Faster than a speeding photon...

[MrTwosheds]

http://public.web.cern.ch/press/pressre ... 9.11E.html
Yep, yet another "law" of physics falls to actual experimentation. Neutrino's seem to be able to travel faster than light, by just a little bit, while travelling through solid rock!
Surprise and shock expressed by scientist, who are apparently gullible enough to believe the theory's that say it is impossible. Now its time for allot daft idea's about "travelling into the future" Bad news guys, the universe isn't hard wired to your eyeball's either.

[Red Devil]

a woman can change her mind faster than anything

[HitchcockGreen]

http://public.web.cern.ch/press/pressre ... 9.11E.html
Yep, yet another "law" of physics falls to actual experimentation. Neutrino's seem to be able to travel faster than light, by just a little bit, while travelling through solid rock!
Surprise and shock expressed by scientist, who are apparently gullible enough to believe the theory's that say it is impossible. Now its time for allot daft idea's about "travelling into the future" Bad news guys, the universe isn't hard wired to your eyeball's either.

Don't get too excited. No law of physics have fallen yet.
Simply put, the researchers have recorded this information - the result of their experiments. It has now been submitted for peer review where any errors in calculation and method can be weeded out.
It is not written in stone. In all likelihood they've made a mistake or overlooked something. Peer review will reveal whether or not they have.
Let's not get ahead of ourselves.

While we're waiting for the results of the review (which may take months and months) why not look at another piece of research that is equally fascinating.

https://sites.google.com/site/gallantla ... et-al-2011

[Red Devil]

gravity, although a field, is fastest of all

[Psychedelic Rhino]

Neutrino's seem to be able to travel faster than light, by just a little bit, while travelling through solid rock!

Sloooow down. This is an assessment from a couple of years of statistical results and by no means prove an FTL component in the experiment. It can be anything from merely an averaging error to a cascading system error result.

As the team lead, Antonio Ereditato said, "We wanted to find a mistake - trivial mistakes, more complicated mistakes, or nasty effects - and we didn't." That is not saying there is no mistake or system error.

And another small point. Since neutrinos, for all practical purposes, are not influenced by anything but the ultra short fields within the nucleus of an atom, it really doesn't matter if they are traveling through miles of iridium, 8,000 miles of earth, or a vacuum, till a nucleus gets the way of course. That also should make it very clear that matter, even the densest 'ordinary' matter, is 99.9999999% empty space.

[MrTwosheds]

The speed of light being an absolute has never been a "law" but everyone treats it like one, it was just a theory. It is fairly safe to assume that the folks at cern did not publish because they think they are wrong.
They are saying "someone prove us wrong please" before binning a century's worth of theoretical work based on a flawed assumptions. It is a great advancement for science.

[Psychedelic Rhino]

I just don't see how special relativity is going to be struck down since many aspects of physics hinge on it, as well as the more broad reaching, general relativity, as well as seemingly non related aspects, all coexisting in harmony. AND most especially the theory being violated by a particle with mass! . . .albeit not a whole lot.

I'm hoping it's more Antonio Ereditato and his teaming basically saying, "Here's the data we collected and our analysis of it. Here's the system and infrastructure. . . .show us how we're wrong.

Thing is, does his particular program need more funding/support, or is he really onto something?

[VSMIT]

http://xkcd.com/955/

[Nielk1]

Normally, all claims that one has achieved FTL ignore time dilation.

And when they don't it is normally a rounding error.

[MrTwosheds]

"Time dilation" is a calculation error caused by incorrect theory, it relies very much on the speed of light being fixed and absolute, it is neither. Furthermore the perception of time is a consequence of life, the universe is not dependent on life for its existence, time does not exist in itself and thus cannot be altered in any way, perception however is extremely fallible.

[Psychedelic Rhino]

Normally, all claims that one has achieved FTL ignore time dilation.
And when they don't it is normally a rounding error.

Jumping instantly to FTL is basically 'instantaneous' (infinite) time travel. So it really doesn't matter what physical laws are broken, overlooked, tweaked, etc., since it's all fantasy.

"Time dilation" is a calculation error caused by incorrect theory, it relies very much on the speed of light being fixed and absolute, it is neither.

Are you saying time dilation does not exist ...or... it does exist, but it is a by-product from our misunderstanding of the phenomena?

[MrTwosheds]

I am saying that our perception produces the impression of time as a thing, it really only exists for for things that can perceive.
The universe is just a bunch of stuff moving about, it does not stop or go backwards or dilate. If dilation were to occur, it occurs to the perceiver, it is not a property of the universe itself.
Where a human to travel faster than light, they would not travel forwards or backwards in time, but stay firmly in the present along with the rest of the universe, they however would be unable to confirm this as they would be unable to see anything in a coherent manner...

[Psychedelic Rhino]

I've always agreed with the classical perception of time, and believe it as concrete as any other perceived component in our reality. As an example I have given here is, jump out of an airplane in pitch blackness at 12,000 feet. If time is merely a perception, leave the wrist altimeter on the plane. Pull the ripcord when you feel like it. You will quickly believe it is a concrete variable or will be introduced to an actual slab of the stuff.

Same with time dilation. If it is only perceived by us and not a true variable tied to acceleration, don't include the correction in GPS systems. Or don't factor time dilation into the design of a collider, where the daughter fragments would decay a few thousands of a millimeter from the collision, instead of decaying several meters out from living considerably longer from the dilation where they can be detected.

[General BlackDragon]

the "speed of light" is just the speed at which that particular type of radiation travels....

Who's to say there isn't a different type of energy that can travel faster?

[HitchcockGreen]

Time is relative. yeah I know, physics pun. There is still that clock left on the moon by astronauts that passes differently than on earth...