Faster Than The Speed Of Light

[samlcfc]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-15017484

A meeting at Cern, the world's largest physics lab, has addressed results that suggest subatomic particles have gone faster than the speed of light.

The team presented its work so other scientists can determine if the approach contains any mistakes.

If it does not, one of the pillars of modern science will come tumbling down.

Antonio Ereditato added "words of caution" to his Cern presentation because of the "potentially great impact on physics" of the result.

The speed of light is widely held to be the Universe's ultimate speed limit, and much of modern physics - as laid out in part by Albert Einstein in his theory of special relativity - depends on the idea that nothing can exceed it.

Continue reading the main story

“Start Quote

We want to be helped by the community in understanding our crazy result - because it is crazy”

Antonio Ereditato Opera collaboration

Light speed: Flying into fantasy

Thousands of experiments have been undertaken to measure it ever more precisely, and no result has ever spotted a particle breaking the limit.

"We tried to find all possible explanations for this," the report's author Antonio Ereditato of the Opera collaboration told BBC News on Thursday evening.

"We wanted to find a mistake - trivial mistakes, more complicated mistakes, or nasty effects - and we didn't.

"When you don't find anything, then you say 'well, now I'm forced to go out and ask the community to scrutinise this'."

Friday's meeting was designed to begin this process, with hopes that other scientists will find inconsistencies in the measurements and, hopefully, repeat the experiment elsewhere.

"Despite the large [statistical] significance of this measurement that you have seen and the stability of the analysis, since it has a potentially great impact on physics, this motivates the continuation of our studies in order to find still-unknown systematic effects," Dr Ereditato told the meeting.

If this is found out to be a true and consistent result then surely it opens ideas and concepts for innovation in a lot of things. If not before the far future, surely would still be a huge discovery

[Collymore]

This is nothing new in the world of quantum physics. Non locality doesn't even acknowledge any speed so I don't see how this is such a big thing. The media love a story that will sell.

[samlcfc]

Can't say I know a whole lot about quantum physics. Didnt know how big a story it was either. A mate was telling me about it earlier

[jonno24]

Although for a century Einstein's Theory has been the bread and butter of the physics world and was generally considered the be all and end all of space and time.

I have always thaught that it was JUST our best guess so far.

And i am sure that this discovery will be our best guess for now but tbh i feel the true meaning of the universe its effects,laws and purpose will be something we cannot comprehend.

In the meantime im happy to be one of the guys that keeps guessing

[jonno24]

Can't say I know a whole lot about quantum physics. Didnt know how big a story it was either. A mate was telling me about it earlier

Im assuming you know of e=mc2 well hopefully anyway

It was an amazing discovery by einstein and when this is verified and we need a new law of relativity einsteins theory will remain as valid as the day he made it.

But my personal theory of interest is Ho Yava Gravity. Which at this time of night shall remain a mystery

[ozleicester]

Possibly a HUGE story.

To be fair, until the 80s we didnt know the human genomes etc... and prior to that we thought atoms were the smallest things... only to "discover" quarks, hadrons etc. This is where (and im not trying to hilack the thread,) science and religion differ, when science is proved wrong it accepts it and moves on to the next theory.

Of course on the other hand, this might perhaps prove that our entire scientific basis is wrong, we actually HAVE only been on the planet for 5000 years and Jesus/Budda/flying spaghetti monster etc did perform miracles...

if this proves to be true (the faster than light, not the miracles) it will cause a complete re-evalutaion of scientific theory across almost all fields.

As a final thought, has anyone asked if perhaps the "timing" device being used could be inaccurate?, we are talking billi seconds after all.. did the guy pressing the button on the stop watch miss it by a flash

[leicsmac]

Possibly a HUGE story.

To be fair, until the 80s we didnt know the human genomes etc... and prior to that we thought atoms were the smallest things... only to "discover" quarks, hadrons etc. This is where (and im not trying to hilack the thread,) science and religion differ, when science is proved wrong it accepts it and moves on to the next theory.

Of course on the other hand, this might perhaps prove that our entire scientific basis is wrong, we actually HAVE only been on the planet for 5000 years and Jesus/Budda/flying spaghetti monster etc did perform miracles...

if this proves to be true (the faster than light, not the miracles) it will cause a complete re-evalutaion of scientific theory across almost all fields.

As a final thought, has anyone asked if perhaps the "timing" device being used could be inaccurate?, we are talking billi seconds after all.. did the guy pressing the button on the stop watch miss it by a flash

This.

What is does do additionally is open the door to the idea of particles with much bigger masses travelling faster than light too.

However...even the scientists involved still can't believe that this has happened (even though the margin for error in this case is so low in any other circumstance it would have been taken as legitimate already) so they are doing the right and cautious thing and trying to get independent confirmation from another lab. If they produce the same results...well, the can will be open and the worms will be on the floor.

[Guest DavidJCW]

It's only remotely significant to scientists... to the everyday person, this is nothing more than a whole lot of numbers and equations to try and work out something that is utterly unfathomable.

In the grand scheme of our lives, this has absolutely no relevance at all right now...

[Zingari]

i don't believe anything can beat light , ( except Muhammad Ali , who could switch off the bedroom light and be in bed before it got dark )

have they tested these neutrinos for drugs ?

[Rincewind]

Cant they just change the speed of light to match?

[coale39]

Cant they just change the speed of light to match?

Done.

You'll notice the difference when you wake up.

[Trav Le Bleu]

That reminds me of Terry Prachett's Discworld books, where the speed of light is much slower than our universe.

[Rincewind]

one of my favourite authors

[Steven]

Eat my shorts.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/newsnight/9598802.stm

[Steven]

This is nothing new in the world of quantum physics. Non locality doesn't even acknowledge any speed so I don't see how this is such a big thing. The media love a story that will sell.

Entanglement, utterly mind boggling.

[Rincewind]

What is the speed of light? My other post may have been taken as a joke but my point was that for years the speed of light as been thought as X but what if the calculations were slightly off and the actual speed was higher. This is just a thought from somebody with little understanding in quantam physics.

Years ago the 100m was just timed in secons and 10th seconds now the times are acurate to the 1000th

[The Doctor]

What is the speed of light? My other post may have been taken as a joke but my point was that for years the speed of light as been thought as X but what if the calculations were slightly off and the actual speed was higher. This is just a thought from somebody with little understanding in quantam physics.

Years ago the 100m was just timed in secons and 10th seconds now the times are acurate to the 1000th

299,792,458 metres per second, also defined as very ****ing quick.

[jonno24]

While this is an interesting topic just think about this little tidbit.

There are an infinate amount of me's writing this post

and

an infinate amount of you's reading this post

Man i love theoretical physics

[jonno24]

While this is an interesting topic just think about this little tidbit.

There are an infinate amount of me's writing this post

and

an infinate amount of you's reading this post

Man i love theoretical physics

And if your wondering where the nearest 'other' version of you is it is 10 to the power of 10 to the power of 28 meters.

Or 1 followed by 10 billion billion billion zeroes

[Rincewind]

I'll take your word for it.

[jonno24]

I'll take your word for it.

Another version of you actually understands those posts.

just sayin

[Rincewind]

Not sure I do. I found the Globe books series interesting by Terry Pratchett and Co authors. They involve a lot of science physics etc and they were the closest I have come to understanding hight mathamatics. I struggled through them because of Terry Pratchetts story inbeteen the fact bits and you needed the facts to explain the fiction.

There would not be enough space or time to write down all those zeros.

[Guest MattP]

Wouldnt this actually mean that time travel is in theory possible?

[Rincewind]

what happens if you stand on the line of a time zone and cross over? wont you arrive a hour before you left?

I'm sure there is a simple answer without using a 100 figure equation.

[ozleicester]

Wouldnt this actually mean that time travel is in theory possible?

I watched Back to the future 2 and 3 last night... took on a whole new meaning now