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 ...
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.
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