Slashdot is powered by your submissions, so send in your scoop

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror
×
Patents

Submission + - IBM and Amazon settle patents row

schmu_20mol writes: According to this BBC article, IBM and Amazon settled their patent-infringement lawsuits. ''Under the deal, Amazon said it would pay IBM an undisclosed sum of money, while both firms agreed to allow the other access to some of its technology.''
Science

Speed of Light Exceeded? 393

PreacherTom writes "Scientists at the NEC Research Institute in Princeton, NJ are reporting that they have broken the speed of light. For the experiment, the researchers manipulated a vapor of laser-irradiated atoms, causing a pulse that propagates about 300 times faster than light would travel in a vacuum. The pulse seemed to exit the chamber even before entering it." This research was published in Nature, so presumably it was peer-reviewed. It's impossible from the CBC story to determine what is being claimed. First of all they get the physics wrong by asserting that Einstein's special relativity only decrees that matter cannot exceed the speed of light. Wrong. Matter cannot touch the speed of light in vacuum; energy (e.g. light) cannot exceed it; and information cannot be transferred faster than this limit. What exactly the researchers achieved, and what they claim, can only be determined at this point by subscribers to Nature.

Slashdot Top Deals

Arithmetic is being able to count up to twenty without taking off your shoes. -- Mickey Mouse

Working...