Really? Objects moving FTL? (faster than light)

[Times Roman]

Once again, if this thing holds up, it just shows the more we know, the more we realize we really don't know. Some of you may remember me yacking about my skepticism about the big bang being a "fact". Read on.....

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44629271...nce/?gt1=43001

Neutrinos clocked moving at faster-than-light speed


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 (299,792 kilometers 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 (730 kilometers) 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 were 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.

[Flagg]

Saw this on BBC NEWS today and was about to post it.

Apparantly, some neutrinos fired arrived at their destination, arrived a fraction of a second earlier than anticipated.

If by some freak chance, something has manage to break the light speed barrier, that is truly enormous news.

[gixxerboy1]

its just amazing they can even check shit like that.
How much $ is that speeding ticket?

[Hoggage_54]

I really wish we could invest more into science... imagine how much further mankind could be if we spent money on science instead of wars? It's too bad we have people like the Tea Party who want nothing more than the ability to buy more cheap crap from Wal Mart...

[Shol'va]

Wow faster than the speed of light, more powerful than a locomotive, able to leap tall buildings with a single bound, It's a bird, it's a plane, it's, it's', it's, oh snap it's just a neutrino. There once was a neutrino in Reno, discovered by a scientist we know, who, at first flight, went faster than light, but the country is broke and that's no joke, so it's the end of the line for this neutrino.

[redz]

The ramifications of this would be huge, imagine what things could come with this.

[gixxerboy1]

I really wish we could invest more into science... imagine how much further mankind could be if we spent money on science instead of wars? It's too bad we have people like the Tea Party who want nothing more than the ability to buy more cheap crap from Wal Mart...

walmart needs to sell better science stuff then

[Times Roman]

what impact would this have on speed of light = speed of time?

[dec11]

this thread has helped my insomnia, cheers TR!! lol

[Flagg]

Can't believe this news isn't bigger than it should be.

It's getting virtually no air time on the NEWS or other forums.

Just goes to show, stick shit like "X Factor contestant goes through" next to "Speed of light broken", and watch which article the bloated, dumb masses want to read about instead.

EDIT: I wish members of the Tea Party could be fired somewhere at the speed of light.

[dec11]

Can't believe this news isn't bigger than it should be.

It's getting virtually no air time on the NEWS or other forums.

Just goes to show, stick shit like "X Factor contestant goes through" next to "Speed of light broken", and watch which article the bloated, dumb masses want to read about instead.

the most moronic crap on tv

[Flagg]

the most moronic crap on tv

But that tragically, is where money is pumped into today. Shit like this, advertisement, the even NEWER phone, that's even newer than the last model that only came out 6 months ago, and so on.

The encouragement to buy complete and utter shit, is mind boggling. With the exception of food, people buy and pay ridiculous amount of money for shit, they really don't need. Of course it's not my place to say what the consumer should buy, that's their choice, but when when we're told to "vote" for the spotty teen on a music show, or buy the even better SKY channel to watch sports we cant watch unless we're in a pub, or the next super console, then what chance has Science got when money is just invested and reinvested into the advertisement of shit, people don't need.

As "Sci-Fi" as this sounds, if some massive project was created by which they built a huge ship and said, "we're fitting this with experimental, faster than light, engines....we have no idea where you'll end up when you turn them on, but would you be part of the expedition. The ship will house 1000 people, and everything on there will be self-sustainable"... I sometimes think i'd jump at such a chance. What's the alternative? Living like a drone in a giant hive?

[dec11]

But that tragically, is where money is pumped into today. Shit like this, advertisement, the even NEWER phone, that's even newer than the last model that only came out 6 months ago, and so on.

The encouragement to buy complete and utter shit, is mind boggling. With the exception of food, people buy and pay ridiculous amount of money for shit, they really don't need. Of course it's not my place to say what the consumer should buy, that's their choice, but when when we're told to "vote" for the spotty teen on a music show, or buy the even better SKY channel to watch sports we cant watch unless we're in a pub, or the next super console, then what chance has Science got when money is just invested and reinvested into the advertisement of shit, people don't need.

As "Sci-Fi" as this sounds, if some massive project was created by which they built a huge ship and said, "we're fitting this with experimental, faster than light, engines....we have no idea where you'll end up when you turn them on, but would you be part of the expedition. The ship will house 1000 people, and everything on there will be self-sustainable"... I sometimes think i'd jump at such a chance. What's the alternative? Living like a drone in a giant hive?

the general public are hypnotised into thinking they need all this shit and cant live without it. due to technology everything in placed virtually on ppl's laps now and bingo, out comes the credit card.

theres an ad on every fvckin 2mins atm on virtually every channel and its driving me insane, some stupid game called 'gears or war'. ive never seen such aggressive advertising. and i mean, this ad is late at night so its obviously not aimed at children, wtf is wrong with ppl?!. gears of shit if you ask me

[Flagg]

the general public are hypnotised into thinking they need all this shit and cant live without it. due to technology everything in placed virtually on ppl's laps now and bingo, out comes the credit card.

theres an ad on every fvckin 2mins atm on virtually every channel and its driving me insane, some stupid game called 'gears or war'. ive never seen such aggressive advertising. and i mean, this ad is late at night so its obviously not aimed at children, wtf is wrong with ppl?!. gears of shit if you ask me

Haha, I think GOW is rated 18!

But I know exactly what you mean...even on YouTube, commercials and advertisements are creeping in. I'd almost be happier to pay a higher TV Licence fee if it meant I could be spared adverts.

[bigboy67]

the most moronic crap on tv

--x2

[bigboy67]

what impact would this have on speed of light = speed of time?

The implication of this is that proving that something can move faster than light opens the door back up to time travel

[bigboy67]

of course, once time travel is invented, time will cease to exist

[dec11]

of course, once time travel is invented, time will cease to exist

there better be a motorbike version or i'll be pissed!!

[l2elapse]

This really should be getting more attention. This could be the next huge breakthrough in science

[Lemonada8]

going faster than light is very plausible, however since we can only detect light and that is the fastest thing that we know of; of course we are gonna say that we cant go faster. Its nice to know that they have found a way to detect particles going faster, because it is on a whole other plane of existance that we are only breaching the surface of.
I bet once it is moderately perfected that a new door will be open and we will see an entire new view of the universe.
as for Time travel, i would think that would have to tie into the different dimensions ( an infinate amount) where each choice of each person lead to a different outcome and with time travel you would be able to revert previously to pre-decision time and that would influence the decision which would ultimately change the future that you came from. So, to have a fully functional time travel method, you would also have to have an inter-dimensional travel also to beable to return to the original time. As for changing a past event to something else in hopes to modify the future would be a pointless gesture because you would never be able to fully function in the other dimension due to there being 'two' copies of the same person... now how that would work is still a mystery but i would assume that it would ultimately be asorbed into each other creating hole in a dimension.

i see time travel/inter-dimensional travel as a 3D plane and we are 1D dots in that plane and we have the ability to choose wherever we go from there ( but never see the whole picture of all choices/options) And being on the edge of that 3D plane would indicate a very low probability choice being made.

[Swifto]

If time travel is possible, why have we not met people from the future yet?

[Flagg]

It's a shame Johan isn't here anymore, I would have loved to have heard his opinion on this.

Seems like this experiment is getting some attention now. A lot of experts demanding the experiment be replicated, people saying it's an error because you would need more energy than the universe contains to even propogate one neutrino faster than light.

Even though the Neutrino arrived at it's location a few nano seconds quicker than light, here is how fast it was actually moving:

The neutrinos apparently went approximately 0.0025% faster than light - that'd be about fifteen thousand miles per hour faster, give or take 10000 MPH or so.

I really want to see this experiment replicated. If the same result occurs, well....that really puts subjects like Physics and Mathematics completely on it's head.

[Times Roman]

If time travel is possible, why have we not met people from the future yet?

how do you know we haven't?

in a thousand years, we will still be, more or less, genetically the same. Which means we will in all likelihood appear the same. Unless someone comes out and says "I'm from the future", we would not know. So what happens when someone does come out and say "I'm from the future"? .......

..... we put them in the looney bin is what we do! =)

[Flagg]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-15791236

The experiment was repeated with the same results.

This of course potentially opens up an entirely new branch of science. Just what is the maximum speed an object can travel at, if at all, there even is an upper speed limit.

[Times Roman]

^ OK, now let me ask a question. Since apparently the experiment was repeated by a different group with more or less the same result, is this % variance outside Heizenberg's Uncertainty therom?

Another way of saying this, instead of thinking that Light speed is absolute, maybe AVERAGE light speed is absolute, and this variance could be explained by a couple or three standard deviations of the average?

can a variance of (as flag pointed out) 0.0025% faster than light be explainable by my two postulates?

[Times Roman]

going faster than light is very plausible, however since we can only detect light and that is the fastest thing that we know of; of course we are gonna say that we cant go faster. Its nice to know that they have found a way to detect particles going faster, because it is on a whole other plane of existance that we are only breaching the surface of.
I bet once it is moderately perfected that a new door will be open and we will see an entire new view of the universe.
as for Time travel, i would think that would have to tie into the different dimensions ( an infinate amount) where each choice of each person lead to a different outcome and with time travel you would be able to revert previously to pre-decision time and that would influence the decision which would ultimately change the future that you came from. So, to have a fully functional time travel method, you would also have to have an inter-dimensional travel also to beable to return to the original time. As for changing a past event to something else in hopes to modify the future would be a pointless gesture because you would never be able to fully function in the other dimension due to there being 'two' copies of the same person... now how that would work is still a mystery but i would assume that it would ultimately be asorbed into each other creating hole in a dimension.

i see time travel/inter-dimensional travel as a 3D plane and we are 1D dots in that plane and we have the ability to choose wherever we go from there ( but never see the whole picture of all choices/options) And being on the edge of that 3D plane would indicate a very low probability choice being made.

Multi deminsionality/universe theory trumps causality, and any dimension you travel to, you would be able to change the past, since THAT dimensions version of you is independent of the THIS dimensions version of you. In that dimension, you would be able to kill yourself (that universe's version of YOU) in the past, and that would have no impact on this universes children you have sired.

[Times Roman]

anyone care to take a stab at the time dialaton effect on the traveler if propulsion system = nutrino speed, which is FTL?

Given
You get in your rocket and travel the equivalent distance of 1000 light years.
Say your speed is such that you can travel a light year in only 98% the time required for a regular photon.

How much time would elapse for the traveler?
How much time would elapse for the observer?

DON'T LOOK (ANSWER IN NEXT POST)

[Times Roman]

(Answer)
The traveler would experience arriving 20 years before departure.
The observer would have aged 980 years, and would be dead in the ground long before finishing the observation


It would be preferable for the traveler to travel in a giant loop, so that departure and arrival points are the same.

this is my understanding of this variation of the twin paradox. If someone else can challange it, i'd love to hear the explanation!

[DSM4Life]

Have to admit, its pretty cool.

[Times Roman]

Admission about the "answer"

In hindsight, I realize the answer is wrong. the time dialation effect is NOT a linear expression of the speed of light. It is (i believe) exponential. And I'm too tired to do the calculation right now (today was leg day)

But you get the idea....

[Times Roman]

But that tragically, is where money is pumped into today. Shit like this, advertisement, the even NEWER phone, that's even newer than the last model that only came out 6 months ago, and so on.

The encouragement to buy complete and utter shit, is mind boggling. With the exception of food, people buy and pay ridiculous amount of money for shit, they really don't need. Of course it's not my place to say what the consumer should buy, that's their choice, but when when we're told to "vote" for the spotty teen on a music show, or buy the even better SKY channel to watch sports we cant watch unless we're in a pub, or the next super console, then what chance has Science got when money is just invested and reinvested into the advertisement of shit, people don't need.

As "Sci-Fi" as this sounds, if some massive project was created by which they built a huge ship and said, "we're fitting this with experimental, faster than light, engines....we have no idea where you'll end up when you turn them on, but would you be part of the expedition. The ship will house 1000 people, and everything on there will be self-sustainable"... I sometimes think i'd jump at such a chance. What's the alternative? Living like a drone in a giant hive?

Cha cha cha Chia!
....makes a great gift!
(you mean BS like this?)

[Eddie_m63]

I can tell we have some smart people here.

[Times Roman]

Consider this.
We have the technology, currently, to create an ion propulsion drive. Why have we not created such a drive yet with real world applications? We have created these engines on a small prototype scale, and easily proven they work.
Benefits:
Extremely energy fuel efficient compared to chemical thrusters.
Able to attain speeds much higher than chemically powered rockets.
Able to get to mars on a month or two, compared to a year+ with chemically powered rockets.

[MR-FQ320]

What about if the Neutrino has a negative mass with regards to E=mc2 ?

[Times Roman]

^We studied imaginary numbers in highschool. for example, what would be the solution of b, if b x b (b squared) = negative 1
the answer would be imaginary 1. They actually taught this. And it makes sense. In the real world, nothing times itself is a negative number. So the answer would be an imaginary number.

So having said all this, I don't grasp the concept of a negative mass. Antimatter has positive mass, but with an opposing charge to it's natural state counterpart. For example, a positron (the antimatter version of an electron) would have a positive charge. And it would have positive mass.

Now I admit, physics is a hobby of mine, not a profession, so if you can explain negative mass to me, I'd appreciate. Not being a smart asss either. Just admitting I don't know, that's all...

---Roman

[Times Roman]

^^ Ok. did some reading. It's a real concept. Negative mass. And actually, I'm familar with it, but never called it that before.

Here's what Wiki says about it... pretty exotic stuff, and extremely theoritical...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_mass

[Times Roman]

What about if the Neutrino has a negative mass with regards to E=mc2 ?

then just by following the formula, you would see you have created a negative energy situation

can you imagine an atomic explosion utilizing negative mass? You would have created an energy sink hole, and it would strip away energy from everything around it.

It would suck in energy like a black hole sucks in matter.

[Isma]

Why people so surprised with this?

Science is not religion and don't wanna be... and sometimes, unfortunately, some scientists make look as if it was. Is not a faith question. If neutrino's are faster... what's the deal? Let's make another theory.

15 years ago, if you doubt about the Big Bang you were an idiot... you were out of the official science... nowadays how many scientists still believing in BBT? One? Two? Now we have the Big Crunch, amongst others...

I'm a "letters" guy, so I'm not a specialist about the question, but this is my point of view.

[Times Roman]

we are trying to formulate a set of rules as to how the universe and everything we see, behaves....

....the big deal is that every time we think we've got a handle on it, the rug gets pulled out from under our feet and everything gets turned upside down.

....being surprised like this makes us realize we DON"T have a good grip on what we think to be true.

....and it reminds us, no matter how smart we think we are, we really aren't. It's a function of the ego. If we approached these issues with humility, the surprise wouldn't be so harsh.

[Renesis]

All crap like this proves is that people who believe that there are "facts" that can never be proven wrong mathematically are just idiots. Just because we can't find a way does not mean there isn't.