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My understanding that light has a duality and can be viewed as both a wave and a particle, since it has characteristics of both. It can be seen as a wave since it can be diffracted (Maxwell slit experiments?) and as a particle, defined as photons-massless bundles of energy that are very well defined. Some other interesting questions. 1) time is not constant for two observers. For example take an atomic clock and accelerate it modestly and compare it to a stationary atomic clock (relatively stationary). Now slow down the accelerated clock to stationary and the once accelerated clock will read that less "time" has passed in relation to the stationary clock. I believe that these experiments were done in the 1960's. So, as one approaches the speed of light, less time goes by as compared to a person that is relatively stationary. 2) Further expanding on this arugment and one approaches the speed of light, an almost infinite amount of time would go by relative to a stationary person. So imagine taking a rocket ride into a black hole. You essentially would see an almost infinite amount of time go by as you look out your window, but an observer say on a planet would see you approaching the black hole for an almost infinite amount of time, but never go in. 3) going faster than the speed of light is not permissable by Einsteininian physics since this would take and infinite amount of energy. So, can one go faster than the speed of light? Well, maybe relatively speaking. Take a piece of paper and say you want to go from one end to the other. Well you would suppose that you would just draw a line. But, what if you fold the paper and now go from point A to B, alot shorter, eh? Hence the term "warp" drive, you are folding the fabric of space or "warping" it. 4) Last year in the journal of Nature an incredible paper was published on photons. Photons travel at c. But can they travel any faster. Till now the answer was no. But what these guys did was they induced a spin on the photons and essentially deformed them. Now how fast is the leading edge of the deformed photon travelling. Well, just a small bit faster than the speed of light. Incredible!!! 5) Another great paper that showed that they could transfer the quantum information from one particle to another, spin etc. Makes you wonder then if you could create quantum duplicates of complex matter. Certainly, complicated but look how far computers have come in just a few measly decades. Transporting matter to energy and back to matter isn't realistic, that much matter-energy conversion isn't realistic (look how much energy you get from fission or fusion which is just shuffling neutrons into protons), so a transporter using this method isn't realistic, but transfering all coordinates of complex matter to matter that already is there is an intriguing hypothesis. Next week, how did it all begin, how will it all end and is there life after death. Aseem
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11:29:47 08/21/02
