Date: Wed, 7 Jun 2000 02:42:33 +0200 (MET DST)
From: Arun-Kumar Tripathi <tripathi-AT-statistik.uni-dortmund.de>
Subject: [interesting essay] The ultimate enhancement-breaking the speed of


Hello list members,

[Forwarded via "The Herbert Marshall McLuhan Foundation"]
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Date: Sun, 04 Jun 2000 07:47:35 
From: Peter Montgomery <MONTGOMERY-AT-Camosun.BC.CA>
[--]

[Peter's note: note the discussion below about the law of causes precedding
 effects.]

from: Mailing-List:list media-news-AT-egroups.com; contact
media-news-owner-AT-egroups.com

      Eureka! Scientists break speed of light
      Jonathan Leake, Science Editor

SCIENTISTS claim they have broken the ultimate speed barrier: the
speed of light. In research carried out in the United States,
particle physicists have shown that light pulses can be accelerated
to up to 300 times their normal velocity of 186,000 miles per second.

The implications, like the speed, are mind-boggling. On one
interpretation it means that light will arrive at its destination
almost before it has started its journey. In effect, it is leaping
forward in time.

Exact details of the findings remain confidential because they
have been submitted to Nature, the international scientific journal,
for review prior to possible publication.

The work was carried out by Dr Lijun Wang, of the NEC research
institute in Princeton, who transmitted a pulse of light towards a
chamber filled with specially treated caesium gas.

Before the pulse had fully entered the chamber it had gone right
through it and travelled a further 60ft across the laboratory. In
effect it existed in two places at once, a phenomenon that Wang
explains by saying it travelled 300 times faster than light.

The research is already causing controversy among physicists. What
bothers them is that if light could travel forward in time it could
carry information. This would breach one of the basic principles in
physics - causality, which says that a cause must come before an
effect. It would also shatter Einstein's theory of relativity since
it depends in part on the speed of light being unbreachable.

This weekend Wang said he could not give details but confirmed:
"Our light pulses did indeed travel faster than the accepted speed
of light. I hope it will give us a much better understanding of the
nature of light and how it behaves."

Dr Raymond Chiao, professor of physics at the University of
California at Berkeley, who is familiar with Wang's work, said he
was impressedby the findings. "This is a fascinating experiment," he
said.

In Italy, another group of physicists has also succeeded in
breaking the light speed barrier. In a newly published paper,
physicists at the Italian National Research Council described how
they propagated microwaves at 25% above normal light speed. The
group speculates that it could be possible to transmit information
faster than light.

Dr Guenter Nimtz, of Cologne University, an expert in the field,
agrees. He believes that information can be sent faster than light
and last week gave a paper describing how it could be done to a
conference in Edinburgh. He believes, however, that this will not
breach the principle of causality because the time taken to
interpret the signal would fritter away all the savings.

"The most likely application for this is not in time travel but in
speeding up the way signals move through computer circuits," he said.

Wang's experiment is the latest and possibly the most important
evidence that the physical world may not operate according to any of
the accepted conventions.

In the new world that modern science is beginning to perceive,
sub-atomic particles can apparently exist in two places at the same
time - making no distinction between space and time.

Separate experiments carried out by Chiao illustrate this. He
showed that in certain circumstances photons - the particles of
which light is made - could apparently jump between two points
separated by a barrier in what appears to be zero time. The process,
known as tunnelling, has been used to make some of the most
sensitive electron microscopes.

The implications of Wang's experiments will arouse fierce debate.
Many will question whether his work can be interpreted as proving
that light can exceed its normal speed - suggesting that another
mechanism may be at work.

Neil Turok, professor of mathematical physics at Cambridge
University, said he awaited the details with interest, but added: "I
doubt this will change our view of the fundamental laws of physics."

Wang emphasises that his experiments are relevant only to light
and may not apply to other physical entities. But scientists are
beginning to accept that man may eventually exploit some of these
characteristics for inter-stellar space travel.

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