Faster than the speed of light?Update...

[Sparkle]

I wonder if an explanation for these recent findings is that it could be related to the compression of space/time due to the mass of the earth. Thus allowing the neutrino to appear to travel faster than the speed of light, whereas if the neutrino had travelled alongside a light beam it would have in fact travelled slower.

I really do hope however that this "faster than light" feat does turn out to be true. Relatively little is known about what really goes on inside atoms and basic questions are yet to be answered. Yes, scientists have been smashing atoms together for some time now and observing the results in bubble chambers. Yet still noone really knows what an electron is, or why an atom is what it is. There are only theories, this is why we can't really design our own atoms or develop new chemical compounds (i.e. super materials) which use the inner electron shells of atoms rather than merely the valence electron shells. In high pressure physics, compounds are compressed together to millions of atmospheres and all new novel compounds are created (with surprising results), not just using the outer valence electrons. This really just goes to show how little we know about matter.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diamond_anvil_cell
http://focus.aps.org/story/v15/st12

So, personally speaking, I wouldn't be particularly surprised if some ghost mystery particle seems to be able to get around one or some of the laws of physics which apply to other particles. Could be a very small step on a very long road of scientific discovery, or maybe just a mistake. We can but hope.

---------- Post added at 13:31 ---------- Previous post was at 11:55 ----------

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/20...light-violated

Professor Jim Al-Khalili at the University of Surrey said it was most likely that something was skewing the results. "If the neutrinos have broken the speed of light, it would overturn a keystone theory from the last century of physics. That's possible, but it's far more likely that there is an error in the data. So let me put my money where my mouth is: if the Cern experiment proves to be correct and neutrinos have broken the speed of light, I will eat my boxer shorts on live TV."

I can just see the internet petitions for this if it's proved true.

---------- Post added at 14:04 ---------- Previous post was at 13:31 ----------

In another thread, Here I mentioned about how easy it is to measure one thing with tremendous accuracy, speed.
If this latest FTL observation turns out to be genuine then it won't surprise me that it was speed that was first shown to reveal a discontinuity in the laws of physics as we know them to be, since speed is something that is so easily measured. No arguing with speed, as its easy reproducible and measured anywhere by anyone with the right equipment.
Imagine, assuming this to be true, that other laws are routinely broken at the subatomic level. How would we know? These are new particles, we don't know their properties. Physicists have essentially been breaking atoms, and writing the science as they go along, as there is little else they can do.
Perhaps, some particles actually have less mass/inertia than they should. Others have more or less charge than they should.
These "violations" would not be so obvious, as so little is understood about them. But, as soon as one goes faster than that ultimate speed - then it's abundantly clear to all. Just as long as it gets measured.
This is partly why I've got my fingers crossed here, as if this latest possible claim is true, I expect in the years to come that we'll find evidence of other laws that are regularly flouted (but previously unnoticed), and we'll begin to see a gradual unravelling of the secrets of the physical dimension as we've come to know it.

Its long been theorised that the laws which govern the physical universe, are actually dictated in higher dimensions. Mitchio Kaku, a leading theoretical physicist, wrote much of this in his best seller "Hyperspace" in the mid '90s.
His explanation was that from the vantage point of higher dimensions, the lower dimensions simplify, and the physical properties we observe, are only explicable from the higher dimensional vantage point.
One example he provides is the chaos in the battlefield (assume 2 dimensional) becomes ordered when an extra dimension is added (the high ground) where the battle commanders can see what is occurring, but which the combatants are oblivious to.
He goes on to say, that although the physical laws which we can observe appear very chaotic (hence no unified field theory), the chaos disappears in the higher dimensions which dictate the laws of physics as we know them. The understanding of the higher dimension is the key to understanding the physical 3D universe as we've come to know it.

[Kymmy]

Problem with speed is that you first need a good quality timebase.. We're talking here about micro and possibly nano seconds and the associated problems with having two timing point 700+km's apart. If anything it'll be the timing that is the issue.. As much as I want to results to be true I don't think it will be.

[Anonymouse]

Originally Posted by Kymmy

Mass has no relevance on speed.

It does have relevance to whether or not neutrinos can change their type, though. I'm not competent to discuss why (actually, I'm not even sure why), but if they can change their type they must have mass. Besides, mass increases as speed does - the effect is insignificant at low speeds, of course, which is why it can safely be ignored in, e.g., orbital trajectory calculations, but at significant fractions of lightspeed, now you're talking. Even elementary particles, small as they are, really pack on the mass as they're accelerated towards lightspeed.

Which is why relativity states that nothing with mass can travel at lightspeed - because the faster you go, the greater your mass and thus the greater the energy needed to maintain/increase speed; thus the more you pour on the power, the more your mass increases, and so on. The end result (in theory) is that the amount of energy required to reach lightspeed is infinite, because the mass becomes infinite. Come to think of it, an infinite mass would have infinite gravity, which would be extremely bad news for anything in the immediate vicinity of it...it would effectively be a black hole.

Some of the greatest unanswered questions in physics are: why is this so, and why do the various physical constants have the values they do? That's assuming they are constant, mind you; there's a little bit of evidence to suggest they're not, albeit over a very, very long time period. The dimensionless constant alpha was believed to be a constant, but it may have been slightly different billions of years ago - which means one or more of the constants used to calculate it were different.

Even if the results are wrong, I still think there's something interesting going on!

And for the record, Kymmy, I think you're right - it's most likely a timing issue. I wonder if they've taken the Earth's gravity into account? Time dilation owing to gravity has been proven and measured via high-altitude tests, i.e. synchronising two extremely accurate clocks, putting one in an aircraft and taking it up as high as possible, then comparing synchronisation when it returns. Could that be having an effect on the timing? Scientists do sometimes miss the obvious.

[downquark1]

Besides, mass increases as speed does - the effect is insignificant at low speeds, of course, which is why it can safely be ignored in, e.g., orbital trajectory calculations, but at significant fractions of lightspeed, now you're talking. Even elementary particles, small as they are, really pack on the mass as they're accelerated towards lightspeed.

The effective mass increases. To avoid confusion be aware that when particle physicists talk about mass they nearly always mean the rest mass. Typically they will talk about the rest mass and energy or mass and momentum as the of the details are implied with equations.

[budwieser]

Originally Posted by dilligaf1701

I dunno - I quite like the idea of being sucked into oblivion

Lots of very interesting replies and posts in this thread! But i like Dilligafs one better!

[Gavin78]

Faster than light broadband I can't wait!!!!

[Hugh]

Would your email get there before you sent it, and if so, how could you recall it?

[Chris]

I'm sorry, but every time I see this thread title it just makes me think of "Faster Than the Speed of Love" ...

[Russ]

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

Oh those stubborn scientist-types, refusing to acknowledge their beliefs may be wrong hey?

[Kymmy]

Not really a belief, just yet to gain enough evidence to prove that the results are correct or an anomaly.

Really glad that the results are the same after they altered the experiment to take into account some of the critics

[Hugh]

Originally Posted by Russ

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

Oh those stubborn scientist-types, refusing to acknowledge their beliefs may be wrong hey?

to be fair, one of the main beliefs in in the scientific method, which is why they are checking if the experiment is repeatable....

[danielf]

[QUOTE=Hugh;35331852]to be fair, one of the main beliefs in in the scientific method, which is why they are checking if the experiment is repeatable....

[pedant]

They are checking if the results are reproducible (under tighter controls). Repeating the experiment is trivial.

[/pedant]

[Russ]

Originally Posted by Hugh

to be fair, one of the main beliefs in in the scientific method, which is why they are checking if the experiment is repeatable....

There was one scientist who was so convinced that there must have been an error in the original experiment that he promised to eat his hat if it could be repeated.

Nom nom nom eh

---------- Post added at 13:38 ---------- Previous post was at 13:36 ----------

edit: his shorts...

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencete...ein-wrong.html

[Anonymouse]

So the result is still holding up?! Fascinating! But given that (as far as I know) Einstein's theories have never been disproven - only proven - what in Heinsenberg's name is going on?! If the neutrinos have mass - or even if they don't - how are they doing it? Why hasn't this effect been seen before now?

And what practical uses can we make of it? One that springs to mind is an idea a la Star Trek, viz. an FTL computer core - such a device would beat all conventional limitations of processing speed, i.e. the speed of electrons or light, and would be limited only by the upper speed limit of whatever it used to carry data.

This is certainly exciting news!

[Hugh]

Originally Posted by danielf

[pedant]

They are checking if the results are reproducible (under tighter controls). Repeating the experiment is trivial.

[/pedant]

Good correction, well made.