German Scientists Declare Speed of Light Broken
What’s being reported here as being new is the release of a peer-reviewed paper of this research.
According to modern physics, the speed of light is a fundamental, unbreakable limit. Yet two physicists are now claiming they have done just that, and propelled a stream of photons faster than the speed of light.
Günter Nimtz and Alfons Stahlhofen of the University of Koblenz, Germany, have been researching a phenomenon known as quantum tunnelling. Two prisms are placed together. When a light is shown through the prisms, a detector picks up the light and records information about the photon. However, when the two prisms are separated, Nimtz and Stahlhofen discovered that photons would occasionally “tunnel” between the prisms — arriving at the detector sooner than should theoretically be possible.
Dr. Nimtz, and his experimental set-up was featured on a NOVA show episode a few years ago. The Chief was impressed!
However, Dr. Aephraim Steinberg, from the University of Toronto, disagrees with the findings. He says its all just a matter of interpretation. The “wave packet” of the virtual photon exceeded the speed of light, but no actual information was transmitted that fast. Therefore, according to Steinberg, Einstein’s cosmic speed limit remains safe.
This is just WRONG that no “information” was transmitted! In the above mentioned NOVA episode, Nimtz transmitted a recognizable recording of Mozart Symphony no.40 through his system. As he pointed out, in response to the argument cited by Steinberg, “It seems to me that Mozart 40 carries quite a bit of information.”
So, where does this lead us?
Being able to violate the speed of light would undermine our current understanding of space and time, and lead to a number of bizarre effects, such as being able to travel backwards in time.
The Chief was impressed with the experiment when he saw it on TV, and is still impressed. Critics can squawk all they want, but if the science works, the science works!