Light Exceeds Its Own Speed Limit?

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    Light Limit Speed
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Discussion Overview

The discussion revolves around the concept of light potentially exceeding its speed limit, particularly in the context of Special Relativity and various experimental claims. Participants explore theoretical implications, experimental data, and the validity of popular science articles related to superluminal light propagation.

Discussion Character

  • Debate/contested, Exploratory, Technical explanation

Main Points Raised

  • Some participants express confusion regarding the implications of light exceeding its speed limit as suggested by popular science articles.
  • One participant questions the reliability of news sources for physics information and suggests that the phenomenon may relate to modified phase velocities rather than actual faster-than-light propagation.
  • Another participant proposes that general relativity could explain apparent faster-than-light effects due to warped spacetime, though they acknowledge their limited knowledge on the topic.
  • There is a call for references to actual published papers to substantiate claims made in popular articles.
  • Concerns are raised about the age of the references being discussed, suggesting a lack of recent developments on the topic.

Areas of Agreement / Disagreement

Participants do not reach a consensus on the validity of the claims regarding superluminal light propagation. There are multiple competing views on the interpretation of experimental data and the reliability of sources.

Contextual Notes

Some participants note the difficulty in accessing original research papers due to paywalls, which may limit the depth of the discussion. The references mentioned are also noted to be quite old, indicating a potential stagnation in new findings on the topic.

Euclid Areti
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People have asked this question on this forum before. Yet no one has answered or done background check up.

Reading this has confused my understanding of Special Relativity even more.

http://partners.nytimes.com/library/national/science/053000sci-physics-light.html

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/story?id=120095

http://www.andersoninstitute.com/gain-assisted-superluminal-light-propagation.html

(not sure of the validity of the last article)

A google search doesn't reveal much else on this...
Anyone care to elaborate on this? Where's the experimental data info, extra research etc?

How could the speed of light exceed through other medium?

Also: "A paper on the second new experiment, by Daniela Mugnai, Anedio Ranfagni and Rocco Ruggeri of the Italian National Research Council, described what appeared to be slightly faster-than-c-propagation of microwaves through ordinary air, and was published in the May 22 issue of Physical Review Letters."
(First article)
 
Physics news on Phys.org
It's usually ill advised to try to get too much physics from popular news sites. Especially for attention grabbing headlines like "breaking the speed of light limit". Do you have links to the actual published papers?

What I suspect is happening is some modified version of the phase velocity being faster than the speed of light, which is not actually a problem.
 
Did you reed the reedsmith story?
 
Hmm... well the only way I could see the speed of light "exceeding c" is through general relativity, where spacetime is warped due to a gravitational field. It would (at least as far as my miniscule amount of SR/GR knowledge goes), however, only appear more blue shifted, which could, since we're subject to the curvature of spacetime, appear as a faster than c propagation. I could also be speaking nonsense, though. Additional input from someone such as @WannabeNewton would be great in this case.
 
Matterwave said
It's usually ill advised to try to get too much physics from popular news sites. Especially for attention grabbing headlines like "breaking the speed of light limit".

By all that is holy, I swear that I am going to lock this thread if the next post is not a reference to the actual paper.
 
-.-
Do you really expect us to get the paper out of a pop sci article? The closest i could get via google is this: L J Wang et al. 2000 Nature 406 277
I don't have a nature subscription though, so I can't access it, and I don't want to pay they're per article fee (it's RIDICULOUS last I looked ~$100/article).
This is why I love arxiv.
 
Done.

Some of these references are nearly fifteen years old, which is a fairly strong hint that there's nothing here.
 

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