From: Harvey Newstrom (mail@HarveyNewstrom.com)
Date: Mon Sep 16 2002 - 05:26:02 MDT
On Monday, September 16, 2002, at 05:30 am, Eugen Leitl wrote:
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> Date: Mon, 16 Sep 2002 04:27:08 -0500
> From: "newsletter@newscientist.com" <newscientist@processrequest.com>
> To: eugen@leitl.org
> Subject: Speed of light broken with basic lab kit
>
> NEW SCIENTIST - NEWSFLASH
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Speed of light broken with basic lab kit
No, it wasn't. It was a trick. I am always skeptical of these claims.
They used to think quasars moved faster than light. Now we know it is
an effect of gravity and universal expansion upon the light we are
receiving from far away objects that makes the image appear to move
that fast. Did the quasars move faster than light? No! Did we move
faster than light? No. It was a series of imaginary points that the
apparent position of the quasar appeared to be in as its light reached
us that appeared to go faster than light. We were seeing light from a
smaller universe a long time ago and projecting its apparent position
on today's larger universe far away. The series of projected points
we imagined progressed faster than light, but no real particle or wave
in the real universe actually moved that fast.
Imagine a spacecraft above the north pole of the sun. It shoots a
laser beam out toward the Kuiper belt and lights up dust particles and
asteroids there. The spacecraft then rotates around in a few
seconds. That spot of light in the Kuiper belt will appear to go
around the entire circumference of the solar system in a few seconds.
Did that spot of light travel faster than the speed of light? No! It
was a trick. There is no single spot of light. We piece together the
appearance of a single point of light from a series of disconnected
locations lighting up in the Kuiper belt, much as frames of a movie
provide the illusion of motion. The series of disconnected events
occurred across space and time faster than light could have travelled,
but the light from our laser did not exceed its speed limit. No
particle or wave in the real universe actually moved that fast.
Imagine our eyes staring cross-eyed at our finger held at arm's
length. This point of focus is only a few feet away from us. This
point is defined as the point where imaginary lines from our eyes
would converge. Our eyes triangulate on this point of focus. Now
imagine focusing our eyes on a star many light years away. Our eyes
expand from their cross-eyed position to virtually parallel to look
far away. Our point of focus moved from us to many light years away
in a single instant. Our eyes did not skip from cross-eyed to
parallel, but instead had to traverse every possible position
in-between. Did our point of focus travel many light years in less
than a second? Of course not. It is an imaginary point of focus that
is defined by us. It moved in our theoretical framework, but no
particle or wave in the real universe actually moved that fast.
Or imagine doing the same effects with laser pointers. You can point
to laser pointers so their laser beams cross right in front of you.
Now, keeping them crossed, you can increase the angle so their point
of crossing goes farther away. If you continue this motion until the
beams are parallel and no longer crossed, the point of their crossing
appears to launch away from you towards the edge of the universe at
greater than light speeds. In a few seconds, their crossing goes out
to infinity. Of course, as always, no particle or wave in the real
universe actually went faster than light.
Using these types of examples as a guide, I am always skeptical of new
claims of sending light faster than normal speeds. If this were
possible, we could send morse code faster than light speeds. However,
it is always a clue when the report specifies that no information can
be transmitted faster than light using this method. This usually
indicates that no particle or wave in the real universe actually moved
that fast. If any particle or wave actually travelled faster than
light, it could be detected at the destination and used for
signaling. In this report, the "point" that moves is an interaction
between two different signals as shown on a scope. Neither wave is
going faster than light. No energy is going faster than light. They
even say no information could be sent with this faster than light. I
believe that if each wave were mapped into a separate scope, the
effect would not be seen. It is only the "pulses" of "interaction"
between the waves that appear to go faster than light and is detected
on the scopes. However, if the waves aren't going faster than light,
and no energy is going faster than light, then this "interaction" is
not a single event between a particular point in each wave. It is
actually a series of events involving different parts of each wave
composed of different energy. Only by mapping this sequence of
intereactions on a scope, and pretending that they are a single object
instead of a series of events, does it appear that this "object" moved
faster than light. However, there is no single "object" or "pulse".
It is a series of intersections between the waves mapped at different
points at different times. Like frames of a movie, we imagine that it
is a single object in motion, when it actually is different waves in
different locations at different times. No matter, energy or
information is transferred between these separate events.
This is not to say that faster-than-light travel will never be
achieved. But if it is, real information could be sent through it at
faster than light speeds. Real particles or waves will arrive at the
other side faster than light, and not just imaginary points,
intersection points, or some other derived series of points that are
projected, predicted or calculated as a series of time/space
coordinates.
-- Harvey Newstrom, CISSP <www.HarveyNewstrom.com> Principal Security Consultant <www.Newstaff.com>
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