If the wave is stretched linearly, then the leading edge arrives at a target faster than light. It helps to think of light as wave packets in this scenario. The second way of achieving this objective is to make light faster than itself, by stretching it ahead of itself. But outside observe appear to believe light speed is exceeded. In effect, this experiment produces apparent superluminal motion, although none of the light bulbs shine faster than the speed of light. This will lead to a situation in which light bulb number 2 lights up after number 1 in a period of time that is a lot smaller than that which light needs to travel between the two light bulbs. So you have this row of light bulbs, which are set to that the number 1 fires first, number 2 second, and so on in a sequence.Īs the bulbs begin to be turned on and off, the speed at which the sequence unfolds is increased.
The experiments is quite simple, and also one of the most potent illusions. All you need is a row of light bulbs and a computer program to control their on/off sequence. Producing apparent superluminal (faster-than-light) motion is oddly enough quite simple.
Now, experts compile a list explaining why superluminal motions appear. This obviously turned out to be just an illusion, but a pretty convincing one at that. One of the most interesting astronomy news for 2010 had a lot to do with the discovery of a pulsar that apparently moved faster than the speed of light.