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poke smot!
floccinocci floofinator
Registered: 01/08/03
Posts: 5,248
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My theory on the speed of light.
#4113865 - 04/30/05 06:47 AM (18 years, 10 months ago) |
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We were all wrong...
See, if time is relative, then someone going close to the speed of light has a slower perception of time, according to past theory.
This would be to say that, as I moved faster and faster away from the earth, my perception of time doesn't change, but the earth (which I'm moving away from), is going faster and faster, relative to my time.
But if my mass increases as I go faster, do I really notice that it takes more energy to accelerate? Because to me, I'm still pushing the same amount of acceleration (which is relative to time, of course), to increase my velocity.
Therefore, as I go faster, I do not notice the increase in mass, and as my time goes slower, it doesn't really take longer and longer to get closer to the speed of light. Maybe to an observer on the earth, I would be accelerating slower and slower, but that's because to an observer on earth, their meters per second is much faster than mine.
As I'm going so fast, my observed meters per second is much slower than what an observer on earth would perceive. Therefore, I'm simply accelerating at the same rate, and increasing my velocity.
Perhaps we just haven't thought outside the box, that perhaps it may seem impossible to achieve the speed of light to an observer on earth, it is completely possible for me to pass this speed. It may take a while, and to an earth observer they would die before they saw me reach that speed... But, of course, my perception of time is much slowed and thus my life is still just ticking along.
And as I got to the speed of light, time would stop relative to an observer on earth. As I went faster, theoretically time would reverse. I don't know how exactly that works, except that perhaps if time can slow down and stop, it can continue to go in the opposite direction.
Has anyone ever proposed such a theory?
Edited by poke smot! (09/07/20 01:59 PM)
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oneducktwoducks
Registered: 12/13/02
Posts: 2,321
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Re: My theory on the speed of light. *DELETED* [Re: poke smot!]
#4114265 - 04/30/05 10:13 AM (18 years, 10 months ago) |
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Post deleted by oneducktwoducks
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Seuss
Error: divide byzero
Registered: 04/27/01
Posts: 23,480
Loc: Caribbean
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> gamma = 1 / sqrt[1 - (v/c)^2]
Those damned square roots... if it weren't for that...
-------------------- Just another spore in the wind.
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azurescens
member
Registered: 02/17/04
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Re: My theory on the speed of light. [Re: Seuss]
#4130846 - 05/04/05 12:06 AM (18 years, 10 months ago) |
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Albeit small, photons have mass and travel at the speed of light. What are they using for energy? It's not infinite energy. In my opinion, the speed of light will be reached and surpassed. The same way that Einstein redefined what we know about certain laws of Physics on a universal level at the time, so will someone else redifine and add onto his/those laws. It's like a big equation and it's not even close to being complete. Einstein just provided an intigral part of the equation. Onward and upwards friends!!!
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oneducktwoducks
Registered: 12/13/02
Posts: 2,321
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Re: My theory on the speed of light. *DELETED* [Re: azurescens]
#4130932 - 05/04/05 12:25 AM (18 years, 10 months ago) |
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AhronZombi
AhronZombi
Registered: 04/06/04
Posts: 1,265
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if time is relative the speed of light dosent really exist. acording to quantum physics, as far as i know, movement dosent exist its all relative and a product of our preception of the world. pretty much everything is everywhere always
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EvilEwok
Stranger
Registered: 10/09/03
Posts: 574
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Quote:
Letto said: Actually photons have zero mass. And photons can be thought of as packets of light, so they travel at the speed of light.
So let me get this straight. If I can shrink myself into a photon I can go the speed of light? WOOHOO!
See all we need is the shrinking machine from "Honey I shrunk the kids" and we'll be zipping around in light beams in no time.
If the movie makers threw the machine away I'm sure I could rig one up with a microwave and a glow stick.
There's no way it can't work!
-------------------- Now go Home.
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ChuangTzu
starvingphysicist
Registered: 09/04/02
Posts: 3,060
Last seen: 10 years, 5 months
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Re: My theory on the speed of light. [Re: AhronZombi]
#4131268 - 05/04/05 02:48 AM (18 years, 10 months ago) |
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Quote:
AhronZombi said: if time is relative the speed of light dosent really exist.
Time is relative, but in a precisely defined way--a definition based on the fact that the speed of light is constant. The speed of light therefore has even more "existence," in some way, than other speeds which are derived from it.
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acording to quantum physics, as far as i know, movement dosent exist its all relative and a product of our preception of the world. pretty much everything is everywhere always
Quantum mechanics doesn't say anything about movement, it is only a mathematical framework open to interpretation. Having said that, there are elements of QM which can be STRONGLY interpreted as indicative of movement. Consider the localized wave packet of, say, an electron in a semiconductor. It can take a variety of forms but in general it is some superposition (linear combination) of plane waves of the form:
psi(x,t) = C*exp[i(kt-omega*t)]
each having a different value of k (momentum/wavelength/frequency--all are related). If we choose a spread of Delta k (we can define a function psi(k) arbitrarily) , we get total wave packet:
Psi(x,t) = 1/Sqrt[2Pi]*Int[psi(k)Exp[i(kt-omega*t)]dk]
where the integral runs from minus to plus infinity.
I should type the equations up in mathematica and put the jpgs here but I don't have time, and anyway it doesn't really matter. The basic point is that the result of this infinite summation (with the proper choice of Delta k) is a wave function which has a large amplitude in one small region of space (say x0) and drops to 0 asymptotically as you move away from that point.
What this means is that although, mathematically, the wave function may extend to infinity, it becomes totally insignificant after some finite distance from x0 and it is absolutely absurd to talk about its existence beyond several times this distance (From this wave function comes the probability of finding the particle at any given x value. If this probability decreases to 10^-10 per second at x, you will have to wait on average 5^-9 seconds to observe it there. At a distance 5x, this probability may have dropped to 10^-100 per second, in which case you would have to wait longer than the age of the universe to find the particle there. Which basically means never.)
Also, as mentioned above, the wave function gives the probability of finding a particle at a given location during a measurement. The measurement itself, however, will find the particle in precisely one place with absolutely no spread (up to the accuracy of the instrument).
Movement can be rather clearly interpreted from using a special superposition of k values which cause the peak in the amplitude to vary as a function of time. The derivative of its position with time gives the velocity of the particle, second derivative its acceleration.
I have to go to an exam now. I can extend this later if anyone has questions : )
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azurescens
member
Registered: 02/17/04
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Last seen: 15 years, 9 months
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"The speed of light will not be reached or surpassed by humans, and if there is something travelling faster than the speed of light we couldn't detect it unless there is some way to understand imaginary time and to measure it."
Maybe you could explain this then:
Eureka! Scientists break speed of light June 4, 2000 NEC Research Institute in Princeton Jonathan Leake, Science Editor, Times Newspapers Ltd
SCIENTISTS claim they have broken the ultimate speed barrier: the speed of light. In research carried out in the United States, particle physicists have shown that light pulses can be accelerated to up to 300 times their normal velocity of 186,000 miles per second. The implications, like the speed, are mind-boggling. On one interpretation it means that light will arrive at its destination almost before it has started its journey. In effect, it is leaping forward in time.
Exact details of the findings remain confidential because they have been submitted to Nature, the international scientific journal, for review prior to possible publication.
The work was carried out by Dr Lijun Wang, of the NEC research institute in Princeton, who transmitted a pulse of light towards a chamber filled with specially treated caesium gas.
Before the pulse had fully entered the chamber it had gone right through it and travelled a further 60ft across the laboratory. In effect it existed in two places at once, a phenomenon that Wang explains by saying it travelled 300 times faster than light.
The research is already causing controversy among physicists. What bothers them is that if light could travel forward in time it could carry information. This would breach one of the basic principles in physics - causality, which says that a cause must come before an effect. It would also shatter Einstein's theory of relativity since it depends in part on the speed of light being unbreachable.
This weekend Wang said he could not give details but confirmed: "Our light pulses did indeed travel faster than the accepted speed of light. I hope it will give us a much better understanding of the nature of light and how it behaves."
Dr Raymond Chiao, professor of physics at the University of California at Berkeley, who is familiar with Wang's work, said he was impressedby the findings. "This is a fascinating experiment," he said.
In Italy, another group of physicists has also succeeded in breaking the light speed barrier. In a newly published paper, physicists at the Italian National Research Council described how they propagated microwaves at 25% above normal light speed. The group speculates that it could be possible to transmit information faster than light.
Dr Guenter Nimtz, of Cologne University, an expert in the field, agrees. He believes that information can be sent faster than light and last week gave a paper describing how it could be done to a conference in Edinburgh. He believes, however, that this will not breach the principle of causality because the time taken to interpret the signal would fritter away all the savings. "The most likely application for this is not in time travel but in speeding up the way signals move through computer circuits," he said.
Wang's experiment is the latest and possibly the most important evidence that the physical world may not operate according to any of the accepted conventions.
In the new world that modern science is beginning to perceive, sub-atomic particles can apparently exist in two places at the same time - making no distinction between space and time. Separate experiments carried out by Chiao illustrate this. He showed that in certain circumstances photons - the particles of which light is made - could apparently jump between two points separated by a barrier in what appears to be zero time. The process, known as tunnelling, has been used to make some of the most sensitive electron microscopes.
The implications of Wang's experiments will arouse fierce debate. Many will question whether his work can be interpreted as proving that light can exceed its normal speed - suggesting that another mechanism may be at work.
Neil Turok, professor of mathematical physics at Cambridge University, said he awaited the details with interest, but added: "I doubt this will change our view of the fundamental laws of physics."
Wang emphasises that his experiments are relevant only to light and may not apply to other physical entities. But scientists are beginning to accept that man may eventually exploit some of these characteristics for inter-stellar space travel.
That you are studying physics and use words like "NEVER" and "WILL NOT" only shows your ignorance towards the subject.
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oneducktwoducks
Registered: 12/13/02
Posts: 2,321
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Re: My theory on the speed of light. *DELETED* [Re: azurescens]
#4133395 - 05/04/05 03:32 PM (18 years, 10 months ago) |
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Post deleted by oneducktwoducks
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azurescens
member
Registered: 02/17/04
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If you can use textbooks to back up your facts then I can use articles that use the scientists and theorists that write and contribute to your text books to counter those facts. And ignorant isn't an attack on your personal character so to speak but rather just a word to describe your closemindedness when you use such words as the ones I mentioned. You know what else was pseudo science but a mere 15 yrs ago? Stealth technology. Just because it's not in the textbooks doesn't mean that it doesn't exist.
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Diploid
Cuban
Registered: 01/09/03
Posts: 19,274
Loc: Rabbit Hole
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Re: My theory on the speed of light. [Re: azurescens]
#4134135 - 05/04/05 06:17 PM (18 years, 10 months ago) |
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June 4, 2000
Exact details of the findings remain confidential because they have been submitted to Nature, the international scientific journal, for review prior to possible publication.
This was published almost five years ago. I read Nature and would certainly remember reading so monumental an announcement.
I think the writer of the article was confusing the superluminal effects observed due to Quantum Entanglement with something exceeding C. That the article was written by a journalist and not a scientist (Times Newspapers Ltd) lends credence to this notion.
For the record, superluminal effects due to Quantum Entanglement are widely misunderstood.
Although entanglement appears to transmit information faster than light, it does not violate causality and cannot be used to communicate. Entanglement only lets each of two observers in different locations know what the other must see. You cannot communicate this way; imparting information to one of the entangled photons destroys the entanglement.
Tachyons, particles that cannot travel slower than light, have been postulated, but tachyons have never been observed. If they exist and can interact with normal mater, yes, they would violate causality and invalidate much of modern physics. If they exist and cannot interact with normal matter, then they might as well not exist.
-------------------- Republican Values: 1) You can't get married to your spouse who is the same sex as you. 2) You can't have an abortion no matter how much you don't want a child. 3) You can't have a certain plant in your possession or you'll get locked up with a rapist and a murderer. 4) We need a smaller, less-intrusive government.
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azurescens
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Re: My theory on the speed of light. [Re: Diploid]
#4135583 - 05/04/05 11:21 PM (18 years, 10 months ago) |
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I dont wish to argue with you concerning this matter but if you wish to discredit Dr. Wang and Princeton, then go ahead. It just seems rather arrogant to assume that a man in the 1930's discovered an equation that cannot be disproved for the rest of time. It's kinda like saying that we have reached the limit as far as speed goes and I must say that I just dont believe that. that to me is just reprehensible and non-logical but I respect your opinions the same way that I hope you respect mine. I have no degrees other than computer science but my common sense tells me different on this topic. Imagine if all those people way back when just accepted that the earth was flat or that the earth was the center of the universe. I feel that we have only touched on this topic. But like I said, I respect your thoughts.
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Seuss
Error: divide byzero
Registered: 04/27/01
Posts: 23,480
Loc: Caribbean
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Re: My theory on the speed of light. [Re: azurescens]
#4136456 - 05/05/05 05:31 AM (18 years, 10 months ago) |
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Quote:
If you can use textbooks to back up your facts then I can use articles that use the scientists and theorists that write and contribute to your text books to counter those facts.
You can, but to do so would be pointless. Typically, what is printed in a textbook has be accepted by the scientific community through peer review. What is printed in articles has not been accepted by the scientific community and is awaiting peer review (or is a peer review of others work). Think of the articles as bleeding edge, "This is what we think is going on" while the textbooks are the slower, "We have really studied this and are almost certain that this is what is going on".
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Although entanglement appears to transmit information faster than light, it does not violate causality and cannot be used to communicate.
This is an open area of debate. I have seen the experiment where microwaves are shot into a brass rod with some leaving the opposite end of the brass rod "sooner than traveling speed of light would have allowed". If the microwaves are modulated, say with music, and the resulting microwaves are demodulated and hooked to a speaker, you can hear the music well enough to identify the song. There is a lot of loss, but not enough to corrupt the "data" beyond recognition. So is this communication or not... as I said, open to debate.
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It just seems rather arrogant to assume that a man in the 1930's discovered an equation that cannot be disproved for the rest of time.
Actually, it was 1905, not in the 1930's. The man is considered to be one of the smartest three humans ever to live in all of written history, if not the smartest. There has not been a single experiment in the last 100 years that has been able to disprove any part of his theories. Is it not equally arrogant to assume the man was wrong?
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that to me is just reprehensible and non-logical
It is very logical, simply look at the mathmatics behind his theories. You cannot take the square root of a negative number (and stay within the real number system) and going faster than the speed of light would require you to take the square root of a negative number.
Perhaps you are confusing logic with common sense or intuition. In science, things often work orthaganol to what common sense would dictate. This is one of the reasons why the tin-hat brigade is able to con people into believing their wild conspiracy theories.
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but if you wish to discredit Dr. Wang and Princeton, then go ahead
He isn't so much discrediting the work of Dr. Wang or Princeton as pointing out that a five year old article that makes a wild claim, if that claim were true, would have a ton of peer papers supporting it. The fact that five years have gone by and nobody has written any supporting work tends to discredit the original work in the eyes of the science community. People publish THEORIES, only time and peer review create facts from those theories.
-------------------- Just another spore in the wind.
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Diploid
Cuban
Registered: 01/09/03
Posts: 19,274
Loc: Rabbit Hole
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Re: My theory on the speed of light. [Re: azurescens]
#4136480 - 05/05/05 05:43 AM (18 years, 10 months ago) |
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I dont wish to argue with you concerning this matter but if you wish to discredit Dr. Wang and Princeton, then go ahead.
There's nothing to discredit because the article says nothing and no follow up article in Nature or anywhere else has ever appeared.
-------------------- Republican Values: 1) You can't get married to your spouse who is the same sex as you. 2) You can't have an abortion no matter how much you don't want a child. 3) You can't have a certain plant in your possession or you'll get locked up with a rapist and a murderer. 4) We need a smaller, less-intrusive government.
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Diploid
Cuban
Registered: 01/09/03
Posts: 19,274
Loc: Rabbit Hole
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Re: My theory on the speed of light. [Re: Seuss]
#4136495 - 05/05/05 05:54 AM (18 years, 10 months ago) |
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This is an open area of debate. I have seen the experiment where microwaves are shot into a brass rod with some leaving the opposite end of the brass rod "sooner than traveling speed of light would have allowed". If the microwaves are modulated, say with music, and the resulting microwaves are demodulated and hooked to a speaker, you can hear the music well enough to identify the song. There is a lot of loss, but not enough to corrupt the "data" beyond recognition. So is this communication or not... as I said, open to debate.
Indeed! This would violate causality and mean that you'd hear the music before you played it!
Can you point me to where I can find more information about this experiment? I'd like to follow up on this.
-------------------- Republican Values: 1) You can't get married to your spouse who is the same sex as you. 2) You can't have an abortion no matter how much you don't want a child. 3) You can't have a certain plant in your possession or you'll get locked up with a rapist and a murderer. 4) We need a smaller, less-intrusive government.
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Seuss
Error: divide byzero
Registered: 04/27/01
Posts: 23,480
Loc: Caribbean
Last seen: 1 month, 19 days
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Re: My theory on the speed of light. [Re: Diploid]
#4136515 - 05/05/05 06:17 AM (18 years, 10 months ago) |
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> Can you point me to where I can find more information about this experiment?
I don't remember where I saw the original experiment done, but it is easy to reproduce if you have access to a basic physics microwave lab. Have a rod of brass machined with perpendicular ends and a length that is a multiple of the wavelength of the microwave you will be using. The one I saw was a few inches long. Take a modulated microwave source and split the beam. Half the beam goes to one end of the brass rod while the other beam goes through open air. Now put two microwave detectors on the opposite end of the table, one for each microwave beam. You can use an oscope to look at the difference in phase between the two beams... the one coming out of the brass is actually arriving faster than the one going through air (or vacuum if you want to get more complex). If you modulate the beam going into the brass rod with sound and demodulate the signal coming out of the brass rod, and hook it up to a speaker, you can hear the sound... it will have blank spots and a lot of noise in it, but music can be recogonized and even the song identified. Not many photons make it through the brass rod, depending upon your detector you may need an amplifier in there as well.
I will do some digging and see if I can find the original experiment somewhere.
-------------------- Just another spore in the wind.
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ChuangTzu
starvingphysicist
Registered: 09/04/02
Posts: 3,060
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Re: My theory on the speed of light. [Re: Seuss]
#4136735 - 05/05/05 08:20 AM (18 years, 10 months ago) |
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I too would like to see the original article.
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Seuss
Error: divide byzero
Registered: 04/27/01
Posts: 23,480
Loc: Caribbean
Last seen: 1 month, 19 days
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Re: My theory on the speed of light. [Re: ChuangTzu]
#4137231 - 05/05/05 10:48 AM (18 years, 10 months ago) |
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-------------------- Just another spore in the wind.
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Ego Death
Justadropofwaterinanendlesssea
Registered: 04/27/03
Posts: 10,447
Loc: The War Machine
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Re: My theory on the speed of light. [Re: azurescens]
#4137444 - 05/05/05 11:49 AM (18 years, 10 months ago) |
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Its probably covered up by the government.
Imagine the implications for society when releasing that information!
Fort knox will no longer be fort knox because anyone with the technology could 'tunnel' through.
Certain things implicate the breakdown of society as we know it and our govs number 1 job is to maintain their power.
If you was in a position of power, what would you do? The best thing to do would be to develope the technology yourself in secret and if anyone clues on just use denial and let the idea sit in the sea of controversy.
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