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It’s basic physics 101. Light moves at a blindingly
fast speed of 186,000 miles per second. A speed so fast that it
could skip circles around the earth about seven times every second.
And nothing can travel faster than the speed of light, right? Well,
actually the new answer is……maybe.
Three years ago, a team of scientists at Princeton University shot
a major hole in the number that has been the basis for almost a
century of physics equations. In fact, Dr. Lijun Wang and his lab
didn't just poke a little hole in the constant of constants, they
shattered it. By firing a pulse of light through a chamber filled
with cesium vapor, Wang was able to move the pulse across the chamber
at 310 times the normal speed of light. That is almost 58 million
miles per second! Or, more than two thousand trips around the earth
every second!
Now, for those of you out there that are thinking, "Doesn't
that disprove everything Einstein ever said?" The answer is
a hesitant "No." Einstein's theories about relativity,
space, and even light still hold true. These equations all assume
the speed of light in a vacuum as their constant, which remains
constant despite the experiment. Wang's lab simply pushed light
past its previously assumed limits in a closed system.
The experiment was designed with the laws of physics in mind, particularly
light refraction laws. When you see a prism break up white light
into a rainbow of colors, you are seeing a similar effect, called
a negative index of refraction. The prism is slowing the light based
on its varying wavelengths, making the blue light travel the slowest
and the red light the fastest. "They [the researchers] made
a material that does the opposite," Dr. James Chadi, vice president
of NEC's Science Division explained, adding that the red light becomes
slower while the blue light accelerates. "It has a positive
index of refraction ... and it actually increases the velocity."
But, the most intriguing, and the most
controversial part of the experiment is that, according to the time
synchronized, highly sensative light sensors, the pulse actually
exited out the end of the chamber of cesium gas microseconds before
it entered the other side. I will give you a moment to read that
line again. Yes, the light actually exited the chamber before it
entered. This would be like a sprinter crossing the finish line
before she even started the race, traveling a few microseconds forward
in time. Some scientists say that this proves that the pulse of
light exiting the chamber is not the same as the pulse that entered
the chamber which cannot be proven one way or another without further
testing.
No, this experiment does not means that we can travel through time
in a silver Dolorian like Michael J. Fox in Back to the Future.
At least, not anytime in the near future. But, who knows. If we
can induce light to outrun itself at 310 times its normal speed,
maybe anything is possible. |
