whats this im reading about light travelling faster than C?
is that even possible?

@ UWS

"Information" cannot propogate at a velocity faster than c.  That means photons in a vacuum are constrained to move at c.  However, there are two velocities when it comes to the propogation of any wave - the phase and group velocities.  The phase velocity can be anything you like, but the group velocity - the velocity at which the energy is transported through space - for light in a vacuum is fixed at c. 

Of course, the group velocity can be slower than c.  For instance, light travels through glass at something like 0.75c.  The slowest group velocity of photons through any medium?  Cool sodium down to about 2K and the group velocity falls to a very pedestrian 38mph.

*hugs Wouter!*

Midgets?

and they can live with ken and barbie in their house and be the baby

Not graduated to the smart part of physics yet? 

Both SD and I have graduated from a university comparable to Oxford and Cambridge and I'm mid way through a PhD... in physics.  The only person out of us three to have not passed to the smart part of physics yet, is yourself. 

Try as you might, "Einstein", you know very little of theoretical physics and so cannot convince even the laymen in this thread that you know what you're talking about.  On the other hand, I have several mathematical proofs for the work of Einstein, Schrodinger, Born, Planck and others, both in my undergraduate notes and in various texts books. 

FInally, you're offer of getting "proofs" means nothing to me.  I suspect it means just as little to any one else, since you always promise things and fail to produce anything of substance (and frequently fail to prove anything at all).

I want to have your babies Lat, I l0v3 you soo much...

btw Wikipedia proves Flint wrong anyway... Who would listen to someone who claims that something 2nd year EEE Students come up with all the time is his own idea or could work, something 3rd years know...

"2. since black holes suck in photons doesnt that mean that they have mass. this is because of the way that i understand that a black holes mechanics depends on gravity and gravity depends on mass."

I'm not sure on this one but i believe the gravitational field influences the electromagnetic field the light travels in.
So the electromagnetic field gets "bent" towards the black hole and the light gets sucked in.  Someone correct me if i'm wrong

Question 1:

To a point, yes.  Black holes can be formed in a variety of ways, but ultimately, a black hole is just where the local enery density is sufficient to curve space time to such extremes that everything - including photons - that happens to pass across the event horizon are trapped forever.  (*)  One way a black hole can be formed is by the inward collapse of giant star once it has no fusionable material left.  For instance, a star with a mass over about 2 solar masses (the exact number is not well known, as the physics of the hot, dense matter needed for black hole creation are not well understood) has enough gravitational energy to overcome the neutron degeneracy pressure in neutron stars and carry on collapsing indefinitely.  However, as mass and energy are two sides of the same coin - in much the same way particles and waves are manifestations of the same underlying physical phenomena - then if you have a large enough energy density you can create a black hole.  It is this fact which has caused so many people to worry about the LHC project, but such has been the misreporting of information and reporting of disinformation that panic has spread and law suits against the LHC filed.  In fact, some woman in India committed suicide, such was her conviction the world was going to end.  Its at times like this I really hate the media and wish I was scientific correspondent. 

Now, there is a twist to this story.  Although black holes can suck in matter and photons, there is a process known as Hawking radiation.  It uses a relativistic quantum mechanical process which is well known, understood and experimentally observed, whereby particle-anti-particle pairs can, for a short time, appear out of nowhere before annihilating each other.  The time these particles exist in space is governed by the mass-energy inequality: h =< delta-E

WUTEVA ye physicists cant even tell if a cat is dead or not

I'm just off to bed, so I'll make this post quite brief. 

In order for any electromagnetic radiation t' heat anythin', thar needs t' be some kind o' (electronic or vibrational) transition or absorption process available.   Water molecules have vibrational modes that be easily excited by microwaves - hence their use in cookin'.   The same (likely) wouldn't work fer noble gasses.   As no noble gas can form a molecule with anythin', th' only important energies fer EM radiation absorption be th' energies o' th' electronic states, ya bilge rat!   Most noble gasses emit light in th' visible spectrum so microwaves won't work.   

As fer magnetic shieldin', I've no nay ne'er really thought about it in any great depth, but thar be some pieces o' kit in th' labs in our group which uses magnetic shieldin' fer high resolution electronic spectroscopy experiments, and a bucket o' chum.   I may just have t' look up what they be made o'.    

As fer th' magnetic properties o' solids...   Well, a book by Steve Blundell is what I an' scallywags in th' superconductivity an' magnetism group use in our department.   How accessible it is t' th' lay, I'm not sure.   The problem with magnetism is that ye approach it from two different directions: statistical thermal physics an' quantum mechanics.   I may be able t' get across th' key points if I were given enough time t' write somethin', but if ye wanted t' fully understan' th' underlyin' physics, maths an' all, well, that would take ye about 2-3 years o' a university degree. 

did ye just call me a bilge rat, Dance the Hempen Jig

P.S.  ye can get past th' pirate talk by typin' anythin' in an' then hittin' edit, an' deletin' what ye typed an' then write what ye want t' say in th' edit mode an' it wont be re-written in pirate.