Faster than the speed of light?

VKCA

VKCA

(Virtual Circus Kareoky Act)
So yeah scientists in geneva (I think I'll find an article in a second) shot a neutrino through the earth at, uhhh, italy. And it arrived 60 nano seconds faster than expect. Experimental error was set at ten nano seconds or so.
Obviously you all know the equation e=m(c²)(1-v²/c²)^-1/2, so if stuff can go faster than c (light) than that whole equation falls apart. Obviously the scientist don't want to re-engineer modern physics without special relativity so they're asking for folk to reproduce their results.
It'd be nice if this were true because a complete overhaul might be just what we need to get that theory of everything down pat!!!

Okay yeah you caught me I'm completely talking out of my ass but I have to go so 'ere's your op.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-09-23/neutrinos-caught-speeding-may-break-einstein-s-cosmic-limit.html

Sooo
discuss?
 
From how my professor explained it, it's similar to a sonicboom. When you break the sound barrier, all sorts of crazy shit happens in the air - it's the same for light. When you break the light barrier, you give off cherenkov radiation.

Of course, when you say you break the light barrier, that's only faster than the speed of light in the specific medium. You aren't supposed to be able to break the speed of light in a vacuum, but since light travels slower in certain mediums (water for example), it's possible for neutrinos and stuff that are traveling close to the speed of light (in a vacuum) to travel faster than the speed of light in whatever liquid you're using.
 
It would be awesome if this was true, as this would mean that we could theoretically travel/send machines to galaxies that we never thought possible. Theoretically of course, but still cool to think about. :]
 
seriously people please read the op before hopping in with a dumb post

10ns was the margin for error they allowed for, not the discrepancy reported. discrepancy was something like 60ns

also if you read anything on this you will know that the team responsible are incredibly wary and are actively asking other teams to pick their data for holes because they believe there to be a mistake they've overlooked. what's the point in posting "maybe there's a mistake? we need more results!!"
 
I am currently doing a computer hardware design course at uni, and as a consequence when I hear people say "60ns" I find myself thinking "jesus thats a long time".
 
what i'm telling you is that it is documented widely that this is being tested further -- that is what all these news reports are about and why you have even heard about this phenomenon, so adding that it needs to be reproduced just goes without saying. if anyone is spreading around the information that "warp speed is possible" or w/e it is the media, not the scientists at CERN

also reread your own post, because that is not what you said about the margin of error at all which leads me to believe you misunderstood the 10ns margin of error --> 60ns relationship
 
This better be wrong, I don't want to lose my Electromagnetism credit.

Maybe there should just be an xkcd thread.
 
We'll see how it turns out, I think there's probably some mistake that was overlooked. No reason to start rewriting all the texts/theories yet.
 
Maybe there should just be an xkcd thread.
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xkcd naturally beat a forum to this. Twice.

It would be awesome if this was true, as this would mean that we could theoretically travel/send machines to galaxies that we never thought possible. Theoretically of course, but still cool to think about. :]
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We could "theoretically" do a lot of things. Resource limits kind of prevent them from actually happening, though.
 
Needs more skepticism.

I've seen a few people begin touting slogans like "Einstein was wrong!"

Take note, smogon: Einstein was most certainly not wrong, he was quite damn close to the truth, whatever it is. Just because a particle exceeds the speed of light does not imply that GPS satellites and calculations in particle physics suddenly will not work. Relativity is extremely strong, and at worst it's very very near correct.

In fact, it's possible this isn't a neutrino at all. I would like to posit and discuss the possibility that this is a tachyon mistaken for a neutrino, a theoretical faster-than-light particle that was discarded years ago and is now rearing its head in results. Any opinions on this idea?
 
Well I, for one, think this is just another reason to only teach creationism in our schools. I guess these scientific "theories" were, in the end, just that: "theories"

for people too dumb to realize, I'm kidding
 
My point is, there is plenty of room for exiting new results even if it doesn't turn out to be FTL. There's other new physics that could appear. And even if the results are due to a systematic error, that's still interesting, because an unexpected systematic error still means there is some physics going on that we hadn't seen comming. Which may still lead to new discoveries, or at least better future experiments.
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This quote from the xkcd thread sums up my views. I'm skeptical about this, but at the same time I'm excited because it's likely that there's something new that we can learn from this.
 
5.jpg
yeah i got nothing
maybe the wagon has an engine

also given the amount of precision of the measurements these scientists can take, the answer is most likely something completely unexpected.
 
For those who didn't listen to the main press conference, here are the important bits:

They accounted for 1600(!) possible systematic errors and its still a one in a billion chance that systematic errors did skew the results significantly according to their report. And there's a bunch of other information that's pertinent, but quite frankly, I'm only a second year Chemistry student, so I'll let someone else summarize the information. Keep in mind also that replication of this experiment will be extremely difficult due to the fact that the facilities that can perform these kinds of experiments number less than five I believe. The Fermilab can't even do it, since it doesn't have the upgrades required yet.

The alternative reasons for this experiment are interesting however, such as a suggestion that the neutrino entered an alternate dimension and took a "shortcut" of sorts.

Also, this does not mean Relativity is not correct, if this result proves true. Like Classical Physics before it, Relativity will serve as an accurate estimation for most results down to the quantum level. Just as classical physics is still taught in schools, Quantum Mechanics will not be erased from textbooks just because of this.

As for Tachyons, they have never been detected, so the chances of that are pretty slim.

Edit: According to Wall Street, verification of this result will take around 2-3 years (reasonable, since this entire experiment took around six months to finish).
 
This is actually something that has been hypothesised before. When I did High Energy Physics three years ago, my lecturer said it was something some theory groups had already proposed.

That being said, I'm still skeptical, though excited. The metrology work seems to be legit (one of the professors at my university is a metrology expert, having recently measured the smallest force ever recorded). Looking good!

EDIT: Also, yes, this doesn't mean General Rel is wrong - it's incomplete. And we knew that already. Tachyons are only hypothetical, I don't think anyone has proposed they exist as part of a solution to any particular problem, only that they work mathematically within the Hamiltonians traditionally used.
 
This is pretty ducking cool, and this is coming from an artsd student, I can;t fucking wait doe some startrrek shit and fuck I wanna warp light speed and shit

Who here can honestly niot say they're fucking sotked for this because thuye're lying.. You all know that you ewant to fly acros the galaxy and fuck some crazy alien pussy amI right?

Don't even try to deny you fucking physicsd geeks this is the bomb, way cooler than some atoms-collider or whaterver got you guys hot and bothered before this shit came out. Jerking it to some atoms smashing al up one themsselves.

You guys have to tell me about this "light-sonic boom" radiation shit becayse it sounds cool as fuck, please explain what it does and why it's so badass, because holy shit ita sounds so chill.
 
Guys, question: If you were able to travel faster than light, and if you then looked over your shoulder, would you see yourself?

Or would you see yourself a million times?
 
I expect if you were looking backwards no light would be able to catch up to your eyes, so you wouldnt see anything. Though I dont know the first thing about physics.
 
speed of light website said:
13. Expansion of the Universe

According to Hubble's Law, two galaxies that are a distance D apart are moving away from each other at a speed HD, where H is Hubble's constant. So this interpretation of Hubble's Law implies that two galaxies separated by a distance greater than c/H must be moving away from each other faster than the speed of light. Actually, the modern viewpoint describes this situation differently: general relativity takes the galaxies as being at rest relative to one another, while the space between them is expanding. In that sense, the galaxies are not moving away from each other faster than the speed of light; they are not moving away from each other at all! This change of viewpoint is not arbitrary; rather, it's in accord with the different but very fruitful view of the universe that general relativity provides. So the distance between two objects can be increasing faster than light because of the expansion of the universe, but this does not mean, in fact, that their relative speed is faster than light.

As was mentioned above, in special relativity it is possible for two objects to be moving apart by speeds up to twice the speed of light as measured by an observer in a third frame of reference. In general relativity even this limit can be surpassed, but it will not then be possible to observe both objects at the same time. Again, this is not real faster than light travel; it will not help anyone to travel across the galaxy faster than light. All that is happening is that the distance between two objects is increasing faster when taken in some cosmological reference frame.
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Apparently its not the first time this sort of thing has happened.
Website found here.
 
Eraddd said:
As for Tachyons, they have never been detected, so the chances of that are pretty slim.
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That's my point, this might be the first detection.

Apparently, things going past the speed of light would, by logical extension of special relativity, travel backward through time.
 
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