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Reply With QuoteGood, E=mc2 has always pissed me off. It's a nice description but and unbreakable rule? Nahhhhh
If confirmed this is the discovery of the century.
Particle might have traveled faster than speed of light
Particle might have traveled faster than speed of light
By Seth Borenstein, Associated Press
Updated 9m ago
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GENEVA – A pillar of physics — that nothing can go faster than the speed of light — appears to be smashed by an oddball subatomic particle that has apparently made a giant end run around Albert Einstein's theories.
Scientists at the world's largest physics lab said Thursday they have clocked neutrinos traveling faster than light. That's something that according to Einstein's 1905 special theory of relativity — the famous E (equals) mc2 equation — just doesn't happen.
"The feeling that most people have is this can't be right, this can't be real," said James Gillies, a spokesman for the European Organization for Nuclear Research. The organization, known as CERN, hosted part of the experiment, which is unrelated to the massive $10 billion Large Hadron Collider also located at the site.
Gillies told The Associated Press that the readings have so astounded researchers that they are asking others to independently verify the measurements before claiming an actual discovery.
"They are inviting the broader physics community to look at what they've done and really scrutinize it in great detail, and ideally for someone elsewhere in the world to repeat the measurements," he said Thursday.
Scientists at the competing Fermilab in Chicago have promised to start such work immediately.
"It's a shock," said Fermilab head theoretician Stephen Parke, who was not part of the research in Geneva. "It's going to cause us problems, no doubt about that — if it's true."
The Chicago team had similar faster-than-light results in 2007, but those came with a giant margin of error that undercut its scientific significance.
Other outside scientists expressed skepticism at CERN's claim that the neutrinos — one of the strangest well-known particles in physics — were observed smashing past the cosmic speed barrier of 186,282 miles per second.
University of Maryland physics department chairman Drew Baden called it "a flying carpet," something that was too fantastic to be believable.
CERN says a neutrino beam fired from a particle accelerator near Geneva to a lab 454 miles away in Italy traveled 60 nanoseconds faster than the speed of light. Scientists calculated the margin of error at just 10 nanoseconds, making the difference statistically significant. But given the enormous implications of the find, they still spent months checking and rechecking their results to make sure there was no flaws in the experiment.
"We have not found any instrumental effect that could explain the result of the measurement," said Antonio Ereditato, a physicist at the University of Bern, Switzerland, who was involved in the experiment known as OPERA.
The researchers are now looking to the United States and Japan to confirm the results.
A similar neutrino experiment at Fermilab near Chicago would be capable of running the tests, said Stavros Katsanevas, the deputy director of France's National Institute for Nuclear and Particle Physics Research. The institute collaborated with Italy's Gran Sasso National Laboratory for the experiment at CERN.
Katsanevas said help could also come from the T2K experiment in Japan, though that is currently on hold after the country's devastating March 11 earthquake and tsunami.
Scientists agree if the results are confirmed, that it would force a fundamental rethink of the laws of nature.
Einstein's special relativity theory that says energy equals mass times the speed of light squared underlies "pretty much everything in modern physics," said John Ellis, a theoretical physicist at CERN who was not involved in the experiment. "It has worked perfectly up until now."
He cautioned that the neutrino researchers would have to explain why similar results weren't detected before.
"This would be such a sensational discovery if it were true that one has to treat it extremely carefully," said Ellis.
Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Good, E=mc2 has always pissed me off. It's a nice description but and unbreakable rule? Nahhhhh
I have also been bothered by Einstein's theory where he is looking for a constant to convert Mass into Energy and settled on the speed of light. BUT, he multiplied the speed of light by its own speed. So if nothing can travel faster than the speed of light, how can it square its own speed? Well, I'm a sledge hammer mechanic turned Naval Architect, not a Nuclear Scientist. So what do I know?
It wasn't too long ago that we didn't think we could go faster than the speed of sound -- at least with an airplane as we have been shooting rifle bullets at Mach 1 to Mach 3 for some decades before the Wright Brothers.
When steam trains first came out in the early 1800's, scientists warned rail car builders NOT to enclose their cars because if the train went more than 25 miles an hour the venturi effect would suck all the air out and suffocate the passengers.
So I hope this latest experiment of faster than light objects can be verified. If so, then "Take her out at Warp Factor 3 Mr. Sulu." won't be that far away.
Able to leap tall tales in a single groan.
Rusty, you honestly believe humans are anywhere near capable of producing an engine/rocket that can travel even half as fast as the speed of light, even in the vacumn of space?
I think we are at least 500 to 1000 years away.....if ever.
Rusty,Originally Posted by RustyBattleship
The speed of light as the absolute limit came originally from the fact that Maxwell's equations break down for an observer moving with the traveling electromagnetic waves. Einstein noticed this paradox in a thought experiment and formulated special relativity.
E=mC^2 comes from that since an absolute speed limit implies an absolute limit to the extractable kinetic energy of a certain mass, which, at non-relativitstic speeds, is 1/2 m v^2. I forget how the special relativity scaling goes and where the factor of 1/2 gets cancelled out.
Having something exceed the speed of light has major implications beyond mc^2 since light is really the clock by which we measure time and the ruler by which we measure distance, and space-time is defined in terms of those clocks and rulers. If you have something that could travel faster than light, how do you redefine space time? If this finding is confirmed physicists will actually have to confront this question, which, imo, is not a bad thing. Our current picture of space-time leads ultimately to crazy parallel universe theories, which, imo, are not at all satisfying from an intellectual standpoint.
it´s long known that darkness exceeds the speed of light, wherever light goes, darkness is already there
If i only was so smart yesterday as my wife is today
Minding your own biz is great virtue, but situation awareness saves lives - Dok
That may have been a joke,but it's also deep.Didn't heard it before.Good one.it´s long known that darkness exceeds the speed of light, wherever light goes, darkness is already there
Those who know don't speak
So, what's the speed of darkness?it´s long known that darkness exceeds the speed of light, wherever light goes, darkness is already there
No such thing as a good tax - Churchill
To make mistakes is human. To blame someone else for your mistake, is strategic.
Darkness has no speed because there is no such thing as darkness. Darkness is merely the absence of light
I mean, as long as we're getting philosophical, existential and meta-physical...
Meddle not in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup.
Abusing Yellow is meant to be a labor of love, not something you sell to the highest bidder.
I know that definition, I was replying to
t´s long known that darkness exceeds the speed of light
No such thing as a good tax - Churchill
To make mistakes is human. To blame someone else for your mistake, is strategic.
Aye Jim , but ye cannae change laws o physics Cpt ,,,( allegedly )
When I first heard of the cerne experiment it was WOW , and am looking forward to how its gonna be proven and stated as fact , and if it is fact , then what possibilities will be opened up , ?? We may have to have a total rethink as to how the universe works and maybe just maybe old Albert could have been wrong ?
Last edited by tankie; 23 Sep 11, at 13:29.
TANKIE.
We can't change the laws of physics without a majority vote ... and we probably don't know all the laws anyway, but E=mc^2 is a mathematical model, and it wasn't conceived as a law - I doubt Einstein thought it was a law either.
The speed of darkness = Warp 11
The speed of thought = Warp 22
Godspeed -> Infinity
"If your plan is for one year, plant rice. If your plan is for ten years, plant trees.
If your plan is for one hundred years, educate children." -- Confucius
Start thinking of light as a point, through which everything else passes simultaneously. But then I'm drunk so what would I know
If these things worked as democracy, I'd vote for your system
The speed of darkness = Warp 11
The speed of thought = Warp 22
Godspeed -> Infinity
No such thing as a good tax - Churchill
To make mistakes is human. To blame someone else for your mistake, is strategic.
So, as long as your beer passes through that point everything is just dandy.
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