" there is also an amplitude for light to go faster (or slower) than the conventional speed of light. You found out in the last lecture that light doesn't go only in straight lines; now, you find out that it doesn't go only at the speed of light! It may surprise you that there is an amplitude for a photon to go at speeds faster or slower than the conventional speed, c"
– Richard Feynman
– Richard Feynman
Faster-than-light speeds in tunneling experiments: an annotated bibliography
Revision and enlargement of this page is now permanently stalled - this page is no longer updated. Some less ancient references (as of 2001) are added in piecemeal fashion, below.
One central tenet of special relativity theory is that light speed is the greatest speed at which energy, information, signals etc. can be transmitted. In many physics-related internet newsgroups, claims have appeared that recent tunneling experiments show this assumption to be wrong, and that information can indeed be transmitted by speeds faster than that of light - the most prominent example of "information" being a Mozart symphony, having been transmitted with 4.7 times the speed of light. In this document, I've tried to collect the major references on these faster-than-light (FTL)-experiments. If I find the time, I will develop this into a written introduction on the topic of FTL speeds and tunneling, so far it is merely a (possibly incomplete) collection of references. If anyone has relevant additions/comments, I'd appreciate a mail.
Most of the references are to the technical literature, presuming that the reader has at least a basic grasp of physics. However, as usual, those articles have abstracts and conclusions, which give an overview of what the article is about. Some references that are in German are omitted here, but can be found in the german version of this page.
What's this all about, anyway?
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