One of the cornerstones of Einstein's Theory of Relativity has been broken again, this time with ordinary equipment.
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Speed of light broken with basic lab kit
SCIENTISTS have broken the speed of light with basic tools found in most laboratories.
They have sent electric signals at least four times faster than the speed of light with equipment found in most university college science departments, reported the online news service of the New Scientist.
The achievement could boost signal speeds in computers and telecommunications grids.
The light record has been broken before but only with the aid of complicated, expensive equipment.
Now, physicists at Middle Tennessee State University have broken that speed limit over distances of nearly 120 m, using off-the-shelf equipment costing US$500 (S$890), according to NewScientist.com
Physicists Jeremy Munday and Bill Robertson made a 120 m-long cable by alternating 6 m to 8 m lengths of two kinds of coaxial cable, each with a different electrical resistance.
They hooked the hybrid cable to two signal generators, one broadcasting a fast wave, the other a slow one. The waves interfered with each other to produce electric pulses. The different electrical resistances in the cable caused the waves in the pulse's rear to reflect off each other, accelerating the pulse's peak forward.
By using a oscilloscope to trace the pulse's strength and speed, the researchers confirmed they sent the signal's peak tunnelling through the cable at more than four billion km/h (> 4 x 10^9)km/h
(Speed of light is normally 1.07 x 10^9 km/h) |
