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| Author | Topic: Cracks in 'Speed of Light' |
| Speed of light may have changed recently |
posted 7/2/04 11:13 AM
New Scientist | AFP Thursday July 1, 01:30 PM Speed of light may have changed recently By Eugenie Samuel Reich The speed of light, one of the most sacrosanct of the universal physical constants, may have been lower as recently as two billion years ago - and not in some far corner of the universe, but right here on Earth. The controversial finding is turning up the heat on an already simmering debate, especially since it is based on re-analysis of old data that has long been used to argue for exactly the opposite: the constancy of the speed of light and other constants. A varying speed of light contradicts Einstein's theory of relativity, and would undermine much of traditional physics. But some physicists believe it would elegantly explain puzzling cosmological phenomena such as the nearly uniform temperature of the universe. It might also support string theories that predict extra spatial dimensions. The fine structure constant The threat to the idea of an invariable speed of light comes from measurements of another parameter called the fine structure constant, or alpha, which dictates the strength of the electromagnetic force. The speed of light is inversely proportional to alpha, and though alpha also depends on two other constants (see graphic), many physicists tend to interpret a change in alpha as a change in the speed of light. It is a valid simplification, says Victor Flambaum of the University of New South Wales in Sydney. It was Flambaum, along with John Webb and colleagues, who first seriously challenged alpha's status as a constant in 1998. Then, after exhaustively analysing how the light from distant quasars was absorbed by intervening gas clouds, they claimed in 2001 that alpha had increased by a few parts in 10 5 in the past 12 billion years. Natural nuclear reactor But then German researchers studying photons emitted by caesium and hydrogen atoms reported earlier in June that they had seen no change in alpha to within a few parts in 10 15 over the period from 1999 to 2003 ( New Scientist, 26 June ) though the result does not rule out that alpha was changing billions of years ago. Throughout the debate, physicists who argued against any change in alpha have had one set of data to fall back on. It comes from the world's only known natural nuclear reactor, found at Oklo in Gabon, West Africa. The Oklo reactor started up nearly two billion years ago when groundwater filtered through crevices in the rocks and mixed with uranium ore to trigger a fission reaction that was sustained for hundreds of thousands of years. Several studies that have analysed the relative concentrations of radioactive isotopes left behind at Oklo have concluded that nuclear reactions then were much the same as they are today, which implies alpha was the same too. That is because alpha directly influences the ratio of these isotopes. In a nuclear chain reaction like the one that occurred at Oklo, the fission of each uranium-235 nucleus produces neutrons, and nearby nuclei can capture these neutrons. For example, samarium-149 captures a neutron to become samarium-150, and since the rate of neutron capture depends on the value of alpha, the ratio of the two samarium isotopes in samples collected from Oklo can be used to calculate alpha. A number of studies done since Oklo was discovered have found no change in alpha over time. "People started quoting the reactor [data] as firm evidence that the constants hadn't changed," says Steve Lamoreaux of Los Alamos National Lab (LANL) in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Energy spectrum Now, Lamoreaux, along with LANL colleague Justin Torgerson, has re-analysed the Oklo data using what he says are more realistic figures for the energy spectrum of the neutrons present in the reactor. The results have surprised him. Alpha, it seems, has decreased by more than 4.5 parts in 10 8 since Oklo was live ( Physical Review D , vol 69, p121701). That translates into a very small increase in the speed of light (assuming no change in the other constants that alpha depends on), but Lamoreaux's new analysis is so precise that he can rule out the possibility of zero change in the speed of light. "It's pretty exciting," he says. So far the re-examination of the Oklo data has not drawn any fire. "The analysis is fine," says Thibault Damour of the Institute of Advanced Scientific Studies (IHES) in Bures-sur-Yvette in France, who co-authored a 1996 Oklo study that found no change in alpha. Peter Moller of LANL, who, along with Japanese researchers, published a paper in 2000 about the Oklo reactor that also found no change in alpha, says that Lamoreaux's assumptions are reasonable. The analysis might be sound, and the assumptions reasonable, but some physicists are reluctant to accept the conclusions. "I can't see a particular mistake," says Flambaum. "However, the claim is so revolutionary there should be many independent confirmations." While Flambaum's own team found that alpha was different 12 billion years ago, the new Oklo result claims that alpha was changing as late as two billion years ago. If other methods confirm the Oklo finding, it will leave physicists scrambling for new theories. "It's like opening a gateway," says Dmitry Budker, a colleague of Lamoreaux's at the University of California at Berkeley. Horizon problem Some physicists would happily accept a variable alpha. For example, if it had been lower in the past, meaning a higher speed of light, it would solve the "horizon problem". Cosmologists have struggled to explain why far-flung regions of the universe are at roughly the same temperature. It implies that these regions were once close enough to exchange energy and even out the temperature, yet current models of the early universe prevent this from happening, unless they assume an ultra-fast expansion right after the big bang. However, a higher speed of light early in the history of the universe would allow energy to pass between these areas in the form of light. Variable "constants" would also open the door to theories that used to be off limits, such as those which break the laws of conservation of energy. And it would be a boost to versions of string theory in which extra dimensions change the constants of nature at some places in space-time. But "there is no accepted varying-alpha theory", warns Flambaum. Instead, there are competing theories, from those that predict a linear rate of change in alpha, to those that predict rapid oscillations. John Barrow, who has pioneered varying-alpha theories at the University of Cambridge, says that the latest Oklo result does not favour any of the current theories. "You would expect alpha to stop [changing] five to six billion years ago," he says. Reaction rate Before Lamoreaux's Oklo study can count in favour of any varying alpha theory, there are some issues to be addressed. For one, the exact conditions at Oklo are not known. Nuclear reactions run at different rates depending on the temperature of the reactor, which Lamoreaux assumed was between 227 and 527°C. Damour says the temperature could vary far more than this. "You need to reconstruct the temperature two billion years ago deep down in the ground," he says. Damour also argues that the relative concentrations of samarium isotopes may not be as well determined as Lamoreaux has assumed, which would make it impossible to rule out an unchanging alpha. But Lamoreaux points out that both assumptions about the temperature of the Oklo reactor and the ratio of samarium isotopes were accepted in previous Oklo studies. Another unknown is whether other physical constants might have varied along with, or instead of, alpha. Samarium-149's ability to capture a neutron also depends on another constant, alpha(s), which governs the strength of the strong nuclear attraction between the nucleus and the neutron. And in March, Flambaum claimed that the ratio of different elements left over from just after the big bang suggests that alpha(s) must have been different then compared with its value today ( Physical Review D , vol 69, p 063506). While Lamoreaux has not addressed any possible change in alpha(s) in his Oklo study, he argues that it is important to focus on possible changes in alpha because the Oklo data has become such a benchmark in the debate over whether alpha can vary. "I've spent my career going back and checking things that are 'known' and it always leads to new ideas," he says. http://uk.news.yahoo.com/040701/12/ex43v.html |
| Ram |
posted 8/16/04 2:35 PM
While it is certain that both alpha and the speed of light are variable at different areas in space and time (along with all physical/material 'constants'), and while it's interesting that data supports a change in alpha, it fails to be sufficient evidence for lightspeed flux for at least three reasons; the parameters of the data are unknown in a number of areas - and the entire matrix of timespace is evolving in a holistic fashion - and all measurements are, moreover, taken from a purely local base (here) looking through lenses barely dreamed of. All is flux. http://gonow.to/timespace |
| The Problem with Gravity: New Mission Would Probe Strange Puzzle |
posted 10/24/04 12:00 AM
The Problem with Gravity: New Mission Would Probe Strange Puzzle By Robert Roy Britt Senior Science Writer18 October 2004 06:33 am ET Imagine the weight of a nagging suspicion that what held your world together, a constant and consistent presence you had come to understand and rely on, wasn't what it seemed. That's how scientists feel when they ponder gravity these days. For more than three centuries, the basics of gravity were pretty well understood. Newton described the force as depending on an object's mass. Though it extends infinitely, gravity weakens with distance (specifically, by the inverse square of the distance). Einstein built on these givens in developing his theory of relativity. Then more than a decade ago a researcher noticed something funny about two Pioneer spacecraft that were streaming toward the edge of the solar system. They weren't where they should have been. Something was holding the probes back, according to calculations of their paths, speed and how the gravity of all the objects in the solar system -- and even a tiny push provided by sunlight -- ought to act on them. Now scientists have proposed a new mission to figure out what's up with gravity. Staggering possibilities Pioneer 10 and 11 launched in 1972 and 1973. Today each is several billion miles away, heading in opposite directions out of the solar system. The discrepancy caused by the anomaly amounts to about 248,500 miles (400,000 kilometers), or roughly the distance between Earth and the Moon. That's how much farther the probes should have traveled in their 34 years, if our understanding of gravity is correct. (The distance figure is an oversimplification of the actual measurements, but more on that in a moment.) Scientists are quick to suggest the Pioneer anomaly, as they call it, is probably caused by the space probes themselves, perhaps emitting heat or gas. But the possibilities have been tested and modeled and penciled out, and so far they don't add up. Which leaves open staggering possibilities that would force wholesale reprinting of all physics books: Invisible dark matter is tugging at the probes Other dimensions create small forces we don't understand Gravity works differently than we think Devoted to the problem Slava Turyshev at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory is one of a handful of scientists who wrestle mentally with the Pioneer anomaly every day. He is not paid to work specifically on the problem, so he has to juggle the disturbing thought with his regular research, which involves other aspects of gravity and, significantly, whether theories that explain the glue of the whole universe might one day match neatly with those describing the invisible, subatomic world. "I have been working on [the Pioneer anomaly] for more than 11 years now, and was never funded to do this job," Turyshev tells SPACE.com. "I guess this says a lot about my devotion to solve this mystery." Data from the Galileo and Ulysses spacecraft suggest the anomaly may have affected them, too. But neither has been far enough from the Sun -- the dominant source of gravity in the solar system -- to firmly distinguish any possible discrepancy from noise in the data, Turyshev says. Galileo was crashed into Jupiter last year, and Ulysses will never go farther than it has. That leaves two data points -- one from each Pioneer craft. Turyshev pointedly considers the pair as one data point, so as not to inflate the case for strange new physics. He looked at the two Voyager spacecraft, also exiting the solar system, but says their design involved "numerous attitude-control maneuvers" that "can overwhelm the signal of a small external acceleration." NASA engineers have made their last communications with the Pioneer probes, so the two table-sized robots are carrying the unsolved mystery silently to the stars. New mission proposed The Pioneer anomaly was discovered by John Anderson, also of JPL, in the 1980s. For years he didn't publish what he'd noticed. Then he discussed it with physicist Michael Martin Nieto at the Los Alamos National Laboratory. Nieto says he "almost fell off my chair." Nieto jumped into the investigation, and the two were later joined by Turyshev. They dug deeper into the data, even tracking down retired NASA scientists for some of it. Unraveling the enigma will require a new mission, the researchers say. NASA, however, doesn't have such a project on its agenda and has not expressed much interest in one. Europeans, for reasons both historic and having to do with a current strong desire to better grasp gravity, seem more interested in investigating the problem. So Anderson's team recently proposed to the European Space Agency a "mission to explore the Pioneer anomaly" using the latest accelerometers and advanced navigation methods. All possible sources of onboard radiation would be eliminated in "the most precisely tracked spacecraft ever to go into deep space," the group writes in the September issue of Physics World magazine. The idea has "very high chances" of being chosen for future study, Turyshev thinks. If funded, it could launch as early as 2015. If the mission were to find a natural, cosmic cause to the Pioneer anomaly, the revelation would rank right up there with other apple-on-the-head moments in the history of physics. "If the anomaly is due to some new physical mechanism, this discovery would have a truly fundamental impact," Turyshev said. Exotic candidates One candidate is dark matter. This unknown stuff seems to infuse the universe and, though invisible, has a collective gravitational impact greater than all known matter, including stars and planets. Dark matter is inferred to exist because, without it, galaxies would fly apart. Every galaxy must be loaded with the stuff, astronomers conclude, based on how stars are bound to orbit the centers of the galaxies. But dark matter's effects have been presumed to operate across large expanses, both within and between galaxies. There is no evidence of it controlling anything on a scale so small as our solar system. Another idea is that gravity tugs slightly harder at things farther away. That radical suggestion, if proved true, would force a modification of Einstein's general theory of relativity and might eliminate dark matter as a player. Yet one more exotic possibility: Dimensions exist beyond the four we know (three directions and time). Models of string theory propose that higher dimensions could provide weak forces that act in ways we don't yet comprehend. No fancy theory in existence, however, properly explains the Pioneer data. Drifting journeys The Pioneer anomaly is not actually a measure of how far the Pioneer probes did or didn't travel. Instead, scientists bounced microwave signals off each probe and noticed an unexpected drift in the Doppler frequency as the probes got farther away. The technique is akin to noting the sound change in a siren as an ambulance races first toward you, and then away from you. The Doppler effect is a shortening or lengthening of sound waves (or microwaves, or any waves) forced by an object's movement. The drift showed that the Pioneers were being accelerated toward the Sun (or, rather, decelerated in their movement away from the Sun) by a tiny but inexplicable amount. The level of drift is equal to a gravitational effect 10 billion times weaker than the pull of Earth. Though tiny, the signal is clear, other scientists agree. Despite 11 years of devotion to the mystery, Turyshev is the first to admit that the "most obvious explanation" would be an unknown onboard effect. Perhaps excessive internal heat or leaks of propulsion gas are providing a wee bit of thrust that adds up over the years. Yet despite a lot of testing, "no unambiguous, onboard systematic problem has been discovered," he said. "This inability to explain the anomalous acceleration of the Pioneer spacecraft with conventional physics has contributed to the growing discussion about its origin." Even if the anomaly is caused by the Pioneer probes themselves, figuring it out will be useful says Turyshev, who is the proposal leader for the U.S. group. "Finding it would help us to build a better spacecraft for the needs of fundamental physics," he said. "These craft would much more stable, quieter and would allow us to go even deeper in our quests of studying the fabric of fundamental and gravitational physics." |
| Scientists Mess with the Speed of Light |
posted 8/21/05 6:20 AM
Scientists Mess with the Speed of Light Ker Than LiveScience Staff Writer LiveScience.com Fri Aug 19, 4:00 PM ET Researchers in Switzerland have succeeded in breaking the cosmic speed limit by getting light to go faster than, well, light. Or is it all an illusion? Scientists have recently succeeded in doing all sorts of fancy things with light, including slowing it down and even stopping it all together. Now a team at the Ecole Polytechnique Fdrale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland is controlling the speed of light using simple off-the-shelf optical fibers, without the aid of special media such as cold gases or crystalline solids like in other experiments. "This has the enormous advantage of being a simple, inexpensive procedure that works at any wavelength," said Luc Thvenaz, lead author of the study detailing the research. Using a technique called Stimulated Brillouin Scattering, the researchers were able to slow down or ratchet up the speed of light like the gas pedal on a car. They succeeded in reducing the speed of light by almost a factor of 4 (although that's still plenty fast at 46,500 miles per second), but even more dramatically, the team was also able to speed up the speed of light. Light in a vacuum travels at approximately 186,000 miles per second, but a popular misconception is that, according to Einstein's special theory of relativity, nothing in the universe can travel faster than this speed. This seeming paradox can be resolved because a pulse of light is actually made up of many separate frequency components, each of which moves at their own velocities. This is known as the pulse's phase velocity. If all the frequency components have the same phase velocity, then the overall pulse will also appear to move at that velocity. However, if the components have different phase velocities, then the pulse's overall velocity will depend on the relationships between the velocities of the separate components. If the velocities differ, the pulse is said to be moving at the group velocity. By tweaking the relationship between phase velocities, it's possible to adjust the group velocity and create the illusion that parts of the pulse are traveling faster than the speed of light. One area where such an advance could be enormously beneficial is in the telecommunications industry. Although information can be channeled through fiber optics at the speed of light, it can't be processed at this speed because with current technologies, light signals must be transformed into much slower electrical signals before they are useful. Thevenaz's technique would essentially allow light to be processed with light without a costly electrical conversion. The group's research will be published in an August 22nd issue of the journal Applied Physics Letters. http://news.yahoo.com/s/space/20050819/sc_space/scientistsmesswiththespeedoflight |
| Upheavals in Physics: The Speed of Light ExceedeThe Speed of Light Exceeded Part 1 |
posted 11/5/05 10:05 AM
Some scientists now claim they have broken the ultimate speed barrier: the speed of light.1 Particle physicists at the NEC Research Institute at Princeton apparently have indicated that light pulses can be accelerated to up to 300 times their normal velocity of 186,282 miles per second. In work carried out by Dr. Lijun Wang, a pulse of light was transmitted towards a chamber filled with specially treated cesium gas. Before the pulse had fully entered the chamber, it had gone right through it and traveled an additional 60 feet across the laboratory. In effect it appeared to exist in two places at once, a phenomenon that Dr. Wang explains by saying it traveled 300 times faster than the normal velocity of light. (Exact details of the findings remain confidential because they have been submitted to the international scientific journal, Nature, for review prior to possible publication.) The implications would appear to be staggering. It could shatter Einstein's Theory of Relativity, since it depends in part on the speed of light being a constant and unbreachable. Needless to say, this research is destined to cause continuing controversy among physicists. (Barry Setterfield's controversial suggestions that the speed of light is not a constant have been highlighted in our Personal Update journal for many years.) One interpretation of the Princeton experiment suggests that light arrived at its destination almost before it has started its journey: In effect, it appeared to be leaping forward in time. One of the possibilities is that if light could travel forward in time, it could carry information. This would breach one of the basic principles in physics-causality, which says that a cause must come before an effect. In Italy, another group of physicists has also succeeded in breaking the light speed barrier. In a recently published paper, physicists at the Italian National Research Council described how they propagated microwaves at 25% above normal light speed. The group also speculates that it could prove possible to transmit information faster than light. Dr. Guenter Nimtz, of Cologne University, recently gave a paper to a conference in Edinburgh describing how information can be sent faster than light. He believes, however, that this will not breach the principle of causality because the time taken to interpret the signal would fritter away all the savings. "The most likely application for this is not in time travel but in speeding up the way signals move through computer circuits," he said. Dr. Raymond Chiao, professor of physics at the University of California at Berkeley, who is familiar with Wang's work, said he was impressed by the findings. Separate experiments carried out by Chiao indicate simultaneous multiple localities. He has shown that in certain circumstances photons-the particles which constitute light-could apparently jump between two points separated by a barrier in what appears to be zero time. The process, known as "tunneling," has been used to make some of the most sensitive electron microscopes. The implications of Wang's experiments will, of course, arouse fierce debate. Many will question whether his work can be interpreted as proving that light can exceed its normal speed-suggesting that another mechanism may be at work. Wang emphasizes that his experiments are relevant only to light and may not apply to other physical entities. But some scientists are beginning to accept that man may eventually exploit some of these characteristics for interstellar space travel. The Nature of Reality Wang's experiment is the latest and among the potentially most important evidences that the physical world may not operate according to the presently accepted conventions. In the new world that modern science is beginning to perceive, subatomic particles can apparently exist in two places at the same time-making no distinction between space and time. The problem, according to Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity, is that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light. Any instantaneous communication implied by the view of quantum physics would be tantamount to breaking the time barrier and would open the door to all kinds of unacceptable paradoxes. Einstein and his colleagues were convinced that no "reasonable definition" of reality would permit such faster-than-light interconnections to exist. (Their argument is now known as the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen paradox, or EPR paradox for short.) Rather than believing that some kind of faster-than-light communication was taking place, Niels Bohr offered another explanation: If subatomic particles do not exist until they are observed, then one could no longer think of them as independent "things." Thus, Einstein was basing his argument on an error when he viewed twin particles as separate. They were part of an indivisible system, and it was meaningless to think of them otherwise. In time, most physicists sided with Bohr and became content that his interpretation was correct... cont. pt 2 http://www.khouse.org/articles/2000/265/ |
| Upheavals in Physics: The Speed of Light ExceedeThe Speed of Light Exceeded Part 2 |
posted 11/5/05 10:06 AM
The Cosmos as a Hyper- Hologram? There seems to be evidence accumulating to suggest that our world and everything in it are only ghostly images, projections from a higher level of reality so beyond our own that the real reality is literally beyond both space and time. The main architect of this astonishing idea includes one of the world's most eminent thinkers: University of London physicist David Bohm, a protégé of Einstein's and one of the world's most respected quantum physicists. Bohm's work in plasma physics in the 1950s was considered a landmark. Earlier at the Lawrence Radiation Laboratory, he noticed that in plasmas (gases composed of high density electrons and positive ions) the particles stopped behaving like individuals and started behaving as if they were part of a larger and interconnected whole. Moving to Princeton University in 1947, there too he continued his work in the behavior of oceans of particles, noting their highly organized overall effects and their behaving as if they knew what each of the untold trillions of individual particles were doing. Bohm's sense of the importance of interconnectedness, as well as years of dissatisfaction with the inability of standard theories to explain all of the phenomena encountered in quantum physics, left him searching. While at Princeton, Bohm and Einstein developed a supportive relationship and shared their mutual restlessness regarding the strange implications of current quantum theory. One of the implications of Bohm's view has to do with the nature of location. Bohm's interpretation of quantum physics indicated that at the sub-quantum level location ceased to exist. All points in space become equal to all other points in space, and it was meaningless to speak of anything as being separate from anything else. Physicists call this property "non-locality." The Bell Inequality Bohm's ideas left most physicists unpersuaded, but they did stir the interest of a few. One of these was John Stewart Bell, a theoretical physicist at CERN, the center for atomic research at Geneva, Switzerland. Like Bohm, Bell had become discontented with the quantum theory and felt there had to be some alternative. When Bell encountered Bohm's ideas, he wondered if there was some way of experimentally verifying non-locality. Freed up by a sabbatical in 1964, he developed an elegant mathematical approach which revealed how such a two-particle experiment could be performed - the now famed Bell Inequality. The only problem was that it required a level of technological precision that was not yet available. To be certain that particles - such as those in the EPR paradox - were not using some normal means of communication, the basic operations of the experiment had to be performed in such an infinitesimally brief instant that there wouldn't be enough time for a ray of light to transit the distance separating the two particles. Light travels at about a foot in a nanosecond (thousand-millionth of a second). This meant that the instruments used in the experiment had to perform all the necessary operations within a few nanoseconds. As technology improved it was finally possible to actually perform the two-particle experiment outlined by Bell. In 1982, a landmark experiment performed by a research team led by physicist Alain Aspect, Jean Dalibard, and Gérard Roger at the Institute of Theoretical and Applied Optics, in Paris, succeeded. They produced a series of twin photons by heating calcium atoms with lasers, allowed each photon to travel in opposite directions through 6.5 meters of pipe and pass through special filters that directed them toward one of two possible polarization analyzers. It took each filter 10 nanoseconds to switch between one analyzer or the other, about 30 nanoseconds less than it took light to travel the entire 13 meters separating each set of photons. In this way Aspect and his colleagues were able to rule out any possibility of the photons communicating by any known physical process. The experiment was a success. Just as quantum theory predicted, each photon was still able to correlate its angle of polarization with that of its twin. This meant that either Einstein's ban against faster-than-light communications was being violated, or the two photons were non-locally connected. This experiment demonstrated that the web of subatomic particles which comprise our physical universe-the very fabric of "reality" itself-may possess what appears to be a "holographic" property.... cont. pt 3 http://www.khouse.org/articles/2000/265/ |
| Upheavals in Physics: The Speed of Light ExceedeThe Speed of Light Exceeded Part 3 |
posted 11/5/05 10:07 AM
Is Reality Only Virtual? One of Bohm's most startling suggestions is that the tangible reality of our everyday lives is really a kind of illusion, like a holographic image. Underlying it is a deeper order of existence, a vast and more primary level of reality that gives birth to all the objects and appearances of our physical world in much the same way that a piece of holographic film gives birth to a hologram. Bohm calls this deeper level of reality the implicate ("enfolded") order and he refers to our level of existence the explicate (unfolded) order.3 Many physicists remain skeptical of Bohm's ideas, but among those who are sympathetic, however, are Roger Penrose of Oxford, the creator of the modern theory of black holes; Bernard d'Espagnat of the University of Paris, one of the leading authorities on the conceptual foundations of quantum theory, and Cambridge's Brian Josephson, winner of the 1973 Nobel Prize in physics. Josephson believes that Bohm's implicate order may someday even lead to the inclusion of God within the framework of science, a view which Josephson supports.4 The holographic paradigm is still a developing concept and riddled with controversies. For decades science has chosen to ignore evidences that do not fit the standard theories. However, the volume of evidence has now reached the point that denial is no longer a viable option. (The recent entertaining movie, The Thirteenth Floor, explores a "simulation within a simulation," with a plot involving virtual people inhabiting a virtual world with the participants transferring between levels.) These notions are not very distant from the Biblical presentation of the physical world as being subordinate to the superior reality of the spiritual world.5 The Bible, incidentally, is also unique among all religious books in that it also presents a universe of more than three dimensions, 6 reveals a Creator that is transcendent over His creation,7 and who entered time and space to create the ultimate paradox by fulfilling our future! * * * This article was originally published in the July 2000 Personal Update NewsJournal. For a FREE 1-Year Subscription, click here. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- **NOTES** -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Jonathan Leake, "Eureka! Scientists Break The Speed of Light," Science Editor, Sunday Times, June 4, 2000. Internet: http://www.sunday-times.co.uk It may come as a surprise to learn that the first direct technological implementation of these strange principles of quantum mechanics is in cryptology: British researchers have constructed a device for quantum key encryption and decryption. The device allows a key to be secretly distributed in such a way that should the key become known to an unintended listener, both the transmitter of the key and all designated recipients of it will instantaneously know it. (Paul D. Townsend, "Quantum Cryptography on Multi-user Optical Fibre Networks," Nature, No. 385, 1997, pp.47-49; Richard J. Hughes, "Quantum Security is Spookily Certain," Ibid. See also Cosmic Codes .) This is reminiscent of the Red King's dream in Through the Looking Glass, in which Alice finds herself in deep metaphysical waters when the Tweedle brothers defend the view that all material objects, including ourselves, are only "sorts of things" in the mind of God. The Reach of the Mind: Nobel Prize Conversations, Saybrook Publishing Co., Dallas TX, 1985, p.91. 2 Corinthians 4:18. Ephesians 3:18. Eastman & Missler, The Creator Beyond Time and Space, The Word for Today, Costa Mesa CA, 1996. http://www.khouse.org/articles/2000/265/ |
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