Pillar of physics challenged
Because no one reads the Discussions section
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->GENEVA (AP) -- 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.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<a href="http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/E/EU_BREAKING_LIGHT_SPEED?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT" target="_blank">Full Story</a>
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->GENEVA (AP) -- 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.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<a href="http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/E/EU_BREAKING_LIGHT_SPEED?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT" target="_blank">Full Story</a>
Comments
Where is that like button when you need it?
The CERN guys aren't assuming they've broken physics, they're asking the other guys what's why their multimeter is reading a million volts all the time.
If only I was that clever.
The CERN guys aren't assuming they've broken physics, they're asking the other guys what's why their multimeter is reading a million volts all the time.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-15017484" target="_blank">http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-15017484</a> that?
Yeah that one.
Someone please correct me.
The speed of light in a vacuum (light moves a lot slower through things like air) is the 'absolute limit' everyone brings up, it's given the letter c for use in calculations, so I'll call it c from now on.
I don't know enough physics to tell you why exactly it's the upper limit, but I can explain a few things.
First off, c is not just the speed of light, it's also effectively the speed of information. Even if something could travel faster than the speed of light, we wouldn't be able to tell very easily, because we wouldn't be able to see it travelling faster than light, because we use light to see things. This is true of all forms of detection like radio waves, microwaves, gamma rays, x rays, all of these are forms of electromagnetic radiation, which is also what light is, a form of EM radiation.
So even if c was not a physical limit, it is in many ways a practical limit. If something travelled faster than light, it'd be very hard to measure.
Secondly, you have the idea of relative time. One of the things we do know about extremely high speeds is that they kinda mess around with time. The general rule is that if you're going very fast in a direction, you're going very slowly in time. It isn't normally noticeable because earth speeds are all very very slow by universal standards, but it is observable in things like atomic clocks. We launched a bunch of atomic clocks into orbit, presumably because that's the kind of thing scientists like to do with their funding, and one of the things we found is that they kinda keep bad time when they're in orbit. Or rather, they keep accurate time, they are just moving at a different speed in time, although I can't remember if it's slower because they're orbiting and thus constantly accelerating, or faster because they are in zero gravity. I think it's faster though because it's the g force that counts.
That's the other odd thing about it, it's specifically <i>acceleration</i> and not speed, and one of the curious quirks is that if you're in orbit, you're technically constantly accelerating, because acceleration is defined as increasing movement speed <i>in a direction,</i> and your direction is constantly changing if you're moving in a curve, however I think that gravity cancels that out, so you don't experience the effects.
Anyway, the point is that not only does immense acceleration cause time to move slowly for you, but so does intense gravity, which is why black holes are theorised to have extreme time dilation effects as you get closer to the centre, one of the fun scenarios is that if you fell into one, you could actually end up falling so slowly that you would be very, very slowly torn apart by the tidal forces and differences in gravity, basically your feet would be experiencing 20G, while your head would only be experiencing 5G, and you'd be travelling (from your point of view) very slowly due to dilation and you would basically be stretched to death. Which is kind of metal tbh.
All that aside, what you basically need to know is that the speed of light is the speed that physicists have figured out as the speed at which time would stop for you if you reached it. Which means that if anything were to go faster than the speed of light, it would actually be going backwards in time. And that would be weird, so we hope nothing can.
<!--quoteo(post=1876409:date=Sep 22 2011, 11:12 PM:name=Aldaris)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Aldaris @ Sep 22 2011, 11:12 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1876409"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I think it's something to do with as your speed increases through use of energy, your mass increases as energy = mass. At speeds it becomes noticable, ie towards the speed of light, you need up needing infinite energy to accelerate as you end up with an infinite mass.
Someone please correct me.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Oh yes that too. As you acquire more energy, you technically get more massive (heavier, although 'heavy' is a measure of weight, not mass, scientists are picky about that), because E = Mc^2, As c squared is a constant, and can't change, if E changes (energy) then so must M (mass). This means more effort required to accelerate you, up to the point where you are right near the speed of light, at which point you are REALLY damn heavy and you couldn't get enough thrust to keep up your acceleration at anything other than microscopically small levels.
Anyone else think the "theoretical faster than light particle" they mentioned was a tachyon? Because that's even more of a joke (though as always, not an *impossible* one) than neutrinos breaking the speed of light.
Edit: I notice there's no link to an official article or release.... that might be nothing, but it's poor practice and pretty suspicious in my book. The media has been mucking up experimental findings for centuries.
Edit 2: I've looked around, and from what I can see, there isn't a single piece of evidence I can find for this. Everything just keeps linking back to the AP article, which "says" people have said these things. I don't know if they conducted an interview or what, but until I see a paper or an official release, I'm not giving this a second thought. It's like reading an article on how '<i>scientists say</i> gravity doesn't actually do anything'.
Experimentally it wouldn't be that hard to measure, assuming either A) you can release the particle that travels faster than light with very specific timing or B) you can manipulate its path to make it curve or reflect back to near its point of origin.
<b>GOD DAMIT CHRIS</b> don't remind me of this D:
<img src="http://memberfiles.freewebs.com/60/74/64867460/photos/Creepy/525px-Amigara.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" />
I reminded myself of it so now you have to suffer too.
Drr Drr Drr.
Real scientists work to prove theories are right or wrong, not just call it wrong right off the bat, thats what science is <.< experiments not just "omg no someone say it can't do this, therefore it can't."
No, they just took less time to get from A to B than light would.
If it were intelligent, it might experience time in an unusual or noncausal fashion (which is one of the reasons the lightspeed barrier is accepted: causality), but I don't think they were equipped to measure how time was occurring to the particle. I can't know this for sure though, because <i>I can't find a single credible piece of sourced information or research that isn't just a quote of that citation-devioid AP article.</i>
Maybe they were cheating like the old tour de France riders did, like taking a train ride for half the race and such.
<a href="http://arxiv.org/abs/1109.4897?context=hep-ex" target="_blank">http://arxiv.org/abs/1109.4897?context=hep-ex</a>
There is no need to freak out when a model is not as exact as it wishes to be, especially a theory dating from 1905 be it from Einstein or not. This info only hurts 'by the book scientists', anyone a bit open minded will get over it.
Edit: download the pdf for the article.
<!--quoteo(post=1876594:date=Sep 23 2011, 09:05 PM:name=X_Stickman)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (X_Stickman @ Sep 23 2011, 09:05 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1876594"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->They put little sticky numbers on the neutrinos so they know which one is which, then time them as they run a lap around the collider. Apparently some of them made it quicker than light could.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I don't think any collider was involved?
The time difference is due to the jet stream, think of the atmosphere as an ocean with currents. (because that is exactly what it is)