> > Also, nowhere in that article you linked to do I see anything about speeding UP light.
>
> You missed the last sentence, then:
> "In July, physicists in Princeton, New Jersey
>apparently pushed a laser pulse through a vapor
>of cesium atoms so it traveled faster than the
>conventional speed of light."
>
> It doesn't say if they mean "the conventional
>speed of light in a vacuum" (serious news) or
>"the conventional speed of light in caesium
>vapour of density X" (ho hum) and, of course,
>there's that "apparently" that suggests that
>no-one's too sure if this is a real effect, or
>just the result of a poorly calibrated sensor.

Yeah, that strikes me as another bit if vauge science reporting. "pushed a laser pulse through a vapor of cesium atoms" indicates, obviously, that the light is travelling through a medium. "so it traveled faster than the conventional speed of light." could mean either "faster than the normal speed of light in cesium vapor" or "faster than c", as you indicated. I'm personally inclined to believe it means the former until someone can come up with something that indicates it really means the latter. I do not know enough to know if the former is an amazing breakthrough or just an interesting bit of science (speeding up light travelling through a medium would entail lowering the index of refraction of that material, and I have no idea how easy or hard that is).

-- Dave