CERN scientists 'break the speed of light'

The Telegraph ^ | Sept. 22, 2011 | Uncredited

[danielmryan]

Scientists said on Thursday they recorded particles travelling faster than light - a finding that could overturn one of Einstein's fundamental laws of the universe.

Antonio Ereditato, spokesman for the international group of researchers, said that measurements taken over three years showed neutrinos pumped from CERN near Geneva to Gran Sasso in Italy had arrived 60 nanoseconds quicker than light would have done.

"We have high confidence in our results. We have checked and rechecked for anything that could have distorted our measurements but we found nothing," he said. "We now want colleagues to check them independently."

[Boogieman]

I don’t know, the article doesn’t really seem to be clear on that point. See my post #78 for the ambiguous paragraph that could be read either way.

[Boogieman]

Yes, yes, I’m not talking about going faster than C, just saying that it’s not a violation to exceed the speed of light that is not in a vacuum.

[Louis Foxwell]

It may end up that our physical bodies cannot make the trip, but our ‘minds’ can.

Consciousness is universal in every aspect. It requires a frame of reference to make manifest. When we find the key to that we will be everywhere at once.

[Boogieman]

It does make more sense if they are just dividing the distance by C. I’m guessing the journalist just didn’t realize that it would make any difference.

If it’s true, I’m not sure it really is a violation of relativity, after all, wasn’t the speed of light chosen kind of arbitrarily as the limit? I think the important thing is that there is a velocity limit, not what the limit is based on, so they would probably just have to recalculate things with the speed of neutrinos as the limit (until they discover a faster particle).

[Shalmaneser]

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.

"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."

-- Robert A. Heinlein, Time For the Stars, 1956

[TomasUSMC]

SIX MONTHS AGO - “Large Hadron Collider Could Be World’s First Time Machine, Researchers’ Theory Suggests ScienceDaily (Mar. 16, 2011)...

TODAY - “Neutrinos Travel Faster Than Light”, - news.sciencemag.org
(Sep. 22, 2011)...
Today my be the day the human race first traveling back in time.....tomorrow may never be the same.

[TomasUSMC]

so they would probably just have to recalculate things with the speed of neutrinos as the limit (until they discover a faster particle).
///////////////

Man you just took all the fun away!

[TomasUSMC]

Steven Wright had it correct many years ago. “If you’re traveling in a spacecraft at the speed of light and you turn your headlights on...does it make any difference?”

////////////////
Only before you start.

[Cheburashka]

Neutrino's have no mass, right? No mass, no problem with FTL.

---

Neutrinos almost have no mass, but not quite.

[Cheburashka]

Call me a luddite, but Albert's mathematics have stood the test of many times (no pun intended).

---

Newton's did too, until the day they didn't.

[AdmSmith]

It will be a conference at CERN at 1600 to 1800 (European time) http://indico.cern.ch/conferenceDisplay.py?confId=155620 It will be live here http://webcast.cern.ch/

My bet is that they will find the measurement error.

[E8crossE8]

I suspect that there is a deeply hidden statistical experimental analysis error at the bottom of this, most likely due to the precision of complicated system-based determinations of distance and/or timing. There are literally millions of components that together make up this experiment, and the number of possibilities for error is combinatorically gigantic. Although there has been a tremendous amount of "noise" bandied about in the popular media about this claim over the past couple of days, there is, unfortunately, very little correct information being spread around.

The experimental collaboration team who conducted this experiment are solid, well-regarded physicists, and they, themselves, are hoping that others will find their error. If this result is correct, the implications are truly profound, although the comments one has seen in the public media have gotten this almost entirely wrong, with the usual collection of various crackpot interpretations and partial or complete misunderstandings being heard.

The currently accepted basis for explaining the behavior of elementary particles is a very specialized area of physics called quantum field theory (QFT). It is simply impossible to "explain" this briefly in any medium, especially a mainly political blog - even a great political blog such as FR. (The discussion is further complicated by the nutcases who always seems to be drawn to such discussions.) An essential part of QFT is a mathematical structure called "Lorentz invariance." This is a set of mathematical constraints on the form of various mathematical expressions that describe the different elementary particles and their interactions with each other. The bottom line is that this apparent result violates Lorentz invariance. However, ALL of our understanding of QFT goes out the window if it is really correct that Lorentz invariance is not a true mathematical symmetry exhibited in Nature. Yet, there are literally trillions of data points associated to elementary particle dynamics that have been collected over the years that are all consistent with Lorentz invariance.

A gigantic puzzle will thus emerge if the claimed result proves to be correct. Contrary to some of the unhinged and/or ignorant who write about this, there is no reluctance on the part of working physicists to consider new, even radically new, ideas that challenge our understanding. The main issue is that this result simply doesn't make sense based on the huge number of other facts that we know are true based on other measurements that have been massively replicated.

The next step is to independently replicate these results, as required by the scientific method.

A last comment: non-physicists will probably mostly not know this, but there was an almost as strange, apparently incongruous experimental result in particle physics that came out in the 1970s called the “high-Y” anomaly (“Y” is a certain physical quantity). The measurement gave values that seemed to contradict a huge part of particle physics understanding, although that result didn’t generate the public noise that this claimed result has. After a lot of confusion in the particle physics community, the “high-Y” anomaly result was discovered to be due to an experimental error.

[AdmSmith]

I agree with you. I have been following the seminar at the link and they give good answers to the questions but I am sure that it is an error. I find it very hard to skip Lorenz invariance.

Actually we have during the years here at FR been discussing QFT, QCD etc. Some of the freepers have been there, done that.

[AdmSmith]

sloppy with sp as usual Lorenz => Lorentz

[AFPhys]

I believe that the major implication of Einstein’s equation is that mass increases as speed increases, and therefore a particle with positive mass can not achieve the speed of light by increasing its energy. However, I also believe that if we take those same equations, and solve them for particles which have super-luminal velocity, they dictate such a particle has negative mass. If so, given the result of this experiment, and the enormous number of neutrinos in the universe, it seems clear that it is time to take a concept of negative mass seriously, and to revisit all cosmology assumptions and recompute predictions. It is possible that many of the problems of cosmology that require invisible dark energy and dark matter would be alleviated.

[Ransomed]

Right on. We have only had powered fixed-wing flight for a little over 100 years. In that time, it took us a 60+ to go to the moon. What will we do in 1000 years if nothing knocks us back to living in caves?

Freegards

[HeartlandOfAmerica]

"We now want colleagues to check them independently."

With a whole new set of data, right?

It sounds like they just want everyone to take their word for it and just double check their numbers, not do the entire experiment over again.

[marbren]

Are you Sheldon?

[marbren]

Looks like the speed of light idol is on shaky ground as well! Alamo Girl do you get a sense God is getting rid of all idols in these last days? Everything we put our faith in other than The Lord Jesus Christ, is crashing and burning.

Romans 1:25 (ESV) 25because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.

[Quix]

GREAT POINT.

Likely so. imho.

BLESSED BE THE NAME OF THE LORD.
BLESSED BE THE LORD GOD OF ISRAEL.
BLESSED BE HE WHO COMES IN THE NAME OF THE LORD.

MAY ALL THOSE WHO LOVE TRUTH SEEK HIS FACE.

I COR 1:21

New International Version (©1984)
For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe.
New Living Translation (©2007)
Since God in his wisdom saw to it that the world would never know him through human wisdom, he has used our foolish preaching to save those who believe.

English Standard Version (©2001)
For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe.

New American Standard Bible (©1995)
For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not come to know God, God was well-pleased through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe.

International Standard Version (©2008)
For since, in the wisdom of God, the world through its wisdom did not know God, God was pleased to save those who believe through the nonsense of our preaching.

GOD’S WORD® Translation (©1995)
The world with its wisdom was unable to recognize God in terms of his own wisdom. So God decided to use the nonsense of the Good News we speak to save those who believe.

King James Bible
For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe.