FTL (not in a Vacuum)

[CanadaAotS]

I think I read something about this somewhere, but I'm still curious.

 

What happens to particles that travel FTL in a material that has a reduced speed of light?

 

What I mean is, for ex, what happens when a particle travels faster then the "speed of light in water"?

 

I vaguely remember it giving off some kind of analog to sounds "sonic boom".

 

Anyway, if anyone knows the answer or would like to discuss it please share

[timo]

I vaguely remember it giving off some kind of analog to sounds "sonic boom".

Not having an acceleration I don´t know if you really can get a real analogy to the sonic boom. What you might have meant is Cherenkov radiation.

[CanadaAotS]

Yes! that rang a bell... what I mean is if a particle travels through a medium that restricts photons to a slower speed... and that particle's velocity surpasses that of the photon, what happens?

[Klaynos]

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

 

[CanadaAotS]

Sometimes I believe that any question can be answered with:

 

http://en.wikipedia.com/wiki/{subject}

 

lol.

 

EDIT:

Btw, the analogy I was thinking of:

"A common analogy is the sonic boom of a supersonic aircraft or bullet. The sound waves generated by the supersonic body do not move fast enough to get out of the way of the body itself. Hence, the waves "stack up" and form a shock front. Similarly, a speed boat generates a large bow shock because it travels faster than waves can move on the surface of the water."

[timo]

Sometimes I believe that any question can be answered with: http://en.wikipedia.com/wiki/{subject}

No, that´s imho completely wrong. Some questions, especially very broad ones or questions where the OP simply doesn´t know the correct term to look for like yours, can be best answered by a quick search on the net. That´s in fact the reason why only gave you the key word without elaborating - whether you look it up on wikipedia or google simply depends on your personal preference. However for information beyond looking up some facts, questions geared towards understanding some concepts, I believe that "personalized answers" are much more appropriate and helpful than general information which are constructed on a design sheet without a clear target audience in mind. That´s also the reason why I usually don´t like people replying to questions on sfn with a link to the wikipedia articles - I think it´s a bit of an insult to people's intelligence to give them relies they could have found within five minutes themselves.

[swansont]

No, that´s imho completely wrong. Some questions, especially very broad ones or questions where the OP simply doesn´t know the correct term to look for like yours, can be best answered by a quick search on the net. That´s in fact the reason why only gave you the key word without elaborating - whether you look it up on wikipedia or google simply depends on your personal preference. However for information beyond looking up some facts, questions geared towards understanding some concepts, I believe that "personalized answers" are much more appropriate and helpful than general information which are constructed on a design sheet without a clear target audience in mind. That´s also the reason why I usually don´t like people replying to questions on sfn with a link to the wikipedia articles - I think it´s a bit of an insult to people's intelligence to give them relies they could have found within five minutes themselves.

 

I think it depends on the question. A more specific question lends itself to getting a more personalized answer. There are many instances where the appropriate response to question asked is a Google or Wiki link. It makes the poster appear lazy to ask for a personalized answer to something that's already written up in an easily-found location on the web.

[lakmilis]

Swansont gets the main points there

 

Although I don't think there is anything wrong if people link.

 

 

But for the record, how can you ask what happens if particles in some medium travel faster than light? These particles will either be

 

A) as of now, still imaginary particles (tachyon principle) and so asking what happens with such particles is a little mind guessing.. or

 

B) particles which due to size and lack of charge perhaps generally dont interact with that medium on a more macroscopic level (Do neutrinos still maintain a constant speed in water?) In which case I will stand ignorantly corrected

 

*clicks on the link*

 

EDIT: ( stands corrected )