It is true that our own understanding of the universe is still 'in-development'
But given what we know about the universe - relating to the maximum speed an object can reach. (Only neutrino's have been observed to have the potential to out run light).
Actually I'll have to correct you,
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/4-cosmic-phenomena-travel-faster-190300819.htmlthis article provides facts that there are actually 4 confirmed cases of objects traveling faster than the speed of light, however it also lies and attempts to explain away this fact with a terrible strawman. It says that only particles with no mass can travel at the speed of light because according to Einstein's theory of relativity if it had mass would have to have limitless infinite energy to do so.
Electrons have mass, electrons in a nuclear reactor travel faster than light. BUT NO! they can't possibly /REALLY/ be traveling faster than light because Einstein said so! if general relativity and special relativity were proved broken our entire physics model would collapse for a while. and no one in the scientific community has the balls to deal with that situation.
Planets in the universe have a mass, some planets have been observed traveling faster than the speed of light, it has been explained away as "they only appear to be traveling faster than light! we suspect they are moving around the universe in the opposite direction from us at a speed less than light speed and thereby look like they are moving faster due to the direction of travel". Bollocks.
I've actually run tests, using light, light can travel slower and faster than the speed of light it all depends on what you do with it.
for example it was confirmed in labs in the 1940s that light has no mass because it cannot carry a pigment from one surface to another and deposit it. This has been proved wrong, light can indeed carry and deposit pigments meaning it has a mass that current science doesn't understand, or it confirms light can move slower that the speed of light and thus gain a mass yet still move at a speed greater than electromagnetic waves. In fact that's how solar panels work, silicon has a naturally high number of electrons but not enough to be radioactive, it's the fact that it is a transparent material that makes it work, light can go in and when it does the mass of the photon will bump an electron out of place and into motion from where it can be harvested as electricity, in theory this creates a hole in the material and the material will adjust it's matrix to fill the hole. However from my studies this is false, this would mean that the material would grow smaller as it's matrix adjusts and as it is in majority electrons, that shift in size would be visible (at one point it would fit snugly on the face of your calculator, and when it's burnt out it would have a distance between it and the edge). For this reason it is safe to assume that the hole is being filled, with what? a slowed photon from refraction and impact, however it's not guaranteed that the photon will become an electron, and thus the hole is filled but not always with a usable component. Photons are part of matter. yeah I know that adds to the theory that we are all just holograms, and it's technically true if my hypotheses are correct.
I'm sure someone here will call dibs on it as soon as Brita technology advances enough to deal with heavy radiation
not many people actually know what makes a material radioactive, I do, it's easy to know as well, the periodic table is conveniently arranged by atomic composition, the ones on the far left and right are radioactive albeit by either too many electrons or too few.
Nuclear waste that is left over after it goes through a nuclear reactor is a case of too few electrons, a nuclear warhead is the opposite, and a nuclear meltdown or radiation leak could be a combination of the two.
the way to fix it is to take responsibility, (something no one in charge will do) and find out what the case is, if it's a case of "too few" the proper method of disposal is to make the material inert by subjecting it to electromagnetic radiation for a very short period until it has a balanced number of electrons to the safe threshold capacity of it's neutron(s). instead, they just find a pond to bury it under there for hundreds of years till the radiation causes a sinkhole and the pond collapses.
if it's a case of too many electrons, then it needs to be drained a bit but not completely, using energy to spin a faraday disk (or a brush disk from a newer generator) over the affected area is actually the best method to collect excess electrons, the only consolation is both methods of making a material inert require energy that is either equal to or exceeds the energy created by the initial nuclear reaction. so no one wants to spend the money to make that energy to clean up after themselves.
It's a bad loop. A greed driven catch 22. The methods to clean it up exist and could be done over the course of several years per place, but instead we just leave it to naturally regulate over millions of years at the cost of environmental damage. and yes it could have an effect on the global temperature. Could it be the real cause of global warming?
In space, no one can hear you scream "dibs."
Indeed, IP means nothing in the galactic federation, in fact it may be against the constitution. Life, liberty and happiness, no wait that's the US constitution (the american dream). Life, liberty and happiness has records explaining it, liberty is the right for every citizen to own land and carry out business, even competition.
IP was developed in Britain under the monarchy (before the days of prime ministers), to quote "as a right to monopolization", monopolization is supposed to be illegal in the US of A according to the constitution. The way liberty was defined was basically that if you could make it, and someone else figured out how to make it, they could legally do so and sell it for a better price without paying any royalties (called royal due to their origin) or usury. It's called valid competition, and was a mechanism to still greed and keep the economy balanced between poor and rich and to keep the economy growing. We can thank ourselves for not sticking up for our rights, now we have a system were everything goes to the top and they have decided they only need us in small amounts, we have inflation and our financial analysts see deflation as a terrible thing. in the UK they underwent a short period of economic deflation last year, guess what, they apologized for it and said they don't expect it to be for long.
We were technically supposed to reject and refuse to acknowledge IPs held by other nations to allow free use of technologies etc. in our country without paying royalties, but our politicians got all chicken on us and gave in to international demand. Plus there were a bunch of people in the US who preferred to have the international rights to their inventions, so really we did bring it on ourselves, we got greedy and though it was protecting us so we allowed IP to be registered in our country, nay, we demanded it.
If only we hadn't, the CoH battle wouldn't even be happening, we'd have reverse engineered it a long time ago because there would be no legal consequences and no way for anyone to seek action against us in US court. It's just valid competition after all, that and marvel could never sue NCSoft, heck the whole legal system would be much simpler. But people would have to lower prices to keep in the market (which was the intention, that companies would fight based on quality, quantity /and/ price, they don't fight on price any more, not till they've already made millions off it and I wouldn't call a small reduction /once/, a price fight). Meh I could rant of how it could have been for pages, but it's no use because it isn't that way now, or at least no one would or would want to fight for it.