Why is it that more people arent aware of the fact that the Speed of Light Has been Broken?

I too would be veeerrrrry interested in seeing some evidence for this claim from a non-creationist source. I keep an eye out for this sort of thing out professional as well as personal interest and I can't recall seeing anything like it.

Roger are you absolutely certan that you haven't misundertsood the phase velocity experiments of Wang? They were done around that time (published 2000 IIRC). But they never shattered the speed of light or anything like that, no did Wang et al ever make such a claim.

To help you out Roger, folow the link below? Is that what you arehtinkng of? If so you have misunderstood the results entirely.

" Wang et al. (2000), who produced a laser pulse in atomic cesium gas with a group velocity of 310+/- 5 C. In each case, the observed superluminal propagation is not at odds with causality, and is instead a consequence of classical interference between its constituent frequency components in a region of anomalous dispersion (Wang et al. 2000)."

IOW the speed of light wasn't exceeded by a particle, massless or not. It was the speed of the frequency change wihtin the medium that was 300 times faster than light. Perhaps the easiest way for a layman to understand this is to imagine one of those Newton's Cradle's toys. (see link 2).

When you let go of one ball the motion is tranferred through the two intervening balls to the other end, causing that ball to fly up. That motion is is transmitted at near enough the speed of sound. IOW when the dropped ball hits the suspended balls the motion is passed along at the speed of sound.

But, and this is important, the ball itself wasn't travelling at the speed of sound. Nor did the ball on the end fly out at Mach 1 just because the motion was tranferred at MAch 1. The motion of the drooped ball was transferred at Mach 1, but at no stage was the ball or anyhting else actually travelling at Mach 1.

Wang's experiments did approximately the same thing using photons rather than metal balls. By some very clever work they managed to induce a phase change within the Cesium medium. In essence the Cesium atoms became the middle balls in newtons cradle. When light hit an atom on one side it caused a phase change that was then passed on to the next atom, then the next and so forth, all at 300*C. But it was the phase change that was moving at that speed, not photons, not even electrons, just a phase change.

I read about it after you posted your question. It seems to me that this achievement is still being investigated. Also, They accelerated light itself (or photons, which are massless) and they did it in the presence of the gas which means that light itself was distorted by the gas atoms creating the acceleration. Other scientist seem to agree there is still not enough data to corravorate this findings though. in any case, the speed of light is still a universal constant as measured in a vacuum.. (space) although there is also some concensus that it seems to be slowing down, so I would assume that it would be plausible to accelarate again.

P.S. The experiment didnot talk about other particles being accelerated, only massless particles can travel at the speed of light because it would require infinite energy to accelarate a particle with mass to the speed of light, this in turn would increase the mass of the particle to an infinite amount, which is impossible. It's also believe that gravity, (gravitons) also travels at the speed of light.

Additional Details:So if you cannot send information thru this method (or much more with apparently) could we still send a message in morse code to the past?

Like the others are saying, this can come from the definition of group velocity. It is only a phenomenon that can travel at > c, this has no physical significance and so relativity is not being broken.

Wikipedia on 'phase velocity' references Greg Egan's very neat Java applet at http://gregegan.customer.netspace.net.au/APPLETS/2...

'Subluminal' shows how a wave composed of a multitude of frequencies moving at different velocities — all less than or equal to c, the speed of light in a vacuum — can appear to have features moving faster than c.

The grid that crosses the screen is moving with a velocity of c, and no individual frequency outpaces it. However, the total wave (the bottom trace, in white) has its strongest peaks where all the individual frequencies are in phase, and the places where that happens shift with time, at a “speed” that is greater than c. Nothing is actually travelling with these peaks, though; they're just an artifact of the way the different frequencies are slipping in and out of phase.

This illusion of superluminal motion can only occur when the refractive index of the medium falls as the frequency of the light increases, a situation known as anomalous dispersion. [...]

He references Wang's paper.

Technically, the universe is never COMPLETELY empty as there are always even a few atoms out there between the galaxies so I guess you could say that it might be possible for extremely energetic massy particles such as electrons to exceed the speed of light in space though only by an exceedingly small amount. in a PERFECT vaccuum only massless particles such as photons can and do travel at the speed of light (299,792,458 m/s by def.) as they zip by at 670 mil mph with no mass to lug around and thus no energy needed for infinite travel until they inevitably run into something.

Oh, and where could you be allowed to see particles breaking the luminous barrier underwater ? I'd like to know.

I was in high school physics in early 2001. If this happened, I imagine I would have heard about it. I also have been studying physics constantly in the years since in college. I imagine I would have heard about it in my special relativity class. It is possible to exceed the speed of light in a medium; however, it is not possible to exceed the speed of light in a vacuum. For example, you can have electrons travel through water faster than light can travel through water*, but electrons cannot travel faster than c. Maybe this is what happened in the experiment you are referring to?

*This creates a really pretty glow; I've seen it with my own eyes. I saw it at the OSU nuclear reactor. You can see a picture of the reactor and the light at the link below.

Einstein's Theory still holds. Accelerating to the speed limit that you claim is theorectically possible due to quantum mechanics. You cannot accelerate a spacecraft up to the speed of light. Also, due to Heisenberg's uncertainity principle, how do you know the particle traveled up to 300 times the speed of light? Is the Heisenberg Uncertainity Principle wrong, too?

P.S. c is still the universal speed limit of the universe.

Learn a word called velocity. Quantum entanglement already shows us information can be sent between two distances instantaneously. However, Einstein was talking about the velocity of an object or particle. Which has nothing to do with what you said, nor entanglement.

For me, I haven't ever read about this or even watched that, at 2001 I were at school, so maybe it should have been a good topic to talk in. However, please send an article to read about this, I'm really interested to know.

Because to many people are only worried about what is happening in their own small corner of the world.

to be honest i never herd of this...i still believe in the basic of albert einstein who said that the speed of light was unbreakable....i think if we are ever able to break the speed of light, then we are able to time travel....so why ask these questions....time travel if you can!