"Well, see, Darlin', me 'n' Snowman finally figured out
that we could do it by switchin' to Coors Light...."
Posted on 09/22/2011 9:54:37 PM PDT by neverdem
Roll over, Einstein?
The physics world is abuzz with news that a group of European physicists plans to announce Friday that it has clocked a burst of subatomic particles known as neutrinos breaking the cosmic speed limit — the speed of light — that was set by Albert Einstein in 1905.
If true, it is a result that would change the world. But that “if” is enormous.
Even before the European physicists had presented their results — in a paper that appeared on the physics Web site arXiv.org on Thursday night and in a seminar at CERN, the European Center for Nuclear Research, on Friday — a chorus of physicists had risen up on blogs and elsewhere arguing that it was way too soon to give up on Einstein and that there was probably some experimental error. Incredible claims require incredible evidence.
“These guys have done their level best, but before throwing Einstein on the bonfire, you would like to see an independent experiment,” said John Ellis, a CERN theorist who has published work on the speeds of the ghostly particles known as neutrinos.
According to scientists familiar with the paper, the neutrinos raced from a particle accelerator at CERN outside Geneva, where they were created, to a cavern underneath Gran Sasso in Italy, a distance of about 450 miles, about 60 nanoseconds faster than it would take a light beam. That amounts to a speed greater than light by about 0.0025 percent (2.5 parts in a hundred thousand).
Even this small deviation would open up the possibility of time travel and play havoc with longstanding notions of cause and effect. Einstein himself — the author of modern physics, whose theory of relativity established the speed of light as the ultimate limit — said that if you could send a...
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
I think the trickiest part would be in the accurate measurement of the speed. Who is holding the stopwatch?
the cosmic speed limit — the speed of light — that was set by Albert Einstein in 1905.
He was fast that Einstein, the mafia killed him you know,
he knew too much...
Sounds like a race between a normal burst of electromagnetic energy (radio wave?) and the neutrinos, and the neutrinos are winning. This is bizarre. I’m assuming that both are passing through empty or near-empty space.
So what was their mass?
These are crazy little particles that are understood to have a very small mass, a fraction of an electron volt, but this mass varies widely.
Could these be the first tachyons known to mankind? Why weren’t neutrinos caught by the cosmic cops before this?
I hope this is true.... Maybe they could finally fix my AM radio interference.
The Neutrinos are not traveling faster than the speed of light. They are traveling backwards through time.
Later in the article it says this could be evidence that particles travel trough other dimensions to break the speed limit.
That would mean that it might be possible to send communication signals through these other dimensions and perhaps get a message from the future.
Or have real time communication with someone on Mars (instead of the ten minute delay that light speed would require).
People in the 1860s had no idea of amazing discoveries of science in the following 140 years.
What will we witness in the coming years? Future time communication?
What if you could send a message to your past self? That could come in handy so that you could avoid stupid mistakes.
I haven’t spent any time keeping up on particle physics since high school (a long time ago) so maybe it is a stupid question, but how exactly do you accelerate a neutrally charged particle?
I figured out how to get messages from the future...oh wait, here comes one now: B-y.. g-o-d.. m-a-n... d-o-n-t... e-l-e-c-t...O-b-a-m-a....t-o...a....2nd.....t-e-r-m
"Well, see, Darlin', me 'n' Snowman finally figured out
that we could do it by switchin' to Coors Light...."
>> Who is holding the stopwatch?
I think you need two of ‘em and a few mirrors.
I like this guy's scientific approach. Maybe we should ask him to check out global warming. Oh, wait. The science is "settled" on global warming, so no need for "replication."
In this experiment the neutrinos were not accelerated by the experimental equipment. There was acceleration of something else, however: the neutrino beam is produced by accelerating a beam of protons to an extremely high speed (400 GeV/c - this is actually their mean momentum value) - the acceleration of the protons is accomplished by controlling precisely configured magnetic fields in a device called a synchrotron (the CERN Super proton synchrotron). The accelerated protons are then allowed to collide with a specially prepared “neutrino production target” made up mostly of graphite. There the protons decay into a number of other types of particles, the important ones of which are called pions and kaons. There is a natural pion/kaon decay process into muons and their associated neutrinos that then takes place along a long, evacuated tunnel. A variety of decay products are “stopped” using various materials, and what finally results is a highly pure beam of neutrinos, that continue to propagate forward. (There are actually three types of neutrinos that we know about, and this beam is almost purely (~97%) made up of so-called muon neutrinos.)
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In the realm of real science, even Einstein is questioned.
In the realm of political science, AGW is settled and we should lock up the deniers.
Janet's eyes were shining... like a woman in love, or like a relativistic mathematician who has just found a new way to work a transformation. "So they've done it!" she said in a hushed voice.-- Robert A. Heinlein, Time For the Stars, 1956"Done what?" I asked. She was certainly taking it in a big way; I hadn't realized she was that anxious to get home.
"Tommie, don't you see? They've done it, they've done it, they've applied irrelevance. Dr. Babcock was right."
"Huh?"
"Why, it's perfectly plain. What kind of a ship can get here in a month? An irrelevant ship, of course. One that is faster than light." She frowned. "But I don't see why it should take even a month. It shouldn't take any time at all. It wouldn't use time."
I said, "Take it easy, Janet. I'm stupid this morning—I didn't have much sleep last night. Why do you say that ship... uh, the Serendipity... is faster than light? That's impossible."
"Tommie, Tommie... look, dear, if it was an ordinary ship, in order to rendezvous with us here, it would have had to have left Earth over sixty-three years ago."
"Well, maybe it did."
"Tommie! It couldn't possibly — because that long ago non body knew that we would be here now. How could they?"
I figured back. Sixty-three Greenwich years ago... mama, that would have been sometime during our first peak. Janet seemed to be right; only an incredible optimist or a fortune teller would have sent a ship from Earth at that time to meet us here now. "I don't understand it."
"Don't you see, Tommie? I've explained it to you, I know I have. Irrelevance. Why, you telepaths were the reason the investigation started; you proved that "simultaneity' was an admissible concept , . . and the inevitable logical consequence was that time and space do not exist."
I felt my head begin to ache. "They don't? Then what is that we seem to be having breakfast in?"
"Just a mathematical abstraction, dear. Nothing more." She smiled and looked motherly. "Poor 'Sentimental Tommie.' You worry too much."
Cowboys love fat calves :)
It was a long time ago when I read it. How were the telepaths able to communicate instantaneously over the vast distances again?
bflr
i want broadband at this speed!!!
Sounds like they’re equivocating. Are the neutrinos going faster than light in a vacuum, or just faster than light would through a material. The speed of light varies. Since neutrinos don’t interact with material, perhaps they don’t slow down, whereas photons do interact, and do slow down.
So are they saying that neutrinos go faster than light in a vacuum?
According to Einstein's theory, if they have any mass at all the mass would grow to infinity as the particles approached light speed. That is why objects with mass are not supposed to ever reach light speed. But an object with mass **exceeding** light speed???
Light slows down about .1% in the atmosphere, so the difference of .0025% between the faster neutrinos and slower photons is miniscule. What speed of light are they comparing the neutrino speed to, vacuum, or through the air?
Light/electromagnetic radiation does indeed vary in speed through various medium. But it only goes slower, not faster.
CERN’s neutrinos pass through 450 miles of the earth’s crust and upper mantle (solid rock) on their way to (early) detection in Gran Sasso, Italy.
Your point?
OK, now how about the electromagnetic wave that they are racing? Same rock, or some different route?
That you are wrong that light/EM radiation is known to travel *faster* than light speed through different materials?
The speed of light is the speed of light: 186,000 miles per second. However, there are some theories claiming that 'c' does vary over very long periods of time (as the universe evolves). But I don't think that that is what you were referring to here?
“That would mean that it might be possible to send communication signals through these other dimensions and perhaps get a message from the future.”
I’m finally beginning to see some people agreeing with my opinion that time is not a dimension, but merely the way our brains deal with the fact that everything in the universe is in constant motion.
You can’t go back in time, because the past is gone. Things have moved on. You can’t go forward in time because the universe has not assumed that configuration yet. It’s not there.
By thinking to one another. It was a talent they were born with.
186,000 miles per second. Not just a good idea, it’s the law.
So... does this mean we will be able to build a headlight that enables us to see when we are traveling faster than the speed of light?
Time is not a constant when approaching the speed of light, so how can something like 186,000 miles per second be the “law” if it is a function of time?
The scientific community thought the speed of sound was an impassable barrier until Chuck Yeager proved them wrong.
Is it possible that neutrinos have no mass and are therefore not subject to Einstein’s equations? That seems to be about as likely as an ability to exceed the speed of light. I know that that hypothesis calls for a redefinition of energy.
I'd spend so much time on the phone I wouldn't get anything else done.
So does light speed up again when it reenters a vacuum?
So just where are the police to give these reckless fools speeding tickets????????
THe speed quoted in the article and discussed in general is the speed of light in a vacuum.
When photons hit another medium, air, glass, etc., it slows down a tiny bit.
As an example, if light passes from vacuum to the atmosphere then through a piece of glass and then back to vacuum, the measured speed of light will slow down in the air, slow down more in the glass and then jump back up upon returning to the vacuum.
The speed quoted in the article and discussed in general is the speed of light in a vacuum.
When photons hit another medium, air, glass, etc., it slows down a tiny bit.
As an example, if light passes from vacuum to the atmosphere then through a piece of glass and then back to vacuum, the measured speed of light will slow down in the air, slow down more in the glass and then jump back up upon returning to the vacuum.
I guess it’s really dark when the neutrinos get to their destination?
Some French guy, as well as someone in California, has been doing this for years, maybe over a decade (because I was still in grad school then) though using some other subatomic particle.
Waht about Cherenkov radiation?
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