I have heard that scientists can speed up light pulses up to 300 times their normal velocity. Could people put a ship in this stream of accelertated light and would it be able to go faster than the speed of normal light?
Or have i just confused myself?
Here is a link about the accelerated light:
http://maxmet.com/bbs/messages/46.html

intersting article on the URL there, although one part did confuse me slightly:

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

surely, if the light is arriveing at its destination BEFORE IT HAS SET OFF, it would be travelling back in time??!!?? if i am wrong here, feel free to correct me.

On the note of using this 300x light to travle, on the notion of a simple theory, it would not hurt to consider the fact that it may be possible to develop the use of the this speed to travel, although it would be an expensive method!! But for this to be talen seriously, there would need to be absolute concrete evidence, and more, to prove it, as it does break the laws of physics, especially Einsteins theory of Relativity, which does appear to be a big no-no in physics!!

The thing is that it would seem that it would be traveling back in time where light is traveling nomally, but in the accelerated light field that would not be so.

So it may seem that it is traveling back it time, but it would really not be.
I think...
But hey, im only in High School, so what do i know.:D

I think I understand that, next problem, which I don't see anything going against this yet, probably as the idea of travelling 300x faster than light is frowned upon and ignored by many many physicists, both professional and amatuer, is whether you could use the light ant chanel it in say, tunnels, much like we use fibre optics, to travel to and from two positions on a map. Any one have any ideas of any problems, or barriers that could be presented with this type of travel, if it was to be developed and used on a commercial basis??

People could also use this technology to transfer information.
Very fast internet:D .

IF THEY COULD SOMEHOW PUT THIS TECHNOLOGY INTO PIZZA DELIVERY DRIVERS VEHICLES.....ALRIGHT....HOT PIZZA!

From what I know of this and other experiments, it has more to do actually with mathematics than real life experiments. The pulses of light do travel faster than the speed of light, but it has also been proven that no information can be put into these pulses. Information cannot be sent faster than the speed of light.

-AntonK

Light cannot travel faster than light.
It cannot be sped up, in vacuum it cannot be slowed down.

The author of the article has no idea what he’s talking about. All that happened was a re-shaping of the light pulse - no FTL occured and no information was transferred.

Have a read here at the NEC site:

http://www.neci.nj.nec.com/homepages/lwan/faq.htm

OK, Thanx for pointing me toward the correct information

Mors,

You have to be careful when taking ryans word for things.

Sometimes he forgets to knock the dust off his old text books.

For more recent news see:

http://www.npl.washington.edu/AV/altvw43.html

It is about producing FTL Photons.

Well u guys can argue about it, i just put the idea out there. BTW, I dont know shit about physics :D.

So don't be surprised if what i origally suggested is completely impossible, which it most like is.
I just heard from the previous about light traveling faster, so i thought that if we could channel the accelerated light, which may be impossible, that we could use it to stretch the barrier of the speed of light. But hey, what do i know, as i said it is probably all impossible.

I think I've posted this article before, but this says what will happen as we approach the speed of light, and if it is possible, and what will happen if it is surpassed.

Time Travel (http://www.popsci.com/popsci/science/article/0,12543,211498,00.html)

but what im saying is that if you have accelerated light, which may be impossible, and you are traveling in that stream then you would not be traveling faster than light in that stream. but you would be traveling faster than normal light, and since you are in the accelerated light stream you would not even come close to the speed of the accelerated light.
tell me if that does not make any sense

Hi!

That makes absolutely no sense, since light cannot be speed up above the speed of light in vacuum, being approximately 300.000 km / s.

Oh BTW: concerning the "300x faster than light" thingy: this was really just a well-thought trick, abusing the wave character of light. But you need to know quite a bit about waves to understand it, so I suggest that if you really want to know what is going on, that you pick up a book on that ;)

Bye!

Crisp

I assume that the speed of light is limited by its magnetic and electric fields due to the fact that its speed decreases as it travels through dielectric material (like glass or water).

So if you want to make light travel faster, in a material or vacuum, you would have to find away to eliminate its electric and magnetic fields temporarily. For example, you could use destructive interference to cancel the electric and magnetic fields. However, I don't know how the photons of light would be seperated after the destructive interference is done. By the way, has anyone measured the speed of electromagnetic waves that, at some point, have gone through destructive interference?

Let me just say that this is not a serious post. I'm just thinking out loud.

Tom

Originally posted by MacM
Mors,

You have to be careful when taking ryans word for things.

Sometimes he forgets to knock the dust off his old text books.

For more recent news see:

http://www.npl.washington.edu/AV/altvw43.html

It is about producing FTL Photons. For actual science on the matter:
K. Scharnhorst, Physics Letters B236, 354 (1990)
S. Ben-Menahem, Physics Letters B250, 133 (1990)
Andrew Gould (Princeton, Inst. Advanced Study). IASSNS-AST-90-25
Barton & Scharnhorst, J Phys A26, 2037 (1993).

All determining that FTL communication is not possible using this method. All in all it's a mathematical 'trick' that ignores boundrary conditions to say 'what if'.