# Umm...can anything travel faster than the speed of light?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/umm-can-anything-travel-faster-than-the-speed-of-light/26193
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [July 20, 2000, 3:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/umm-can-anything-travel-faster-than-the-speed-of-light/26193 "2000-07-20T03:06:06Z")
**Posts on this page:** 11
**Page:** 3
### Author:  [@toadspittle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/toadspittle)
#### Post date: [July 24, 2000, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/umm-can-anything-travel-faster-than-the-speed-of-light/26193/41 "2000-07-24T19:10:08Z")
> [@](#):
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> \*Originally posted by Punoqllads \*
> \*\*
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> What the researchers did, then, is create a medium in which, for a particular wavelength, the speed of light is faster than its speed in a vacuum. \*\*
Huh? Isn’t that impossible? The speed of light in a vacuum–for any wavelength–is c. Plain and simple. How can light travel faster through a medium than through a vacuum?
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### Author:  [@Lux\_Fiat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lux_Fiat)
#### Post date: [July 24, 2000, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/umm-can-anything-travel-faster-than-the-speed-of-light/26193/42 "2000-07-24T22:32:11Z")
JasonFin, right after the segment you quoted from _Nature_, the authors say this:
> [@](#):
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> Therefore, the argument that the probe pulse is advanced by amplification of its front edge does not apply. The superluminal light propagation observed here is the result only of the anomalous dispersion region created with the assistance of two nearby Raman gain resonances.
From what I understood, the part you quoted described how previous experiments had apparently made light travel faster than _c_, and drew a distinction between those experiments and their own, since their own, they said, did not distort the waveform. I think.
I believe I may be a little closer to comprehending this whole thing after DrMatrix’s reminder that a waveform is a map of where the photon might be. The _Nature_ article keeps mentioning that the faster-than-_c_ result of the experiment is possible only because of the wave nature of light. It’s not that the entire wave packet traveled faster than _c_, just the leading edge, or first peak, or something. They also mention (as I said above), that this experiment might just expose a flaw with the way we measure the speed of light waves. How’m I doin’ so far?
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### Author:  [@MadHatter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MadHatter)
#### Post date: [July 25, 2000, 1:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/umm-can-anything-travel-faster-than-the-speed-of-light/26193/43 "2000-07-25T01:24:59Z")
**That seems to contradict not only common sense, but also a bedrock principle of Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity, which sets the speed of light in a vacuum, about 186,000 miles per second, as the fastest that anything can go.**
Actually, Einstein said that nothing can travel AT the speed of light, other then light itself of course. He NEVER said that you couldn’t travel FASTER.
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### Author:  [@Kyberneticist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kyberneticist)
#### Post date: [July 25, 2000, 1:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/umm-can-anything-travel-faster-than-the-speed-of-light/26193/44 "2000-07-25T01:30:20Z")
Umm. But then don’t all sorts of wierd things get inverted? Wouldn’t you end up with negative mass travelling backward in time?
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### Author:  [@NanoByte](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NanoByte)
#### Post date: [July 25, 2000, 3:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/umm-can-anything-travel-faster-than-the-speed-of-light/26193/45 "2000-07-25T03:12:43Z")
Of course the speed of light in a vacuum, as is the case with everything else, is relative to what specifically or generally you want to do with it. Making it not vary with whatever, or not be the maximum rate at which info can be transmitted, has apparently been the best approach to keeping the mathematics as simple as possible for most of whatever has been wanted to be done with it so far. The god of lightning won’t strike anyone down for violating the state of the art of physics. Physicists cheat anyway; they always use the same theories in interpreting the readings of their instruments as those they are supposedly proving with those readings.
Ray (His relatives were absolutely right.)
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### Author:  [@jb\_farley](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jb_farley)
#### Post date: [July 25, 2000, 3:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/umm-can-anything-travel-faster-than-the-speed-of-light/26193/46 "2000-07-25T03:26:30Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by Kyberneticist \*
> \*\*Umm. But then don’t all sorts of wierd things get inverted? Wouldn’t you end up with negative mass travelling backward in time? \*\*
yup. which is absolutely indistinguible from positive mass traveling frontwards.
go figure.
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### Author:  [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)
#### Post date: [July 25, 2000, 3:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/umm-can-anything-travel-faster-than-the-speed-of-light/26193/47 "2000-07-25T03:40:11Z")
No, we do _not_ just set the speed of light in vacuum as the invarient speed just because it makes the math easier… We set c as the invariant speed because that’s the only possible speed that we can make invariant and still agree with experiment. Oh, and as to those experiments, we do not rely on the theories we’re testing to make the measurements… We’re relying on a previous theory, which we’ve already tested. Eventually, of course, you get down to the theory that “reality exists”, and that one’s a bit difficult to prove, but very few folks ask for a proof of that one.
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### Author:  [@NanoByte](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NanoByte)
#### Post date: [July 25, 2000, 5:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/umm-can-anything-travel-faster-than-the-speed-of-light/26193/48 "2000-07-25T05:47:58Z")
Well, at least in your last sentence you admit you’re on the same supply-and-demand trip as everyone else. Scientists invariably seem to believe science does not follow such a path, but is some kind of path toward a holy grail set out by the Force. But your denials in your post are just illusions, which become apparent if one step back and realize science is just a very coherent, but overall _arbitrary_, 'nother facet of history. The whole thing could’ve branched differently at any point, eventually ending up very different, had various “discoveries” and other events appeared in different order or form.
Ray
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### Author:  [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)
#### Post date: [July 25, 2000, 7:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/umm-can-anything-travel-faster-than-the-speed-of-light/26193/49 "2000-07-25T07:38:01Z")
I beg to differ. No matter how the course of history goes, if you let go of an apple, it won’t go up. Certainly, the descriptions of it would change, but the phenomenon would be the same. For something to be science, it has to be consistent not just with itself, but with the world.
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### Author:  [@NanoByte](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NanoByte)
#### Post date: [July 25, 2000, 7:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/umm-can-anything-travel-faster-than-the-speed-of-light/26193/50 "2000-07-25T07:58:14Z")
Ah, the world. But. . .whose world?
Ray (Dorothy, do you think we’re in Montana yet? And what world is that? They claim it’s sky country but nobody ever found it on a star chart.)
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### Author:  [@Lux\_Fiat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lux_Fiat)
#### Post date: [July 25, 2000, 11:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/umm-can-anything-travel-faster-than-the-speed-of-light/26193/51 "2000-07-25T23:15:16Z")
It’s Cecil’s world, NB, we’re just livin’ in it.
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