We can now break the speed of light so what else is Einstein wrong about?

Question

Or is all of science now doomed because he was no wrong about the speed of light?
Or is more likely with the new information we learn from it modify our standing of things which to me is true science or am I wrong?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2007/08/16/scispeed116.xml

Answer 1

WE cannot travel faster than light, if this research is correct it only applies to a few photons.

Einstein is not the end of the matter, his theories replaced those of Newton, quantum physics is replacing Einstein. Sooner or later quantum theory will probably be replaced.

Answer 2

It is not a question of whether "Einstein was right or wrong." It is a much more important issue than that.

If this is really true (and not due to some accident of measurement), it represents a violation of physical causality: you could set up situations in which the effect precedes the cause. Special relativity is so much a part of physics now that it would totally overthrow a tremendous amount of modern physics.

I did a little bit of reading up on Nimtz. This concept is not that new: He's been trying to convince people that he's done this for about the last 5 years.

I'm willing to bet money that in 6 months it will be seen as a joke: Like the "cold fusion" stuff, but even more embarassing.

Answer 3

Einstein was wrong about a lot of things. He was also right about a lot of things.

Consider how much was "known to be true" about physics 200 years ago... Consider how much it's changed since then.

Science is all hypothesis. Laws of physics are what has yet to be disproved through rigorous experiment and peer review.

Remember the big to-do about "Cold Fusion" many years ago. It was a BIG deal. It also turned out to be based on bad data, or a bad experiment.

Let's see some more scientists replicate the German experiment before we declare the speed of light violated.

Of course, all sorts of crazy stuff happens at a sub-atomic level. This quantum tunneling is kooky, but was previously theorized.

Answer 4

There is nothing new in finding a shortcut that gives average speeds greater than the speed of light (eg some tricks with quantum tunnelling(

What Einstein said is that you can't accelerate mass to the speed of light - no-one has done this

and you can't send information faster than the speed of light, yet quantum non-locality appears to be instantaneous, something Einstein could never come to terms with

Answer 5

There may be a concept of moving faster than the speed of light, but it is impossible. Consider the following:

The physics trilogy speaks of what the origin of time is. E = mc2, m = E/c2, and c2 = E/m is the trilogy. The last of the three is that of a field of physical time, or that of a field of gravity. The first two equations have as their basis that of physical time, it being the "c^2" factor. Notice in the first equation that it is the multiplier and then in the second the divider. This factor is the basis of each of these equations. It is important to our universe that this value remains constant, for it is the basis of all creation. Everything in our universe is composed of this value; there is nothing in our universe which is not totally composed of the "c2" concept. The reality of past, present, and future exist according to the first two equations of the physics trilogy.

When a mass accelerates to the speed of light, the mass converts back into the radiation (electromagnetic energy) that it was formed of. This transformation is considered to be that of the fourth dimension. In reality we are composed of this value alone. This is evidenced in that present time moves into becoming that of the past at this speed - never faster, never slower. Were there not a continual allowance for new movement of mass and energy, our universe would be frozen in a single position, never to change.

Answer 6

Nimitz has been making these claims for years, but information is not transmitted faster than light in his experiments. The experiment demonstrates a steady-state quantum tunneling effect. But steady state means zero bandwidth. As soon as you attempt to transfer information using quantum tunneling effects, the bandwidth becomes nonzero and it is no longer steady-state and the effects are slower than c.

Answer 7

These announcements have been made before, quite frequently, actually, and every time they have turned out to be misinterpretations of the experiments by the experimenters. It needs to be duplicated by other experimenters before it attains any credibility, and they have to arrive at the same conclusion.

Check back in a year and the I bet the explanation will have changed.

Answer 8

"Dr Gunter Nimtz and Dr Alfons Stahlhofen, of the University of Koblenz, say they may have breached a key tenet of that theory."

There is a big difference between "may have" and "have." Let's not get all excited until others can duplicate what the good doctors believe they may have done.

Answer 9

We have not broke the speed of light. Only with light itself it has passed the 186,000 p/s mark. Einstein only said that if we did exceed the speed of light we would turn to pure energy, so he is not really wrong about anything.

Answer 10

Another team of scientists "teleported" a photon last year.

No, Einstein wasn't "wrong", per se; rather, his understanding went only so far because we now have 50 years of research that he didn't have.