as Vacuum.Is there absolute vacuum in SPACE? Can light travel in Vacuum if there is no MEDIUM (such as particles-matter) for the LIGHT WAVES to be propagated?

Hi D.RAMAKRISHNA NAIDU,

• Isn't Speed (Velocity) = Wavelength X Frequency (Oscillations/second).If that is so, won't each colour of light have different velocity, because of the difference in both the parameters of WAVE length and FREQUENCY?

Provided the media through which the light or electromagnetic radiation is traveling remains constant the speed is not dependant on the frequency or colour of the light. The equation

is not violated since the wavelength and frequency are inversely proportional to each other. In other words as the frequency increases the wavelength decreases and vice versa. The end result of multiplying the two then becomes a constant which remains the same regardless of the frequency or wavelength.

When we refer to the speed of light at 299,792,458 metres per second we are speaking of the speed through a perfect vacuum infinitely distant to any mass. Since this is impossible the measured speed of light will always be less than the unaffected

or theoretical speed of light.

Dear MASU

Thank you.

"multiplying the two then becomes a constant".

Is this a requirement for the CONSERVATION of energy?

Further, the very passage of a wave, at any point of TIME/SPACE will alter the ambience and will it not affect the following wave? Is this the changing Magnetic field and/or the changing electrical field that is being referred by Maxwell?

High regards

D.Ramakrishna Naidu

What if some of the Photons refuse to follow the rules?

Can the act of focusing Protons at a target actually induce some of the energy to be drawn or pulled from the target or targets? What if most people will not accept the results?

As if the fabric of space is real-time, at every level, and only our un-refined instruments are to blame for the mis-understanding, of what appears to be obvious.

The simultanious discovery of scientific observations seems more likely, when this phenom is realized at a human level. Can a thought or visualisation occure in two minds, within miliseconds of each other, across space?

In my opinion; "Revealed Light to overcome...", is a more accurate definition of what these scientists have occomplished.

They invented "Space Goggles".

Um...yeah, sure. Rogue photons really chap my ass.

Did some undesirable types get hold of a high power laser?

(Yea, it sounded really impressive, but I didn't understand a word of it.)

Hi Moto,

• What if some of the Photons refuse to follow the rules?

I think you have a basic misunderstanding of what is meant by "Laws of Physics". They are not the same as social laws and can't jut be ignored because you find them unacceptable or don't like them.

The "Laws of Physics" are actually a form of documentation that describes observed physical events and properties. The "Laws of Physics" are in themselves not the constraining factor but rather the characteristic of the universe are the limiting factors, the "Laws of Physics" are just the description of the physical constraints.

So, what does this all mean? Well, first off the structure of the entire universe is controlled by these constraints and the very existence of matter, energy, space and time are what creates these constraints. However, it is possible that our interpretation of the physics are incorrect, but the more we learn and test out the physics behind General and Special Relatively the more it seems to in the most part be correct.

If it were possible to be able to break the speed of light it would certainly mean we have made some pretty fundamental mistakes in the way we believe the universe works and it would certainly mean a major rethink of how much of the physics works.

We can also be certain that as Physicist? eluded to, there would be some extremely serious problems associated with near or faster than light travel. There may be other but here is what I see would be the most critical problems:

1. Increase in Mass: As your velocity increases your mass increases. This has been measured and is known to be a real problem and according to relativity your mass would become infinite at the speed of light. Even it this were found to be incorrect and your mass did not become infinite it would increase dramatically making accelerating up to and past the speed of light really difficult and your fuel consumption would go up so rapidly that the only people left in the universe with any money would be the people you purchased your fuel from.
2. Increase in Gravity: As your mass increases the distortion you create in space and time increases and an infinite or near infinite mass would result in the entire universe being attracted to you. This could be a bit of a problem because getting hit in the back of the head by the occasional black hole and a few white and red dwarfs could really mess up your day.
3. Time Dilation: This could be both a plus and a minus but as your speed, in relation to your point of origin and destination, increases the rate at which time passes diminishes. At the speed of light time dilates to nothing and as a result all the physics that involves time becomes undefined. Basically what would happen at light speed is undefined and the results of tome dilating out of existence are unknown but you can bet you bottom dollar they are not going to be good for you health and longevity. It also means that centuries and even millennia pass at your destination and origin while only seconds pass to you. This could make paying your crew horrendously expensive and by the time you add in compound interest you crew would have all the money in the universe and everybody else would be bankrupt.
4. Avoiding Obstacles: When you get near the speed of light you will have some serious problems avoiding object that get in the way. Because everything else is limited to the speed of light you would have no way of detecting if something was in your path before you hit it. Hitting something the size of a paint flake in the space shuttle can cause serious damage at speeds of 7 kms^-1 so hitting something like a planet or star at 300 Mms^-1 wouldn't be trivial or superficial and would really get your maintenance engineers upset not to mention what it would do to your insurance premiums. It would also get the inhabitants of any planet that managed to get in your way pretty pissed off as well.
5. Getting Cooked by Gama Radiation: Doppler shift means the wavelength of any light approaching you from behind will become infinite while light approaching from your direction of travel would decrease to zero. That means you would be bombarded with ultra high energy photons or in other words gamma rays. If you didn't figure out some way of protecting yourself, spacecraft and crew from these would result in you being done like a dinner before you got out of the solar system let alone to the next star or galaxy.

Ok, I have been having a little fun, but regardless of that there would definitely be some serious problems and all the testing and work done so far seems to show that the speed of light is indeed the speed limit of the universe.

In my view, the most serious is the requirement for driving with infinite energy to achieve the speed of light unless the rest-mass is identically zero - and negative energy (don't know what that means) if you exceed it.

Hi Fyz.

Nature apparently has a way to allow massive objects to achieve and (perhaps) exceed the local speed of light - when free-falling through the event horizon of a black hole. One of the problems with this statement is how to define the speed of light in that region, especially inside the event horizon.

Jorrie

Hi Jorrie

I've obviously missed some significant physics, because my understanding is that nothing particularly special happens at the event horizon of a black hole. If the hole is large enough that the gravitational field can be regarded as locally uniform*, I can't see any reason that you would notice anything strange happening at all. Light and matter all accelerate uniformly, and you wouldn't even know. Even well inside the event horizon, I can also see no reason why behaviour should be strange; of course there will be ultra-high velocity material, but you only know about that when it meets other material with a different velocity.

Even if there were an observable asymmetry, wouldn't light falling through that same event horizon continue to overtake matter?

Fyz

*In principle, with a large enough black hole, the gravitational field could be lower than we experience here on Earth.

For what it's worth, one of the real nasty parts of a black hole is the gravitational differential. Let me digress.

Lightning carries a lot of power! So, let's say that you're standing in an open field during a lightning storm. Nearby is a tree. You remember what everyone has told you about solitary trees in a lightning storm, so you wisely get no closer than 50 feet from the tree. Suddenly the tree is hit by lightning, and you drop over dead. Here's what happened...

When tree got hit, your right foot was closer to the tree than your left foot. As the (invisible) high voltage field spreads out across the ground, the field is so high that the difference in voltage between where your right and left foot are is large enough (say, 500 Volts) to induced a 500 Volt current up your right leg, through your body, and back down through your left leg. In the process, stopping your heart. Boom! Dead! Just because of the electrical differential so close to the point of impact.

Now, apply this to a black hole's gravitational field. At some point close to the event horizon, the differential of gravitational attraction on one side of your body (the one closest to the hole) is far greater than the pull of gravity on the other side. This differential only gets worse as you approach the event horizon. Ultimately, the differential becomes so large that it pulls you to pieces.

Make sense?

Hi vermin. You wrote: "... one of the real nasty parts of a black hole is the gravitational differential."

This is only true for 'small, medium and large' BHs. When you go to 'XXX-large', the 'gravitational differential', called tidal gravity in gravitation theory, can be very, very small at the event horizon (as Fyz has pointed out below).

Tidal gravity falls off with the inverse 3^rd power of distance, while the event horizon radius shifts out directly proportional to the mass of the BH. Hence the tidal gravity at the event horizon falls of with the inverse of the square of the mass of the BH.^[1]

Jorrie

[1] Discussed on page 135, chapter 9 of my eBook. Chapter freely downloadable from here (Tidal Gravity).

Hi Fyz, you wrote:

"...my understanding is that nothing particularly special happens at the event horizon of a black hole." and you're right, but my point was: relative to a momentarily stationary inertial observer (a mouthful, so lets call that observer A) just outside the event horizon, another observer (B) that falls into the hole from 'infinity' will approach the local speed of light.

Extrapolate it relativistically and at the event horizon, that relative speed is exactly equal to the speed of light. One cannot have observer A at the event horizon, of course. Anyway, relative to both observers, light propagation is still locally (as measured over very small distances) isotropic, so light will always overtake matter.

Measuring the local speed of light relative to any observer in such locations is another issue...

Jorrie

Hmm... I have a problem even with the definition - a stationary observer that is local enough to see anything.

Hi Physicist, WHY CAN'T THE SPEED OF LIGHT GO FASTER THAN WE ASSUME IT DOES? Just because it is written so does not make me believe this so-called fact! The Bible tells me there is an all seeing almighty God, Newton defined the first and second laws of the consevation of energy, but is this TRUE? What is the truth other than a belief, remember truth is often stranger than ficton! There is not a day go's by withouthout someone somewhere seems to defie these so-called truths, so I implore of you to to explain to me why light has a finite speed? Spencer.

I didn't say that I was 100% certain that energy or information couldn't be transferred faster than c, merely that the data provided in the various links provided no evidence to that effect. And that therefore the most sensible conclusion for the present is to continue to work on the basis that it doesn't.

Moving to your religious diversions: if we postulate an all-powerful god (biblical or otherwise), he (she/it) could of course change the laws of physics from day to day if h(st) so desired. If we are to practise physics to any effect, we need to make the assumption that the laws are fixed (for whatever reason), and that our reason* has some bearing on the way the laws operate.
*Reason including interpretation of the results of measurements, as well as theoretical modelling and extrapolation based on that modelling activity.

A final note - I have no idea why light should have a finite speed. That is merely a conclusion based on observations, coupled to the least complex theories that appear to fit all the known facts. To the best of my knowledge, the way forward in physics has always been only to modify our physical belief structure as a result of the requirements of validated measurements; and the belief structure we use to replace the original will be determined by the most elegant model that are predictive of observations. I regard the idea that the models must fit the measurement as an absolute requirement; the idea that the models should always be elegant is not strictly needed, but I personally would be extremely suspicious of anything that seemed unnecessarily complex (curiously, this idea is best known under the auspices of a religious philosopher...)

Fyz

Please forgive me if this seems an ignorant question, but does gravity play a role in relativistic calculations of C? I ask, because it seems to me that if a wavical of light is traveling in a straight line at C and its path is diverted from that straight line by a gravitational source, that deviation would represent an acceleration and would thus be an increase in the light's velocity beyond C. I suspect local spacetime just does its rubberband thing to keep the C limitation inviolate, but I really don't know.

Hi Enquiring_Mind, you asked: "... this seems an ignorant question, but does gravity play a role in relativistic calculations of C?"

Actually a very good question, since the answer is a qualified no and yes!

A free falling observer will always obtain c for the speed of light measured locally, meaning in her immediate, infinitisimal vicinity, irrespective of the strength of the gravitational field. When the speed of light is measured non-locally, over extended regions of space that are under the influence of gravity, it depends on the gradient of the gravitational field over the distance involved and the direction.

When the round-trip time of light going towards a massive body from a distant observer and back is measured, it appears as if the light has slowed down.^[1] When the round-trip time of light going away from from a massive body and back is measured, it appears as if the light has sped up, i.e. as if its speed exceeded c.^[2]

Jorrie

[1] This effect has been measured and is called the Shapiro time delay of light. I discuss this in fair detail in the web page: Tests of Relativity and its downloads.

[2] This has not been directly measured, AFAIK, but it is compensated for in signals sent to craft like Cassini and the Pioneers, where the signals go farther from the Sun and then back again to us.

Hi masu, I understand that you "... have been having a little fun ...", but remember:

The concepts of "Increase in Mass" and "Increase in Gravity" are pretty slippery in relativity. For one thing, they are both observer dependent. A thing that moves at 0.99c for you may be moving at only 0.5c (or whatever) in the frame of another inertial observer.

This means that you cannot really say that the object's mass increased or that it must have more gravity. It is safer to just consider its rest mass as unchanged and hence also its self-gravity to as unchanged.

It is true that a massive body that moves relative to an inertial coordinate system will display a different gravitational field than an identical body at rest, but it remains coordinate dependent.

I agree with the difficulties that you mentioned.

Jorrie

The interesting thing about these quantum mechanical experiments isn't that there may be a way to go faster than the speed of light. Rather, they may uncover unknown as yet characteristics of space/time that allows something to simply change its position from one place to another - seemingly circumventing the classical concept of movement.

and now we do the Lambada! Everyone, dance!!!

SFAIK, there's no evidence (indeed, not even a serious suggestion) in this experiment that we could commute more rapidly than the wavefront of conventionally transmitted light. The best that any of the present work appears to offer is that the journey takes none of our time - i.e. that although, although it takes years for us to travel, we arrive in exactly the same state that we left (age, memories etc. unchanged).
Even where these experiments apparently show particles disappearing and reappearing elsewhere simultaneously (in which relativistic time-frame?), the process that allows this needs to be set in motion in time for light to transmit between the relevant locations - and changes that occurred in the source location in the interim cannot be available at the destination. That is where the similarity of the details of the physics to optical interference can be so illuminating (sic).

Fyz

I listen to Science Friday, and heard the host had written a book and caught part of it on my headphone radio I wear at work when I'm digging ditches and picking up trash. Apparently the Bernolli effect actually does not fully explain flight. Years ago I discussed this with one of the crew for the Goodyear Blimp. He spoke of how he knew the Blimp would fly out of correct ballast as explained by the understood physics. Futher we know of acrobatic planes that operate with wings cambered the same both sides. This does not fully discredit the proposed experiment as a corrillary to the experiment being discussed. I agree that another experiment towards understanding the proposed posit that photons may be accelrated, or move faster than we think or understand fully.

I heard a fine show by Frank Stastio on The State of Things 91.5 where he interviewed a Duke Physicist about how String Theory enabled Multipule universes, and that the recently discovered great void, was further evidence towards confirmation of aspects of String Theory.

This caused me to imagine that in another universe, light may well have a higher constant speed. -In my universe light moves faster!

Does Not! Does So! Does Not! Does So!

If light in another universe has a higher constant speed it is implied some of it would get to this universe thus implying that while there are multipule universes there is something shared between them like light, which would be always the same thing in each universe but somehow have different constant speeds.

Now last I got involved with Jorrie and you guys about aspects of photons I was trying to figure out how to put holograms on photons, and my I ended up whipped with my tail between my legs. Seems here the prospect is again raising its head?

The radio show I referred to was a local to NC NPR show, which is why I included the call numbers. WUNC SOT may produce the show if you can look it up in their archives, I am certain you will find it well reasoned, and I wonder how String Theory might help explain the described event.

I think in the end a faster photon may have been found, but question whether it is the same photon as the first.

Humbly submitted.

You are here! You are there! You are nowhere and everywhere at the same time! You are yourself and everyone else!!!

I guess you're just going to have to forget all that crap you learned on Sesame Street.

Hey Jorrie,

I have'nt read the article yet but have read the thread init's entirety and will go find and read article.

In the mean time, what have they done differently. Is this an improved means of measurement and or viewing/photon isolation? Is there some acceleration as a result of a modified environment?

Thanks in advance.

cr3

Dude! Bring back your other avatar, please!

Y?

Because the chimp with the paper had the coolest, condescending look on his face! It commanded real respect!

I have been referred to as MonkeyBoy for a few years now. I have an army of Monkey pics.

A reference to the movie "The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai, Across the Eight Dimension?"

Ha. Buckaroo Banzai.

No. I used to climb everything.

cr3

Rock climbing? Trees? What.

Have you ever seen the movie?

Moms don't always approve of children climbing things. The expression on my mom's face after I climbed something particularly tall or dangerous usually went like this (followed by "I'm going to tell your father when he gets home!"):

Chris' evil monkey!!! Yes!

Anything I was not supposed to. Namely large scale (high-rise) construction projects, radio towers and bridges. But some free climb cliffs and such too.

I had 2 gnarly accidents which slowed me considerably. I am looking to go to do some organized stuff soon. No time at present.

I wouldn't know what to do with the rope!

cr3

Mom went ape after finding out (from one of my big-mouth friends) that I had climbed a 500-foot TV transmitting tower and stole the globe from the beacon light. Apparently she cross-examined him behind my back about that big red glass thing that mysteriously appeared on my dresser overnight.

OK. So I'll bite... How long did it take you to climb 500 ft. of ladder rungs (I'm assuming). Did you have one of those cages around the ladder that you could rest against?

I'm guessing about a half-hour or so. Maybe twenty minutes? It took longer to come down with the globe in a bag dangling from a rope tied around my waist and me carefully trying not to bang the damn thing against the tower during the descent. And the globe was bloody heavy, too.

The tower was one of those skinny, guyed affairs with a triangular cross-section and rungs on the inside. Even though I was protected by the tower framework, it was pretty scary to be up that high.

One of those high-school 'dare' things.

Those are the good ones.

You climbed via the inside? Hmm. Never tried that. Seemed the outside the way to go for me.

Have you seen these guys (occasionally used on commercials) that climb up and down complex building structures. Usually, they try to find the fastest way down. That usually involves them wedging their back against one wall and their feet against another? Also, a lot of really marginal jumping off of things. By "marginal," I mean just short of breaking their legs.

"I had 2 gnarly accidents which slowed me considerably"

And what were these?

I don't think I like this one much, but it is more to the one you were fond of.

SIT STILL.

See the diagram on post #51.

I wonder if you ever read what I write. You remind me of my first wife. She would hear the first bit of what was said and immediatley be so eager to say something she considered clever about that, that she would miss the point completely. I also wonder why you spend so much time up my backside.

I saw the diagram. I have since read the article. In it's entirety.I have also reviewed the Wiki defi/expla of tunnelling as this is new to me.

You really are a pesky and annoying piece of work aren't you. (Please insert emoticon with vermin spray here.)

cr3

1. You are one of the more interesting posters on CR 4. That attract's a vermin's attention.
2. I don't spend any more time up you backside than most others.
3. We have a tradition to uphold.

Perhaps the tunneling photons have special properties that enable a speed greater than C.What if they "filtered" these photons and sent them thru another such arrangement.Perhaps a very small percentage of photons are capable of tunnellig:I call them "Mole-Tons"?

Just a wild thought.....