"Superluminal tunneling (faster than light transmission of signals) was first observed at the University of Cologne with microwave photons. Soon thereafter these experiments were duplicated and validated at the University of Berkeley and Vienna. For theoretical physics the implication is that there exist spaces, devoid of time." Research by Prof. Dr. Guenther Nimtz, Prof. Raymond Chiao and others.

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German essay, not so scientific:

www.uni-koeln.de/~abb11/Populaer.html

"ABSTRACT

With the mathematical formulations around the turn of the century for the behavior of particles at velocities near that of light, the race was on to find a way to break Einstein's ultimate speed barrier. As early as the 1930's scientists began developing theories and experiments to search for particles traveling faster than light. New theories suggested the existence of such particles, known as tachyons, just as Dirac's theories predicted the existence of the first known anti-particles. Until recently, experimental methods have not been adequate to test the myriad of theories. In the last decade, however, instances of superluminal travel have been positively and verifiably identified, mostly in the field of quantum mechanics and quantum barrier penetration, or tunneling. Consideration of the many paradoxes of relativity leads to questions of time reversal and problems with causality, but a careful examination of the experimental evidence leads to the conclusion that superluminal transmission of particles is possible without interfering with Einstein's causality problem. In the following paper, the evidence for superluminal motion will be presented, along with an analysis of the implications of such a discovery.

INTRODUCTION

With the publication of his general theory of relativity in 1905, Einstein showed Newtonian physics to be inadequate. He introduced the idea of an ultimate speed limit known as c, the speed of light. As with any limit, human nature brings a desire to exceed it. With this goal scientists have devised theories and experiments to test the validity of Einstein's theory. In fact a closer mathematical look shows that c is not a limit at all, but a barrier. It is not possible to accelerate an object to a velocity faster than light, but it is possible for the object to have a velocity greater than c. Within recent years, new scientific evidence in the fields of electricity and magnetism and quantum mechanics has supported this claim.

CONCLUSION

"Einstein causality rules out the propagation of any signal traveling faster than light, but it does not limit the group velocity of electromagnetic propagation." - Chaio
After considering the mathematical possibility of motion faster than light, we have concluded that Einstein Causality does not allow for the superluminal transmission of any useful information. In other words, one cannot send a signal backwards in time, ruling out all time travel and similar cause and effect disturbances. However, through the work of Chaio and other experimental physicists, conclusive evidence is given for faster-than-light transmission of smoothly varying functions such as that of a particle wave packet. This means that it is indeed possible for an object to have a velocity greater than that of light."

Whole document: lal.cs.byu.edu/ketav/issue_3.2/Lumin/lumin.html