Whats with news reports about things traveling faster than light?
Dear Straight Dope: I’m a pretty skeptical person who has a casual interest in applied physics. I’m not the sort to put any stock in things like the flat earth society, homeopathy or anything involving sandals, bad clothes and using the word “quantum” five times in two sentences. However, I’ve been keeping my eye on reports that the now firmly entrenched theories of general and special relativity are flawed. I’m not yet prepared to put these on the shelf next to crystals because . . . well, that skepticism keeps kicking in again. But until I get some guidance, I don’t know what to think. According to these reports, c is no longer the fastest speed known. In a forthcoming article in the journal Nature, Dr. Lijun Wang and colleagues of NEC at Princeton will detail an experiment in which they accelerated light pulses to AT LEAST THREE HUNDRED TIMES c! Furthermore, Italian scientists at the National Research Council say they have pushed microwaves to 1.25c! Does this look promising? I’m ju
