IT'S a speed record that is supposed to be impossible to break. Yet two physicists are now claiming they have propelled photons faster than the speed of light.
This would be in direct violation of a key tenet of Einstein's special
theory of relativity that states that nothing, under any circumstance,
can exceed the speed of light.
Günter Nimtz and Alfons
Stahlhofen of the University of Koblenz, Germany, have been exploring a
phenomenon in quantum optics called photon tunnelling, which occurs
when a particle slips across an apparently uncrossable barrier. The
pair say they have now tunnelled photons "instantaneously" across a
barrier of various sizes, from a few millimetres up to a metre. Their
conclusion is that the photons traverse the barrier much faster than
the speed of light.
