Is this a bunch of Hyperbole?

[gabeygoat]

http://news.yahoo.com/weird-light-bending-experiment-turns-scientists-coneheads-132404788.html

"In a mind-bending, and light-bending, discovery, scientists have produced a fun-house-like warping of light that defies existing laws of physics."

It seems so to me, but I'm no physicist. I don't see how this changes any "laws" at all?

 

[Ziggurat]

http://news.yahoo.com/weird-light-bending-experiment-turns-scientists-coneheads-132404788.html

"In a mind-bending, and light-bending, discovery, scientists have produced a fun-house-like warping of light that defies existing laws of physics."

It seems so to me, but I'm no physicist. I don't see how this changes any "laws" at all?

This would violate Snell's Law. But Snell's Law isn't actually a fundamental law of physics, it's essentially a rule of thumb that works under certain conditions. It is, in fact, quite derivable from the actual laws of physics (like Maxwell's equations), given a particular set of assumptions. These guys have found a clever new way of violating those assumptions, but it isn't the first example of such assumptions being broken. The actual laws of physics (Maxwell's equations) are still perfectly valid.

So yeah, it's being overhyped, though it is pretty funky.

 

[gabeygoat]

thanks ziggy, that's some good info and makes sense