Physics: Exceeding the Speed Limit

For Columbia University Physicist Gerald Feinberg, the monthly magazine Fantasy and Science Fiction is as compelling as any learned scientific journal.

It has printed a continuing debate be tween Authors Isaac Asimov and Ar thur C. Clarke over the existence of a particle that travels faster than light.

"Impossible, that's all," Asimov insisted in 1967. "Possible, that's all," retorted Clarke in a recent issue. Feinberg's fascination is understandable. The particle is his conception, although he is still not certain that it really exists.

Feinberg has long felt frustrated by Einstein's 1905 conclusion that velocities...

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