Progress is still progress. I read your post as this was all done in 2006.

i wish, but people are too greedy, AND pissed off.

Hmmmmmmm. War, population, hunger ...

We could have the computer wars to calculate the number of people killed ... and then send them to the Solent Green plant.

Ender's game wasn't a game at the end. He just didn't know it.

Nah. Didn't mean it that way. Just been following along the negative index work for about a decade now. Progress is certainly progress.

The current line of work actually dates back to the late 90's although the original theoretical framework was laid out by
Veselago way back in 1968.

http://www.pi5.uni-stuttgart.de/lehre/wp2001/prl2000-smith.pdf

This is one of the more interesting topics around. Good post. One would think that waves that appear to be going backward in time or appearing to approach the source from infinity would get more attention. The results are indeed counter intuitive but wouldn't it be cool if the negative refractive index caused the waves to propagate faster than the speed of light in a vacuum.

There are a lot of cool things about negative index materials
but light going faster than c is not one of them...



http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/17166

On the other hand you still have the superlens

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superlens



and if velocity in excess of c is your thing then there is always "spukhafte Fernwirkung"

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v454/n7206/full/nature07121.html

but it's spooky.

I know. I was just responding to the counter intuitive nature of the effect. If it was possible to exceed c, it would be intuitive that this material would accomplish the job. It would be very big news if c was exceeded.

Thus far, population of Africa has been maintained with the help of various epidemies...
But China would have to implement such a machine pretty soon -- especially when other countries would have to stop admitting new immigrants...

As far as being Invisible -- that's the only way they would sneak into other countries! (until the contre-active measures are installed!)

Nothing exceeds the speed of light.

The word "impossibility" is probably more related to our understanding of physics than our drive or innate abilities. Things are considered impossible given a current understanding of how our world works. So, if you are understanding the world through Isaac Newton's eyes, the Heisenberg Principle is impossible. And so on. The fun part is when people think they've reached the end of the journey of understanding. STUPID.

_____________________ __________________________

Actually that is not true. The limits on c (the speed of light in a vacuum) apply to things such as matter traveling in normal space time. The limit, in this case, is caused by the need for infinite energy to be needed to accelerate matter to c ... which obviously isn't going to happen.

However, space time has no such limit since it isn't made of matter (at least as we understand it). It has the ability to stretch, warp, distort, etc., at any speed. The reason black holes exist is that space time is being stretched by gravity faster than the speed of light causing light to be trapped inside. A single photon may be traveling directly outward inside a black hole but space time is "falling" inward at a faster rate thereby preventing the escape.

Some (more or less) accepted theories associated with the big bang would indicate that the rate of expansion of the universe has varied being very fast at the beginning and recently (five billion years ago) speeding up again. Testing the actual rate of expansion of space time is not possible at a specific time but may be someday (which is kinda what this thread is about). Space time can exceed the speed of light.

I saw a Nova program recently called "The World in Balance". It gave the mathematics and social pressures of the changing world population.
They estimated that Africa had a 7 to 10% infection rate of AIDS. The overall birthrate was still very high and the slowing of death from AIDS drugs caused the lifespan to typically reach early forties, which allowed plenty of time for impregnation. The net result was that Africa has one of the fastest growing populations in the world.

China had the one child rule but is no longer being enforced. The limit on children is somewhat limited by what they can afford.

India has an incredible birth rate in the Northern half of the country and is expected to exceed China's population shortly.

The curve in the rise of human population is incredible with a doubling expected by 2050.


Can mankind control it's population? It would appear not.

speaking of speed of light, I was reading about a project to develop transporters like Star Trek.

They were putting a photon into the system and it was coming out on the other side of the room BEFORE they put it into the transmitter

it's been quite a while since I read that. I don't know where they are now on it

Yeah, I read about that about a month or two ago. It is still a long way from Star Trek but it all starts somewhere. As I recall, they were using entanglement to cause action from a distance. Travel wasn't really involved, you simply "appeared" at the second location.

I found a news (non technical) web story.

http://www.redorbit.com/news/video/technology/7/scientists_are_conducting_teleportation_experiments/22537/

................Execitive Management Example..............
Our "life boat" is sinking faster than has been anticipated. Nevertheless, some of the passengers neglect the rules -- they__piss right into the boat, thereby making it sink even faster...

Since the culprits have ignored all of the supplicatons of the other passengers, the latter are faced with the choice:
1. Verbally shaming them in hopes they will cease their "dangerous" acts.
2. Stop giving them the drinking water;
3. Declare war against the culprits -- expelling them from the boat;
4. Put them to sleep (untill the boat reaches the safety);


Thus far, the world has been exercising the 1st option which, obviously, doesn't seem to work;
The 2nd one is just a hypothetical option (similar to #4);
The 3rd option is out of consideration since they won't give up without a fight (and nobody wants to aggravate the situation even further);

That leaves the only realistic option -- #4!!! (i.e. either increasing the drugs' effectiveness to 90%, or partial sterilization of infants -- spay or neuter!

People seem to ignore the warnngs intil its too late. Before we come to the point of NO-RETURN, the World Management has to take the matters into its own hands...
Propagation is a luxury, and should be allowed only to those who possess the potential of producing "quality" off-springs! (i.e. intellectually) Right now it has a rampant quality -- free for all -- as long as the "equipment" permits... In that sense, we are not different from animals!!!

Ironicly, China took a lot of heat for their "one child" rule. They were called barbaric, totalitarian, etc. However, faced with the simple math of their growing population they knew famine was approaching and was the cause of many changes in past Chinese governments. Now, looking back, the one child rule allowed the economy to focus on growth, not children, and helped send China into the modern world.

India, who in the northern half of the country has a 7 child per couple average, is still forced into never ending poverty.

As Draconian measures go, the one child rule seems to be the most practical.

Even such a Draconian measure as that cannot account for children born out of wedlock (i.e. no family) -- even though the government might rule out any child-support for more than one child, any loving father would gladly support his offspring. In other words, the Draconian measure could be bent, cheated, etc.

Besides, adhering to the established policy requires high level of conscience which most of the large city folks might possess. But how do you enforce the rules in the rural areas -- especially in China (not to mention India)???

In the Nova program "The World in Balance", China had "big brother" everywhere including rural areas. Enforcment of the one child rule was practically universal; as least well enough to control the overall population growth.

In India now, arranged marriage is universal in the North and the husband and his mother have breeding control over the wife and she is expected to produce multiple male offspring to support them in later years. Over 25 thousand brides are burned each year if they do not comply. The show did not go into any detail about the punishment for "bride burning" but it came across as acceptable behavior to the authorities.