faster than light.

[papernuke]

in this article http://archives.cnn.com/2000/TECH/space ... .light.ap/
(source: d.m.falk's comment in viewtopic.php?f=4&t=1217)
it says that scientists were able to beat the speed of light by using a laser beam and a glass chamber filled with a vapor of cesium atoms.
They shined the beam through the chamber and an indntical beam exited the chamber some 60 feet before the actual beam exited.
It says this happened because the vapor changed the property of light.
If in the future, humans have the capacity of faster than light or light speed travel,
and the ships or whatever moves faster than light was sent though a big chamber of caesium atoms, would it gain the capacity to jump before its actual self, and have two of the same thing appear?
for example, you have a ship. it has light speed thrusters. and you send it though a chamber of caesium atoms. Will it be able to have an indentical self "jump" ahead of itself, and have two of the exact same ship appear?

[zero]

Science reporting is often confused and makes mistakes with sensational headlines that hide or distort the truth. "Speed of Light Barrier Broken!" is an exciting headline, but it does not really tell you what's really going on, and the reporting itself is horribly ignorant and oversimplified -- and just plain wrong -- in the link provided. I do not recommend CNN for good science reporting.

Here's a link to some introductory material that could be helpful in explaining what this experiment was about: Fast Light, Slow Light and Optical Precursors

[steelpillow]

I have seen other reports of faster-than-light (FTL) effects.

One involved quantum tunnelling of electrons across a Josephson junction. Such a junction has a finite width and tunnelling is to all intents and purposes instantaneous. The electrons effectively tunnelled across faster than light. Since they also carried a signal (istr an audio recording of some Beethoven music), the information also crossed the junction faster than light. Last I heard, everyone was bickering about the details, I never found out the final verdict. Can anybody here remember?