Physicists at the University of Rochester have generated a "spacetime bubble"

Physicists at the University of Rochester have generated a "spacetime bubble"—a localized distortion in reality that allowed information to transmit at 1.4 times light speed. The crucial detail: the light waves themselves obeyed Einstein's rules. What moved faster was the framework containing them.

It's the same principle that allows distant galaxies to recede faster than light through cosmic expansion. Einstein's relativity forbids matter from accelerating through space faster than light, but says nothing about space itself moving. The Rochester team compressed this cosmic phenomenon into a laboratory apparatus for mere nanoseconds, proving we can engineer spacetime geometry in miniature."—a localized distortion in reality that allowed information to transmit at 1.4 times light speed. The crucial detail: the light waves themselves obeyed Einstein's rules. What moved faster was the framework containing them.

It's the same principle that allows distant galaxies to recede faster than light through cosmic expansion. Einstein's relativity forbids matter from accelerating through space faster than light, but says nothing about space itself moving. The Rochester team compressed this cosmic phenomenon into a laboratory apparatus for mere nanoseconds, proving we can engineer spacetime geometry in miniature.