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Germans Break The Speed Of Light

Posted by Mike D'Alonzo - Thursday, August 16, 2007 3:59 PM

Dr Gunter Nimtz and Dr Alfons Stahlhofen, of the University of Koblenz in Germany, claim to have broken the speed of light. They have conducted an experiment in which microwave photons traveled "instantaneously" between a pair of prisms that had been moved up to 3ft apart, which would be faster than the 186,000 miles per second that Albert Einstein once said would take an infinite amount of energy to power.

There's no word on whether or not the Germans are planning on harnessing the power of light speed to go back in time and resurrect the Third Reich, or if this is a leak of the plot of the next Indiana Jones film, but if these men are successful, then physics, as we know it, is over.

Nearly every science fiction story of our time is based on the theoretical breaking of the light speed barrier. Now, if it is indeed possible to go faster than the speed of light, you would, theoretically, be able to travel in time.

Which. Is. Mind. Blowing.

Of course, the difference between sending microwave photons at the speed of light and anything else, say, a human, is astronomical. Still, one never knows what the eventual application of this theoretical science will be.

Telegraph: 'We have broken speed of light'




Comment(s)

Posted by codeazrael - Thursday, August 16, 2007 4:17 PM

I appreciate your story even if no one else is smart enough to understand the impact of it. This is major if this is the truth. If Einstein was wrong about this, who's to say what is right anymore? Keep us updated on this story to see if they can prove they indeed did break the speed of light please, thx.

Posted by thekiddoshodi - Thursday, August 16, 2007 4:19 PM

holy shit.... i need time travel....

Posted by 360fanboyssmokecrack - Thursday, August 16, 2007 4:22 PM

Im with Codeazrael this is HUGE NEWS IT BEST BE TRUE

Posted by The_Mighty_Kite - Thursday, August 16, 2007 4:23 PM

thats pretty cool. i wonder if its true.

Posted by killmall42 - Thursday, August 16, 2007 4:34 PM

This kicks the crap out of perpetual motion. Time travel would be awesome. We are now one step closer to figuring out if we are indeed in a "videogame"

Posted by simonnewtboy - Thursday, August 16, 2007 4:35 PM

Weren't those cold fusion guys german, too?

Posted by Malfar - Thursday, August 16, 2007 4:37 PM

My guess its all BS, whatever measuring instrument they were using is bound by the speed of light, how can you measure something that is traveling @ the speed of light with stuff slower than the speed of light.

3' apart, how long would it take something travling that distance @ the speed of light, Nths of a second.

No way the broke the light barrier!

They must have forgot to carry a one or something......... Naa Won't believe it until I am standing in a star ship traveling warp 1.5.

Posted by DigimonMan - Thursday, August 16, 2007 4:45 PM

i hope this is true, then all that sci-fi stuff can really happen!!...maybe

Posted by isirta42 - Thursday, August 16, 2007 4:46 PM

Hmm not bad, quantum tunnelling may get aroung the theory of relativity on a sub atomic scale. Elementary particles of matter rejoice! Speedy travel may soon me available for you and all your nanoscopic buddies!

Posted by codeazrael - Thursday, August 16, 2007 4:49 PM

Actually, you'd be surprised to know what all is really possible. Normally in sci-fi films there is if nothing else, at least a shred of logic in "warp drive" or "time travel" or "folding space". We are nothing but man, and everytime we think we have all of the answers, we are reminded time and time again how insignificant we are.

Posted by EliteWiitard - Thursday, August 16, 2007 4:53 PM

If this is true.......dang.........

Posted by esa193 - Thursday, August 16, 2007 4:55 PM

if this is true
textbooks are going to be rewritten
imagine if we could control the power of the light?! the amount of fuel and
how far in the galaxy we could go

Posted by lucazzo - Thursday, August 16, 2007 4:59 PM

Let's just wait and see if someone replicates the experiment. There will be quite a number of people trying to do so. If they succeed, and all points to breaking "c", then a number of people (I'm an engineer but detest modern physics) will have a field day...

Posted by capthavic - Thursday, August 16, 2007 5:00 PM

All joking aside this is big news. If they are correct then the possibilities are limitless.

Posted by nintendopwnsallbitch - Thursday, August 16, 2007 5:09 PM

NO YOU IDIOTS!!! LIGHT TRAVELS AT 186,000 miles per SECOND. you said "wich would be faster than the 186,000 mph" mph means miles per hour!

Posted by Chadwick - Thursday, August 16, 2007 5:11 PM

if it could be replicated... holy shxt... all of what we know of the universe would have to be re-evaluated.

Posted by deleted_28385B7E-D892-41C0-AB90-09E0C32575CD - Thursday, August 16, 2007 5:24 PM

first off i hate Einstien second this wouldnt disprove the theory of reletivity

Einstein is overrated he really was just an averag genius with some out there theories and a little fun fact: the theory of relativity is the last theory of Einstein that hasnt been disproved by modern science

Posted by Matt2 - Thursday, August 16, 2007 5:25 PM

einstein must be a noob lol jk this is pretty amazing

Posted by pyroprinny - Thursday, August 16, 2007 5:34 PM

We're gonna have to be careful not to pwn the space-time continuum. =_=

Posted by retared4life - Thursday, August 16, 2007 5:36 PM

see germany is the smartest country in the world

Posted by sykoh - Thursday, August 16, 2007 5:36 PM

Colonel Sandurz: Prepair ship for light speed.
Dark Helmet: No, no, no. Light speed is too slow.
Colonel Sandurz: Light speed is too slow?
Dark Helmet: Yes. We're gonna have go right to... ludicrous speed.

Posted by excaleranth - Thursday, August 16, 2007 5:40 PM

so world war 3 will be to prevent the use of such technology i guess. if so, then i think we win, 'cause i'm still here. and even if they tested it, time travel can't possibly be accurate. after all, we base time on the revolution of our earth, which is getting slower and slower, allowing for more hours in a day compared to those of that the dinosaurs probally got. that and the earth might be somewhere else in the time period you moved to, unless you moved with the earth.

Posted by crazykila93 - Thursday, August 16, 2007 5:43 PM

time travel wooow i could go back in time and steal a good idea from now and use it then like ummmmm ahha i could re-create video game channel and call it g4.=p

Posted by Desert_Fox_RWTF - Thursday, August 16, 2007 5:55 PM

You can't go back in time, only forwards. Besides, even if it was possible quantum mechanics would fix it.

Posted by MxxPwr - Thursday, August 16, 2007 5:57 PM

3ft apart? Didn't think Q-tunnelling worked at that distance (too long; the odds should be close to impossible).

Posted by nintendopwnsallbitch - Thursday, August 16, 2007 5:57 PM

and you now whats gonna heppen then? in a lab somewhere in a new mexico desert as a scientist pushing an inter-demesional specimen into a scanning beam for analysis, a resonance cascade occurs opening up a portal between earth and a bessare world called xen and that scientist i just mentioned must fight his way out of the ruined lab full of alien creatures such as vortugants and bullsquids and the hazerdus enviornment combat unit which is killing everyone connected to lab to cover up this catashtrofy, then he must travel to xen to destroy a giant monster that is keeping the inter dimensional portal open and once dead the explosion causes the scintest to black out and then awaken to find some wierd buisnes man who is interested in the scientist skill with guns and detains him to wait for his next job!!!!

Posted by nintendopwnsallbitch - Thursday, August 16, 2007 6:01 PM

AND THEN!!! .... no wait... thats the plot for half life o well

Posted by brewzer400 - Thursday, August 16, 2007 6:02 PM

Don't throw around "quantum"-anything in a scientific discussion. just leaves you fighting theory with theory.
"if i close my eyes everything around me becomes energy because it doesnt exist when i can't see it! GO AHEAD! TRY TO DISPROVE ME!" *cackles in a corner while coloring a pencil with a crayon*

Posted by Spardyman - Thursday, August 16, 2007 6:18 PM

Wow this is a major break through. I really hope it is true because that is just astounding.

Posted by bergeronjc - Thursday, August 16, 2007 6:24 PM

What this means is Newton's Laws of Physics and just about all math ever created should be thrown out the window... I wonder if I can get a new grade in my math classes.

Posted by Spiderish - Thursday, August 16, 2007 6:35 PM

I would like to back up codeazrael in asking, even pleading, to stay with this story. You're a nerd site and this is the biggest story in the history of Nerddom.

Posted by shinigami564 - Thursday, August 16, 2007 6:40 PM

better be true i wanna travel at the speed of light someday.

Posted by quilliry - Thursday, August 16, 2007 6:47 PM

well thats kinda...revolutionary, the laws of physics were just splattered all over the wall.


das awesome, im gonna go levitate now, then walk on water and mabye even go back in time and tell timmy that the well isnt the best place to play hide and go seek.

Posted by nintendopwnsallbitch - Thursday, August 16, 2007 6:48 PM

um yea thats not so hard since photons arent even whole adams and there what make up micro waves wich is a form of energy wave just like light.

Posted by nintendopwnsallbitch - Thursday, August 16, 2007 6:55 PM

and they were trveling between obejects that were three feet away in a special spisific highly controled inviornment

Posted by brewzer400 - Thursday, August 16, 2007 7:01 PM

your opinion and input is rendered invalid for the following reasons:
1. Spacing of "microwaves"
2. Mispelling of "Which","yeah","atoms","specif ic","controlled", "environment."
3. Use of "there" instead of they're.

Posted by choco - Thursday, August 16, 2007 7:06 PM

the speed of light is 186000 miles per second not MPH, and if this is true, then holy crap, and to the guy that spelled stuff wrong, who cares if its photons, its still matter.

Posted by UnleashtheWii - Thursday, August 16, 2007 7:06 PM

The point of it that NOTHING should be able to break the speed of light in the first place, much less photons. Einstein said that for ANY object that has mass, it would take an infinite amount of energy to reach lightspeed (and yes, photons and nuetrons have mass). The implications are huge: that any particle is able to break the speed of light violates a critical rule in quantum mechanics, which means we have to rewrite the entirity of physics from the beginning. It also means that the grand unified theory is both closer and farther away than we thought, and we understand much less than we thought we knew. The method of travel between the two prisms is irrelevant, the fact that it happened is (well, hopefully not) earth shattering.

Now, I wouldn't jump so far as to say "time travel here we come", but this does bring up the possibilty of interstellar travel in years rather than decades. Who knows, we may be seeing Mars a lot sooner than we thought.

Posted by brewzer400 - Thursday, August 16, 2007 7:07 PM

your opinion and input is rendered invalid for the following reasons:
1. Spacing of "microwaves"
2. Mispelling of "Which","yeah","atoms","specif ic","controlled", "environment."
3. Use of "there" instead of they're.

Posted by brewzer400 - Thursday, August 16, 2007 7:11 PM

your opinion and input is rendered invalid for the following reasons:
1. Spacing of "microwaves"
2. Mispelling of "Which","yeah","atoms","specif ic","controlled", "environment."
3. Use of "there" instead of they're.

Posted by spitfirec4 - Thursday, August 16, 2007 7:17 PM

if your so interested in it then go to a forum with ppl who actually are intelligent in this matter, join ats and educate yourself
http://abovetopsecret.com/fo rum/thread297224/pg1

Posted by Judas_Freakin_Priest - Thursday, August 16, 2007 7:17 PM

Holy motherf*cking shit...as others here have said, this is freakin' epic. (If it's really true.)

Posted by oatmealz - Thursday, August 16, 2007 7:18 PM

Posted by brewzer400 - Thursday, August 16, 2007 7:07 PM
"your opinion and input is rendered invalid for the following reasons:
1. Spacing of "microwaves"
2. Mispelling of "Which","yeah","atoms","specif ic","controlled", "environment."
3. Use of "there" instead of they're."


akshually, u r rong brewzer400, "your" shuld bee capitilized, cuz it iz da beggining of a centence; u shuld also rite out da numburz, do knot yuse numerrals (ex. insted of 1, rite one). "there" is a werd, sow it iz schpelled correctlie/

Posted by kwyksylvyr - Thursday, August 16, 2007 7:29 PM

well I would have to agree with that one guy, it's MPS not mph. Congrats if they've done it, but as far as time travel, you can only go forward in time, never backward. Time travel is a little misleading in that time slows down as you speed up, which means that to you a fraction of a second has passed, whereas it's been a year to your friend. You still occupy the same space, but relative to your surroundings it's different. To quote the Time Machine "No Philip, time changes space"

Posted by freeway8989 - Thursday, August 16, 2007 7:29 PM

"If Einstein was wrong about this, who's to say what is right anymore?"

Sure, this is a huge development, but you, like many others, give too much credit to Einstein. You act like Einstein's theories are the basis of all knowledge. Just because one theory was disproved, it doesn't that mean other laws are disproved.

People seem to act like Einstein was the ultimate scientist and forget that he, like any other scientist, is able to be refuted. In fact, science is all about building upon or refuting the theories of others. I mean, if Einstein wasn't able to be proved wrong, he wouldn't be a scientist at all--he would be a god.

Posted by IntelliMoo - Thursday, August 16, 2007 7:31 PM

um... cold fusion, anyone? lol!

(*more german bs)

Posted by mmooiisseess - Thursday, August 16, 2007 7:33 PM

technicaly his theory states you cant travel at the speed of light but you can travel faster and as you probably dont know quantum physics pretty much says einstein was wrong on a lot of things, your making this sound as if its the end of the world as we know it.

Posted by Halomugen89 - Thursday, August 16, 2007 7:35 PM

we could have UNSC's slipspace traveling soon then

Posted by smh_theory - Thursday, August 16, 2007 7:53 PM

this had better somehow lead to fatter bandwidth :P

Posted by mysticsamurai - Thursday, August 16, 2007 7:57 PM

This is ASTRONOMICAL new!!!.... enough said.

Posted by spam_word - Thursday, August 16, 2007 7:59 PM

theoretical but not practical, to move through time you would also have to move through space, there's no telling where you would end up if you did time travel, and you would have a very slim chance of landing in a non-hostile area (ie. thousands of feet off the ground, in a mountain/tree, in the ocean (it does make up 70% of the world), or even out in space, the earth is constantly in motion. to preform time travel you wouldnt be able to live to tell about it

Posted by celtic_draco - Thursday, August 16, 2007 8:41 PM

Hey if they can pass the speed of light I think we might need to worry. Wasn't Hitler a german?

Posted by TheKei - Thursday, August 16, 2007 8:53 PM

Hitler was born in Austria to Austrian parents, therefore he would be considered an Austrian.

Posted by TheKei - Thursday, August 16, 2007 8:56 PM

"Adolf Hitler was born in Braunau am Inn, Austria, on 20 April 1889. The son of a fifty-two-year-old Austrian customs official, Alois Schickelgruber Hitler, and his third wife, a young peasant girl, Klara Poelzl, both from the backwoods of lower Austria"

Posted by silentbehn180 - Thursday, August 16, 2007 9:13 PM

....wow....

Posted by silentbehn180 - Thursday, August 16, 2007 9:25 PM

....wow....

Posted by alucard89 - Thursday, August 16, 2007 9:54 PM

This is pretty amazing, if this experiment is redone and verified, then limitless possibilities could open up. The obvious ones of course and also who knows what else!!! Also, while time travel backwards is impossible, we can look into the past, think about it, light from Sun is 8 minutes old, so we are actually looking at a sun that is 8 minutes younger then what the sun actually is. And also other stars that we see are actually billions of years younger then they actually are... whew...

Posted by AtomicRobot - Thursday, August 16, 2007 10:08 PM

It doesn't take an Einstein to know that there isn't anything to support the idea of time travel. You just travel back through time (even if you go faster than the speed of light). Other things that don't exist:

-Worm holes you can travel through
-Alternate Dimensions

Just saying.

Posted by 4rliss - Thursday, August 16, 2007 10:14 PM

This isnt brand new. The idea has been around for about a year.

Gravity also is faster than the speed of light, but there too many unknowns as to what gravity actually is.

Posted by AtomicRobot - Thursday, August 16, 2007 10:19 PM

My bad. Replace "just" with "can't" in my last post.

Posted by atomicskibum07 - Thursday, August 16, 2007 11:18 PM

SO um the speed of light isnt 186000mph, its really 6.7 X 10 ^ 8 mph which is equivilent to 3.00 X 10 ^ 8 m/s. Isnt physics grand...

Posted by hyerollerxx - Friday, August 17, 2007 1:27 AM

now thats koo.....i wonder when we can buy our own time traveling machine

Posted by Titan0789 - Friday, August 17, 2007 2:17 AM

It's about time. Now I can go back in time and beat the s#@$ out of hitler.

Posted by zimmy69 - Friday, August 17, 2007 2:23 AM

omg what is with all the tecnacal stuff i get this i know it all but god damn your hurting my head

Posted by Linoge - Friday, August 17, 2007 3:01 AM

Looks like its time to bomb Germany and take their scientists and technology again.

Posted by TruthSeiyer - Friday, August 17, 2007 3:02 AM

No no no you don't point your time machine at the spot you're on NOW x years ago, you point your time machine where the spot you want to end up WAS x years ago...

It's called calculus, and it's much less omplicated...

Posted by TruthSeiyer - Friday, August 17, 2007 3:03 AM

I'm almost certain that c was there when I hit "Submit"

Posted by Warsteel - Friday, August 17, 2007 3:30 AM

Don't get excited just yet- it needs to be verified and after that it can be decided exactly how to use any technology that comes from it. I do wonder if you can manipulate the time stream to send nukes to your enemies, thereby making any 'Star Wars' defense irrelevent?

Posted by piratehunter1 - Friday, August 17, 2007 3:34 AM

Holy shit! If this is true then it's just a matter of time before we figure out faster than light space travel and say hi to our celestial friends.

Posted by Heromedic18 - Friday, August 17, 2007 4:15 AM

DEAR G4 , The speed of light is
which is about 186,282.397 miles per second, not Miles per hour as stated in your article. Here is what you wrote.

"which would be faster than the 186,000 MPH that Albert Einstein once said would take an infinite amount of energy to power."

This is a huge typo, and I hope you update it soon. Hope this Helps

Posted by ZMonkey - Friday, August 17, 2007 4:17 AM

Whoa! The article said they used a microwave photon. That is smaller than a visible light photon. They cheated. The current speed of light measurement is based on the speed of visible light. A microwave photon weighs less than a visible light photon and thus would be able to travel faster. You have all been had! Hahahahahhahahahahahahahahahah ahahahahahaha!!!!!!

Posted by ZMonkey - Friday, August 17, 2007 4:25 AM

Whoa! The article said they used a microwave photon. That is smaller than a visible light photon. They cheated. The current speed of light measurement is based on the speed of visible light. A microwave photon weighs less than a visible light photon and thus would be able to travel faster. You have all been had! Hahahahahhahahahahahahahahahah ahahahahahaha!!!!!!

Posted by acehighflyer123 - Friday, August 17, 2007 5:27 AM

Hail Hitler and the Third Rikeee, those dirty germans are getting uppety again, this time without genocide, mmm what was that earlier comment, time to bomb Germany and take thier tech and give amnesty to the scientists.

Posted by acehighflyer123 - Friday, August 17, 2007 5:34 AM

and this time start an intersteller space program instead of just going to the moon-with german scientists. Ps much of what we learned about early advanced flight and rockets came from german tech.

Posted by SuperXer0 - Friday, August 17, 2007 5:57 AM

Germany is trying to go back in time and make sure they dont lose the war (V for Vendetta). To do this, they are going to genetically enhance soldiers with the chimera virus and take with them highly technological weapons (Resistance: Fall of Man). We all better prepare for this by playing our PS3's!!!


F*** that, I'm going to play BioShock

Posted by lilv41 - Friday, August 17, 2007 6:34 AM

yea i need to travel in time and save tupac, make sure E.T. was never realesed, and warn 360 about the ring of death before they released it.

Posted by kison21 - Friday, August 17, 2007 6:38 AM

People technically travel through time every day. When you get in your car and drive to work, at least on a very small scale you've just traveled through time.

Posted by altizar - Friday, August 17, 2007 6:53 AM

An example of Quantum Tunneling is where an electron jumps from a low energy level to a high energy level without absorbing a photon. this isn't a violation of the speed of light, but a violation of the conservation of energy.

Now there is another Quantum phenomena where two electrons are synchronized at the Quantum Level. What happens is that irregardless of the distance 1 foot or 1 lightyear, when electon A moves the linked electron B moves exactly the same way.

One way to utilize this as a communication device is that electron A abosrbs a photon and moves to a higher lever and 1-10 lightyears away electron B releases that photon. While it would seem that the photon "traveled" faster than light, in reality it didn't travel at all, it "teleported". And yes it's BIG, but it doesn't toss out the current laws of physics.

Posted by altizar - Friday, August 17, 2007 6:59 AM

This is actually kinda old news. They've known about Quantum Linking for a while. I think a couple of problems are 1) creating the links, and 2) There's no real way to ensure that once A absorbs the photon that B will be the one to release it.

Posted by datdude5620 - Friday, August 17, 2007 7:08 AM

TIME TRAVEL IS NOT A GOOD THING! EVERYTHING HAPPENS FOR A REASON! DONT MESS WITH THE PAST OR FUTURE!

Posted by slythe720 - Friday, August 17, 2007 7:32 AM

even if this is true its extremely unlikely we could use this tecnoledgy on humans or even objects in any of our lifetimes or even for hundereds of years so it really makes no difference to me

Posted by domingoflores - Friday, August 17, 2007 7:42 AM

and you guys that believe it and act like you understand the science behind it...laugh cough and laugh. you don't even know why you are here

Posted by colombo15 - Friday, August 17, 2007 8:14 AM

Chuck Noris can break the speed of sound on a wheelchair

Posted by the_mustache - Friday, August 17, 2007 8:15 AM

The universe is sacred
You cannot improve it.
If you change it, you will ruin it.
If you try to hold it, you will lose it.
-LAO TZU

I'm against time travel its an unnecessary luxury that will bring about the end of the world.

Think about it if the government harnessed this power they could go back in time and eliminate blood lines or prevent protesters or opposing candidates from being born. Or they can do it like Back to the future 2 (i think) and bet on past fights and win lots of money and im sure that affect our econmy sum how if lots of ppl did it. or a oppsing country can go back and provide the axis powers with aid further continuing world war 2! its more damaging than benificail. mankind isnt mature or responsible enough to handle time travel.

P.s was i rite america fought agains the axis powers? i get mixed up correct me if im wrong

Posted by Mickit - Friday, August 17, 2007 8:57 AM

Maybe Einstein went back into time and made use believe thats all the faster we could go, so we wouldnt f*ck the world up.

Posted by GchildT - Friday, August 17, 2007 8:57 AM

So if they actually did what they say they did, then wouldn't the amount of visible photons double. If that didn't happen that means the speed of light may be inconsistant. Speed of light is relative to time and distance. If the distance is consistant at 3ft and lightspeed is consistant then was there a variation in time? or do we prove that lightspeed is not consistant @ 186,000MPH?

Posted by hetman - Friday, August 17, 2007 9:07 AM

This is a BS article.

http://arstechnica.com/news. ars/post/20070816-faster-than- the-speed-of-light-no-i-dont-t hink-so.html

But it would be cool if it was true.

Posted by ice9994 - Friday, August 17, 2007 9:56 AM

I'm just happy we proved Einstein wrong. I hate that Mother F*cker tring to kill my dreams of space travel WITH OUT folding space.
Lol at colombo15's comment.

Posted by ice9994 - Friday, August 17, 2007 10:01 AM

Oh and halomugen88, in the halo universe slipspace travle is the proses of folding space then cutting through it,like folding a pice of paper then punching through it with a knife.

Posted by Malfar - Friday, August 17, 2007 10:36 AM

~time travle:

Entanglement; Everything is connected. Every bit of energy in your body was around at the beginning of time, and will be till the end of time. There is a connection between you, me and the rest of the universe. It ebs and flows, it is in everything and it is a FORCE to be reckoned with.

They broke the speed of light, but have they found out what happens when you die?

Posted by Warsteel - Friday, August 17, 2007 12:26 PM

@ Malfar
Yes- you stop breathing.

Posted by altizar - Friday, August 17, 2007 1:26 PM

That was the word I was looking for Malfar, Quantum Entanglement.

Posted by Chimaira - Friday, August 17, 2007 1:40 PM

I'm very surprised some retarded fanboy didn't start a flame war

Posted by panzerfist - Friday, August 17, 2007 1:48 PM

This is rather remarkable. I'm very astonished in reading this but in all honesty I'm really surprised that this happened so soon. People thought the Earth was flat but look at what we now know. So Einstein theorizing that the speed of light was the max anything could travel. However I never thought that was true since we've pushed the limits on so many things this was simply another barrier to break. We've broken the sound barrier 5 fold so this is another step. A BIG step.

BTW: speed of light is 186,000 MPS or 982080000 FPS

So by dividing 3ft by that number you get 3.09e^-9 sec. I9nsane but still you can go lower. To go lower by even 1 attosecond(e^-18) would prove there is a speed beyond speed of light. Now we need to see if it can be repeated in a standard experiment and then find just how much faster it can go and then what can this be applied to.

Dam Germans. 1st the VW then Octoberfest now this? save some for the rest of us

Posted by Priest_Sanzo - Friday, August 17, 2007 2:10 PM

It's time to fire up the FTL drive boys space the finally frontier my A$$.

Posted by To0n - Friday, August 17, 2007 2:19 PM

Scientists in germany are working on the worlds largest machine, miles in diameter, made underground, it will be a particle accelorator, in which they should be able to propel atomic particles to, and beyond the speed of light, they plan to (among other things) smash the particles together, to see what happens when these atomic particles collide at light speed.

Posted by To0n - Friday, August 17, 2007 2:20 PM

And by the way, time travel is already possible, einstien's theory of forward time travel has been proven multiple times, and is very well known as fact. the thing is, albert says you need to go faster than the speed of light, to be able to reverse time. If you are truely interested in this, check out some of todays leading theorists, links to all theories at sciencechannel.com Some very cool theories on space density, and dark matter effecting distance, vs, time on 2 seperate paths could have you meet yourself, before you ever left on the trip. others say that the instant you break the speed of light, you create a seperate reality/dimension, and can never meet yourself, or change the past

Posted by Dreamband20xx - Friday, August 17, 2007 2:35 PM

Well most of you are so excited about time travel you failed to realize that it can never happen in THEORY... an object traveling at the speed of light is pure energy and does not take on a physical form because the atoms are ripped into pieces and no definitive shape can be formed...

Posted by armywife1988 - Friday, August 17, 2007 3:14 PM

this would be a mind boggling finding if it true i dont know what to say other than how can the speed of light be measured if it hasn't been broken but it is posible if they made an eduacated guess at the speed because there equipment couldn't read the speed because it was greater than the speed of light but ehat i just pointed at just confused myself if this is true though star trek here we come in 25 years though

Posted by Some_One_Plays - Friday, August 17, 2007 3:15 PM

That's really interesting but instead of going back in time. Use that to go into the future or even maybe if possible teleport, lol.

First it's finding Jesus's bones, seeing ghosts, and people seeing into the past / present / future (psychics). Religions are all pretty much worshipping the damn sun. Ghost don't exsit even though you would like to, to see your loved ones. There are no such records of a physic solving a police case. Actually they hinder the case itself.

So if I don't actually see this it problabe isn't true. Even when there is war now to gain money it problabe isn't ment to be won (banks).

Posted by armywife1988 - Friday, August 17, 2007 3:19 PM

this would be a mind boggling finding if it true i dont know what to say other than how can the speed of light be measured if it hasn't been broken but it is posible if they made an eduacated guess at the speed because there equipment couldn't read the speed because it was greater than the speed of light but ehat i just pointed at just confused myself if this is true though star trek here we come in 25 years though

Posted by armywife1988 - Friday, August 17, 2007 3:20 PM

this would be a mind boggling finding if it true i dont know what to say other than how can the speed of light be measured if it hasn't been broken but it is posible if they made an eduacated guess at the speed because there equipment couldn't read the speed because it was greater than the speed of light but ehat i just pointed at just confused myself if this is true though star trek here we come in 25 years though

Posted by S14DGENER8 - Friday, August 17, 2007 4:05 PM

wow I hope this is true

Posted by kombator - Friday, August 17, 2007 4:23 PM

HOLY CRAP! THIS IS THE GREATEST DISCOVERY EVER IF IT IS TRUE!!!

Posted by CamMan510 - Friday, August 17, 2007 11:57 PM

We can only travel through time if there is a space/time continuum, witch i belive there is not. I think you cannot change history, but if i am proven wrong, we are probly screwd. Someone is gonna eventually mess it all up.

Posted by mthomas - Saturday, August 18, 2007 4:47 PM

Near light speed travel is possible.

http://nlspropulsion.net/def ault.aspx


This is very close to the formula that we want. We want to know the value of t when the traveler has made it halfway to the destination, because then the deceleration starts. If the total distance is X, then the total travel time T is given by

(8) X / 2 = (c2 / g) [cosh (0.5 g T / c) – 1]

T = (2 c / g) cosh–1 (1 + 0.5 g X / c2)


If X = 4.3 light-years, then T = 3.6 years. Dozens of stars could be reached in five to six years. In fact, a traveler could even go the Andromeda galaxy in under 29 years if a constant acceleration could be maintained.

Posted by voodoo65 - Saturday, August 18, 2007 4:49 PM

This is the most futile discussion ever. Photons moved 3 feet "instantaneously"? That doesn't sound like rocket science to me. Sounds like a high school jock's summation of his science fair project. You know, the one where he measures the difference between flipping the light switch and the light comes on?
Besides, let's take this one step at a time. They claim to have moved a subatomic particle with zero mass, which already moves at the speed of light, faster than the speed of light. How does that mean that time travel is the next step?

Posted by MxxPwr - Saturday, August 18, 2007 4:57 PM

From: altizar
"An example of Quantum Tunneling is where an electron jumps from a low energy level to a high energy level without absorbing a photon. this isn't a violation of the speed of light, but a violation of the conservation of energy."

And that's where the article provided by G4 leaves us hanging. The article states that the Q-tunnelling was as described in your first example: Photon-a jumped physically from one point to another. They claim it was still PH-a that hit the detection device simultaneously (sp?)with other photons, and since it had to travel farther because of the 'tunnelling' (?), it had to be traveling faster that 'c'.

Something sounds seriously wrong here. How did they mark the photon without changing it? If they didn't mark it (and they shouldn't be able to without changing it), how do they know anything? How could tunnelling make PH-a travel farther?

Is there a better article than this? Something from the group themselves maybe?

Posted by NixxTheOne - Saturday, August 18, 2007 6:59 PM

All Right!!! Star Trek!! LOL

Posted by fatattack530 - Monday, August 20, 2007 9:16 PM

Wow if this is corect... wow.

THATS EFFIN' AWESOME!

But seriously, how could they tell that it traveled 3 ft instantly? If it wen't that fast over 300 miles, then maybe, but still

Posted by skullsy - Sunday, September 9, 2007 2:40 PM

Yes, it would be cool to travel in time, but i did some investigating and if we are able to travel in time using this theory, we cant go back. Only going to the future, not the past. Sad, i wanted to go ahead in time, buy Halo 3, then come back.

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