Claiming that something can move faster than light is a good conversation-stopper in physics. People edge away from you in cocktail parties; friends never return phone calls. You just don't mess with Albert Einstein. So when I saw a press conference at the American Astronomical meeting this past January on faster-than-light phenomena in the cosmos, my first reaction was to say, Terribly sorry, but I really have to go now. Astrophysicists have been speaking of FTL motion for years, but it was always just a trick of the light that lent the impression of warp speed, a technicality of wave motion, or an exotic consequence of the expansion of the universe. These researchers were claiming a very different sort of trick. Dubious though I was, I put their press release in my "needs more thought" folder and today finally got around to taking a closer look. And what I've found is utterly fascinating.
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Albert Einstein - Physics - Faster-than-light - Metric expansion of space - History
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