Faster Than Light...

Ever thought about moving faster than light? ..Or.. do you know "anything" that can travel faster than light?

The speed of light "c" is 300,000 Km/s in vacuum. In any other medium, light's speed is always less than "c". Anything with "mass" can not travel at speed of light. These are universal truth or basic assumptions in physics.. on which whole "physics" is based..

But NEC researchers have made a breakthrough where they got "something" moving faster than light.. Any guess on what that "something" is ?... :)... the light itself.. These guys made the light break its own record :) They have developed new type of "medium".. a special "vapor".. that can make light travel 310 times faster..

Unbelievable.. and they did it in year 2000 only.. Hmm.. wasn't aware abt it before.. here is the press release.

Actually.. While reading abt "Faster Than Light", I also came across some interesting experiments. There are "things" that can really travel faster than light.. both in "absolute" terms and "relative" terms.. From this article,

Think about how fast a shadow can move. If you project a shadow of your finger using a nearby lamp onto a far away wall and then wag your finger, the shadow will move much faster than your finger. If your finger moves parallel to the wall, the speed will be multiplied by a factor D/d where d is the distance from the lamp to your finger and D is the distance from the lamp to the wall. It can actually be much faster than this if the wall is at some oblique angle. If the wall is very far away the movement of the shadow will be delayed because of the time it takes light to get there but its speed is still amplified by the same ratio. The speed of a shadow is therefore not restricted to be less than the speed of light.

Others things which can go faster than the speed of light include the spot of a laser which is pointed at the surface of the moon. Given that the distance to the moon is 385,000 km try working out the speed of the spot if you wave the laser at a gentle speed.

Stand up in a clear space and spin round. It is not too difficult to turn at one revolution each two seconds. Suppose the moon is on the horizon. How fast is it spinning round your head? It is about 385,000 km away so the answer is 1.21 million km/s, which is more than four times the speed of light! It sounds ridiculous to say that the moon is going round your head when really it is you who is turning, but according to general relativity all co-ordinate systems are equally valid including revolving ones. So isn't the moon going faster than the speed of light? This is quite difficult to account for.

These are all examples of things which can go faster than light, but these are not physical entities.. They don't have "mass". It is not possible to send "information" faster than light on a shadow or light spot.. so "FTL communication" is not possible in this way...