RE: Light Exceeds Its Own Speed Limit, or Does It?

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From: v - Mark Kuharich (mkuharich@punchnetworks.com)
Date: Tue Jul 25 2000 - 15:42:02 PDT


Rohit Khare wrote:
http://www.nytimes.com/library/national/science/053000sci-physics-light.html
In the most striking of the new experiments a pulse of light that enters a
transparent chamber filled with specially prepared cesium gas is pushed to
speeds of 300 times the normal speed of light. That is so fast that, under
these peculiar circumstances, the main part of the pulse exits the far side
of the chamber even before it enters at the near side. It is as if someone
looking through a window from home were to see a man slip and fall on a
patch of ice while crossing the street well before witnesses on the sidewalk
saw the mishap occur - a preview of the future. But Einstein's theory, and
at least a shred of common sense, seem to survive because the effect could
never be used to signal back in time to change the past - avert the
accident, in the example

[A URL that allows you to replicate the results of the above experiment
http://superosity.com/d/20000427.html
... :-)

Mark Kuharich

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