Researchers break Newton’s third law

[sorindafabico]

Researchers break Newton’s third law — with lasers

A team of researchers has managed to (very technically) break Newton’s third law of motion — that every action has an equal and opposite reaction — by accelerating laser pulses around a loop seemingly without any corresponding push-back.

The principles behind this breakthrough are airy new-physics ideas like “negative mass,” but the results are simple enough, and speak for themselves. With this team’s device, it’s possible for two pulses of light to both accelerate each other in the same direction through an optical cable, potentially paving the way for advances in everything from communications to computing — with just a hint of starship engineering thrown in for fun.

The team refers to their device as an optical diametric drive, a very tenuous but still instructive comparison that refers to a hypothetical engine tech that could get humans to the stars. A diametric drive is basically an anti-gravity system that uses a block of material with negative mass to create a negative gravitational field that would endlessly repel an object with actual mass (a spaceship). If that sounds like utter fantasy, that’s because it is; the concept of negative gravity has no meaning in quantum physics, which works using mass-squared equations that make all negative mass parameters into positive ones. The idea of moving through space thanks to a block of material with a never-ending propulsive ability calls to mind the perpetual motion machines of days gone by.

(...)

The link to the paper is at the end of the article.

 

[Quick_Nick]

Except it's about as legitimate as a wheel appearing to turn backwards when moving very fast.

 

[Izack]

Looks like a standard case of "Title: Extraordinary New Science! Content: LOL, not really!"

 

[Urwumpe]

how do you accelerate light? :blink:

 

[Loru]

you have to feed the light with gummibear juice

 

[sorindafabico]

Well, it seems that is lacking a "would have" in the title :lol:

 

[4throck]

Interesting, but the news article, as written and with that title, does remind me of this guy:

Seriously, how do you accelerate light? Do you fire the laser in a train at 100km/h, so you get lightspeed+100km/h ?
And isn't that notion one of Einsteins mental experiments ? So if they broke something it has to be Relativity, not Newtons laws?

 

[Urwumpe]

Well, they could accelerate the group velocity of the laser pulses... but thats no change of impulse.

 

[Artlav]

Reminds me of negative resistance in electronics.
With a clever op-amp configuration you can get an element that would work as if it have negative electric resistance.

Taken naively (i.e. by a news reporter who don't have a clue), you might think that now you can make a super refrigerator - an energy sink. Since heat is resistance times current square, negative resistance will give you negative heat!

While in practice, it's just a handy device to i.e. cancel out resistive imperfections in real components or make repeaters.

 

[Max Pain]

It really is a nice and legitimate experiment but it doesn't make a Dean drive work. This takes place inside of an optical lattice (an artificial crystal), negative masses are nothing peculiar there (the effective mass corresponds to the curvature of the dispersion relationship). The crystal can take the missing amounts of momentum.

 

[jedidia]

how do you accelerate light?

Pretty much my first thoughts... maybe I should read the paper to find out what it's actually about?

 

[Urwumpe]

Pretty much my first thoughts... maybe I should read the paper to find out what it's actually about?

I had tried so, but then decided, that this isn't about physics, but rather about cryptography.

 

[MattBaker]

So if they broke something it has to be Relativity, not Newtons laws?

If they'd have broken relativity the Universe would try to trick us by delaying time for GPS satellites.:lol:

 

[PennyBlack]

how do you accelerate light? :blink:

You simply turn your torch on and point it ahead of you; and start running.!

 

[Pipcard]

So are those photons travelling faster than light? <- This sounds like something out of Troll Science...

 

[C3PO]

You simply turn your torch on and point it ahead of you; and start running.!

That will change the frequency, but not the speed. :lol:

 

[thepenguin]

Seriously, how do you accelerate light?

You let it shoot out of glass. Assuming you begin your measurements of velocity inside the glass, and finish outside of the glass (in either air or vacuum) the light will have sped up by approx. 1.5x

 

[llarian]

Reminds me of the original claims and publication pertaining to "cold fusion". Peer review? Independent third party replication of results and data?

 

[Quick_Nick]

Reminds me of the original claims and publication pertaining to "cold fusion". Peer review? Independent third party replication of results and data?

There's nothing wrong with their science. Only the headline.

 

[Ghostrider]

how do you accelerate light? :blink:

You fire a laser from Switzerland into Italy. Once across the border, the photons stop worrying about the speeding limits and put pedal to the metal.