What I tell in this video is actually the story of being able to imagine, question and research beyond visible boundaries. You will see how even seemingly insurmountable obstacles like the speed of light can be overcome when viewed from different angles. There are invisible boundaries before societies as well. And sometimes the vision of a single person can change the fate of an entire nation. Atatürk showed the whole world that the light of science and reason can overcome every obstacle... We remember Gazi Mustafa Kemal Atatürk with respect, gratitude and longing on the 86th anniversary of his passing. Today, what falls to us is to work to overcome every limit we set for ourselves on this bright path he opened. Because ideas, like light, never die... --- Einstein said, “Nothing can travel faster than light.” Or did he not? Have you ever seen him say it? He actually does not say exactly that. The most famous subject of physics has also become one of the most misunderstood subjects. So, we will first resolve this misunderstanding. Once you resolve it, you will also understand how the speed of light can be exceeded. Because the first of these three methods is tachyons. It means “fast, quick” in Greek. These are hypothetical particles that have always been thought to be faster than light. In other words, we have never actually observed tachyons. In fact, many physicists think this is “crazy.” When I say it like this, don’t think that crazy physicists are just suggesting this possibility. Great physicists, even some Nobel Prize winners, are also staunch tachyon advocates. Even though we haven’t observed them, they argue that they should be investigated. There is a second way to exceed the speed of light. This time I am not talking about hypothetical particles like tachyons. This is very, very real. So real that you can see it with your own eyes. But there is a trick to it. Before Einstein’s discovery in 1905, three scientists (Heaviside, Des Coudres and Sommerfeld) made an important claim. They said, “If a charged particle like an electron moves faster than light in a medium, strange things will happen.” However, when Einstein’s discovery came out, they were forgotten. Because, as you know… “Nothing can travel faster than light”… Well, since it can’t, then what these three say doesn’t matter. Until a young Soviet physicist named Cherenkov observes a strange light in 1934. He sees a very faint blue light in a radioactive sample of water. It is so faint that in order to make his observations, Cherenkov enters a room where all the lights are off. He covers himself with a blanket and waits for his eyes to adjust to the darkness for about an hour. He lifts the blanket, makes the observation, closes the blanket and his assistants take notes. They don’t know exactly what he discovered. But about three years later, two more Soviet physicists, Ilya Frank and Igor Tamm, find the origin of this light. How? By following in the footsteps of the three scientists who made that claim before Einstein (Heaviside, Des Coudres and Sommerfeld). Here’s what they found: Just like a supersonic jet creates a Mach cone behind it… When the jet goes faster than the speed of sound, it compresses the pressure waves in front of it so much that it forms a cone. For the third way to exceed the speed of light, we return to the sword. And this time, when I say the speed of light, I mean the speed of light in a vacuum. There is no limit to what I’m going to tell you now. It can go as fast as it wants! And they’re not hypothetical like tachyons, they’re just plain “phenomena” that we know very well. I specifically say “phenomena”. In order to understand what these “phenomena” are, we first need to understand why this sword can’t spin faster than light. When I apply a force with my hand to spin the sword, this force spreads out as a wave along the sword. Of course, we can’t see this wave because the sword is a solid material. It moves as if it were a whole. But if it were a flexible material like a guitar string, we could see it. Or we can think of the sword as a whip. When we swing our hand, it’s possible to see the wave that travels towards its tip. This is a mechanical wave. The atoms of matter interact with each other and propagate like an atomic Mexican wave. The speed of sound is much slower than the speed of light. While the speed of sound in air is 343 meters per second, the speed of light in a vacuum is about 300 million meters per second. So forget about turning the sword at the speed of light… Even if you could, the tip would only be able to approach the speed of light. Einstein’s relativity says that we can only make matter approach the speed of light. So the tip of the sword that is approaching the speed of light can accelerate less than the side closer to my hand. In other words, the tip and head would rotate at different angles and the shape of the sword would change. Unless it breaks, of course. --- Researched and Written by: Ögetay