Speed-of-light experiments give baffling result at Cern

[WhiteLotus]

Puzzling results from Cern, home of the LHC, have confounded physicists - because it appears subatomic particles have exceeded the speed of light.

Neutrinos sent through the ground from Cern toward the Gran Sasso laboratory 732km away seemed to show up a tiny fraction of a second early.

The result - which threatens to upend a century of physics - will be put online for scrutiny by other scientists.

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

[erocker]

Ah, it's allright. Einstien was scrutinized and scoffed at too. In a seemingly boundles and endless universe, I never really thought that light was the fastest thing around. *But I guess it still is. Overactive imagination. :/

[overclocker]

Makes yea wonder.

[WhiteLotus]

Yea, it would really screw the physics world over. This is like disproving gravity.

[Jegergrim]

Interesting read, thanks

[Sasqui]

Originally Posted by erocker

Ah, it's allright. Einstien was scrutinized and scoffed at too. In a seemingly boundles and endless universe, I never really thought that light was the fastest thing around.

I think I'll start showing up to meetings a fraction of a second early, that will upend all of the theories that abound in the office

[TUngsten]

Originally Posted by WhiteLotus

Yea, it would really screw the physics world over. This is like disproving gravity.

Well, the scientific community got over the "world is flat" and "earth is center of the universe" ideas. I'm sure we will survive this with less fanfare.

[WhiteLotus]

Originally Posted by TUngsten

Well, the scientific community got over the "world is flat" and "earth is center of the universe" ideas. I'm sure we will survive this with less fanfare.

A lot of theories are based on the fastest thing possible being the speed of light. This has the punch to make all those theories null and void, which is like putting a big cross through peoples LIFE long work.

[Ahhzz]

Saw that earlier on my droid... that's just awesome.... It's these kinds of discoveries (if it's correct) that give us huge leaps forward....

[ZenZimZaliben]

Originally Posted by WhiteLotus

Yea, it would really screw the physics world over. This is like disproving gravity.

No not really. Because even if Light isn't the fastest thing in the universe it is still a constant. Therefore almost all mathematical equations using "c" still apply true. It's just throws a fork in the gears for anything beyond speed of light and only in relation to particles with very little to no mass.

Getting something to move FTL will still require the same energy as it always had and anything we create isn't going to have a mass even close to a neutrino. So really this only affects super sub atomic particles, in a Vacuum.

[douglatins]

thespeed is actually super close, so maybe just a new lightspeed thats accurate

[WhiteLotus]

Originally Posted by ZenZimZaliben

No not really. Because even if Light isn't the fastest thing in the universe it is still a constant. Therefore almost all mathematical equations using "c" still apply true. It's just throws a fork in the gears for anything beyond speed of light and only in relation to particles with very little to no mass.

ah yea, that's true. Still, if one were to label a neutrino particle with a message, you could then (I think) send it forward in time. Crazy shit.

[Steevo]

The biggest implications are quantum computing. get a answer before you ask the question.....?

[ZenZimZaliben]

Originally Posted by WhiteLotus

ah yea, that's true. Still, if one were to label a neutrino particle with a message, you could then (I think) send it forward in time. Crazy shit.

Possible I guess, as long as the message doesn't change the mass of the neutrino. The neutrino itself has less mass than a single electron. Has no charge + or -.

Like you said. Crazy shit happens at the sub atomic level. I can barely grasp some of the concepts. Entanglement...That is crazy stuff and blows my mind. Just by observing the particle changes the behavior...

Who's to say our perception of the 4th dimension is even remotely accurate. We can only measure the 4th dimension in our 3rd dimensional minds that can only perceive the 4th dimension in a slide show.

[FordGT90Concept]

Einstein estimated that the speed of light was equal to c in E=mc^2. It was impossible for him to prove the exact value of c, only that it is really big. It is possible that his estimate is off a little or there is another layer to the riddle that has yet to be uncovered.

[ZenZimZaliben]

Originally Posted by FordGT90Concept

Einstein estimated that the speed of light was equal to c in E=mc^2. It was impossible for him to prove the exact value of c, only that it is really big. It is possible that his estimate is off a little or there is another layer to the riddle that has yet to be uncovered.

Yeah but we know and can measure the speed of light. He was right on. Light is nothing more than a wave. If you know the Energy and you know the Mass, speed of light is easy to figure.

Sq.Rt (E / M) = C

Where E = Joules.

[hat]

Originally Posted by WhiteLotus

ah yea, that's true. Still, if one were to label a neutrino particle with a message, you could then (I think) send it forward in time. Crazy shit.

So you're saying faster than light speed would mean time travel, then?

[streetfighter 2]

Whatever happened to spooky action at a distance (quantum entanglement)?

Originally Written by Salart et al
For example, if such a privileged reference frame exists and is such that the Earth’s speed in this frame is less than 10^-3 times that of the speed of light, then the speed of the influence would have to exceed that of light by at least four orders of magnitude.

Also, I know it violates super-symmetry but I like my tachyon beams: scanning something before you ever thought to start scanning it.

. . . Haven't read article yet . . .

Originally Posted by hat

So you're saying faster than light speed would mean time travel, then?

Although I'm not who you were replying to, yes.

Rather, traveling back in time. Traveling forward in time is trivial, just get on a plane. If you're not following me then start complaining to your GPS.

Traveling faster than light relative to a certain region of space will make you travel back in time relative to that space. AFAIK . . .

[W1zzard]

the time difference is 60 nanoseconds or 60 feet at the speed of light, total distance is 730 km.
error of the experiment is 10 ns

doesnt the earth get stretched by the moon? wouldnt this invalidate whatever distance measurement they have? anyone know how much the earth gets stretched and able to apply some math to that distance?

[W1zzard]

best info in this article:
http://www.nature.com/news/2011/1109....2011.554.html

webcast at 4 pm cet tomorrow @ cern

and there's the paper: http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1109/1109.4897.pdf

meh

The high-accuracy time-transfer GPS receiver allows to continuously monitor tiny
movements of the Earth’s crust, such as continental drift that shows up as a smooth variation of
less than 1 cm/year, and the detection of slightly larger effects due to earthquakes. The April
2009 earthquake in the region of LNGS, in particular, produced a sudden displacement of about 7
cm, as seen in Fig. 7. All mentioned effects are within the accuracy of the baseline determination.
Tidal effects are negligible as well.

[The_Ish]

And what's the purpose of this?

[Steevo]

Multi-band GPS in CMR format, I know 8 places of dual band will return less than 2cm of error over 2 weeks. Add in Glonoss and you reduce that to less than 1cm, two sigma over years.

What about the speed of the earth through space, and the rotation of the earth, the speed of the galaxy? Surely they included those measurements in their allowances. Earth is hurtling not only around, but around the sun, around the galaxy, and away. What are the effects of pushing massed objects to the speed of light, are the no longer influenced by the forces that constrain all other matter, thus being able to seemingly travel faster than light?

[Drone]

neutrinos have done just that

in vacuum or in medium?

Neutrinos come in a number of types, and have recently been seen to switch spontaneously from one type to another. The team prepares a beam of just one type, muon neutrinos, sending them from Cern to an underground laboratory at Gran Sasso in Italy to see how many show up as a different type, tau neutrinos.

Neutrino oscillation is a barely studied process, people even don't know the mass of neutrino. If neutrino appears to be a WIMP then indeed it can exceed the speed of light.

Neutrino, you are a hero of freedom, I bet you ain't from this world. So where are you going?

[W1zzard]

Originally Posted by Drone

If neutrino appears to be a WIMP then indeed it can exceed the speed of light.

no. nothing can exceed the speed of light.

[Drone]

Originally Posted by W1zzard

no. nothing can exceed the speed of light.

ever heard of Cherenkov radiation?