Posted on 09/22/2011 12:16:56 PM PDT by John W
An international team of scientists has recorded neutrino particles traveling faster than the speed of light, a spokesman for the researchers said on Thursday -- in what could be a challenge to one of the fundamental rules of physics.
If confirmed, the discovery would overturn a key part of Albert Einstein's 1905 theory of special relativity, which says that nothing in the universe can travel faster than light.
(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...
To show this point, the total energy of a particle moving at velocity v is:
E = m0*c^2/(1-(v/c)^2)^0.5, where m0 is the rest mass
The kinetic energy (energy due to motion) is KE = E-m0*c^2. For small values of v, KE ~= 0.5*m0*v^2, which agrees with classical mechanics.
However, for a particle with a non-zero rest mass, E becomes infinite at v = c. This is why the CERN collider uses so much energy to accelerate a particle to near c speeds. If a photon was shown to have rest mass, then it could not go at the speed of light, unless the theory of relativity is wrong.
[ What is the rest mass of a photon?
And how was it measured? ]
I am pretty sure that is in the bible somewhere and god measured it with his divine radar gun.
(with apologies to Steven Wright):
If you’re flying in your car at the speed of light, and you turn your headlamps on, do you still get passed by neutrinos?
Typical “science”
“nothing in the universe can travel faster than light.”
(Until we find something that does).
I never ceased to be amazed that people ridicule science because scientific beliefs can be changed by observation and experiment.
LOL!
This is all part of God’s design of creation. I seriously doubt we’ll ever understand it all in this life, if ever.
Distance in miles and time in nanoseconds?
A total of 15,000 beams of neutrinos — tiny particles that pervade the cosmos — were fired over a period of 3 years from CERN toward Gran Sasso 730 (500 miles) km away, where they were picked up by giant detectors.
Light would have covered the distance in around 2.4 thousandths of a second, but the neutrinos took 60 nanoseconds — or 60 billionths of a second — less than light beams would have taken.
[ I read about an experiment years ago, that had measured the square of the neutrino mass (at least one flavor of neutrino) to be negative.
The author speculated that if true, the neutrino may be a tachyon (a so-far hypothetical particle that always travels faster than light).
It was pretty much dismissed out of hand and I never heard about it again.
Wonder if someone will dig that up now.
If confirmed, this is a major game changer. ]
I always thought the way neutrinoes could move through so much solid matter kinda meant they were mostly “unbound” from our space time and as such was the reason they barely interact with things.
Garde la Foi, mes amis! Nous nous sommes les sauveurs de la République! Maintenant et Toujours!
(Keep the Faith, my friends! We are the saviors of the Republic! Now and Forever!)
LonePalm, le Républicain du verre cassé (The Broken Glass Republican)
Light would have covered the distance in around 2.4 thousandths of a second, but the neutrinos took 60 nanoseconds -- or 60 billionths of a second -- less than light beams would have taken.
A lot less. Assuming that the article did not mess up the numbers, the neutrinos were traveling in excess of 12 billion kilometers per second or 40,000 times the speed of light (warp factor 9.9975).
At that speed one could reach Proxima Centauri in a little over 4 hours, the Pleiades in less than 3 days, and the Andromeda Galaxy in less than a human lifespan. Any takers?
Suddenly that plaque at NCSU’s College of Natural Resources (previously the College of Forestry), now has more meaning:
“Earth first. We’ll log the other planets later.”
(probably not there anymore, since the advent of super-green religion)
Seriously, if we could exceed the speed of light, I say we need to work on FTL RIGHT NOW. I want off this planet. It’s becoming a bit too collective for my tastes.
Being able to roam the galaxy, the universe, etc. would be a nice career.
Every now and then someone claims they're getting photons to break the speed of light in tunneling experiments. Upon closer analysis, sometimes taking years to come through, it always turns out that the "speed" they were measuring was the same kind as you get when you scan a flashlight or a laser beam on some far away wall (e.g. see this paper).
While the light spot does move faster than light on the wall, there is no signal or energy being tansmitted between the successive positions of the light spot. In other words, all that is happening is that the times of light spot shining at some places A and B are remotely synchronized to be close to each other. E.g. if a beam is turned so quickly that the light spot hits A and B almost simultaneously, then the "speed" of light spot "moving" between A and B would be close to infinite. I would put my bet on the hypethesis that these guys have observed this kind of light-spot effect in disguise.
This group is large and hardly a bunch of amateurs - they wouldn’t remotely take the chance of going public without having gone over their data over and over and over again.
My bet is that it’s shown to be a valid result (will take a while, as duplicating their experiment will be very expensive and time consuming.)
*****their experiment will be very expensive and time consuming*****
Now that’s funny right there;)
I know what you mean. The day people get banned purely for not being Creationists isn't here, yet - but I think it will be in a few years.
Nahhh...that was John Kerry seeing a live TV camera.
What? I thought the science was settled.
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