Shengwang Du

Shengwang Du is a professor in the department of physics at The University of Texas at Dallas.

He is noted for having led a team that performed an experiment[1] showing individual photons cannot travel faster than the speed of light (c) in a vacuum, thus apparently removing one approach to time travel.[2][3]

Du claims in a peer reviewed journal to have observed single photons' precursors, saying that they travel no faster than c in a vacuum. His experiment involved slow light as well as passing light through a vacuum. He generated two single photons, passing one through rubidium atoms that had been cooled with a laser (thus slowing the light) and passing one through a vacuum. Both times, apparently, the precursors preceded the photons' main bodies, and the precursor traveled at c in a vacuum. According to Du, this implies that there is no possibility of light traveling faster than c (and, thus, violating causality).[4] Some members of the media took this as an indication of proof that time travel to the past using superluminal speeds was impossible.[5]