Subject: Can anything go faster than light?
Posted by: lesley153
Date: Sep 23 11
"Puzzling results from Cern, home of the Large Hadron Collider, have confounded physicists because subatomic particles seem to have beaten the speed of light."
"The result... threatens to upend a century of physics... "
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-15017484
What price my A level Physics now?
Posted by: lesley153
Date: Sep 23 11
"Puzzling results from Cern, home of the Large Hadron Collider, have confounded physicists because subatomic particles seem to have beaten the speed of light."
"The result... threatens to upend a century of physics... "
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-15017484 What price my A level Physics now?
40 replies. On page 1 of 2 pages. 1 2
lesley153
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"A meeting at Cern, the world's largest physics lab, has addressed results that suggest subatomic particles have gone faster than the speed of light. "The team presented its work so other scientists can determine if the approach contains any mistakes. "If it does not, one of the pillars of modern science will come tumbling down." http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-15017484 Reply #1. Sep 23 11, 7:02 PM |
| lesley153
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Just realised - these two articles have the same URL but the second one has now replaced the first one. Reply #2. Sep 23 11, 7:03 PM |
trojan11
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Others here will have far more knowledge than I have accumulated, but if the tests are correct, it would seem that scientists were wrong when they said that 'neutrinos' have mass. Light is measured in a vacuum and is susceptible to interference from mass. A neutrino, no mass, does not suffer, I believe, the same level, if any, of interference. Therefore, I 'spose, the C in Ensteins equation must be wrong. It is Neutrinos that should be measured in a vacuum in order to dicover which or what travels fastest. Reply #3. Sep 24 11, 12:37 PM |
| lesley153
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I have no knowledge at all! Whatever was happening at CERN had just been washing over me, till a chance conversation with a fellow traveller included a remark about exceeding the speed of light. This news broke the following day, so he must have known. Apparently they've been examining their findings for three years, and are about to open their results to scrutiny from the outside world. Jonathan said "everyone's talking about it." Not on FT they're not! Reply #4. Sep 24 11, 2:39 PM |
C30
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Ahead Warp 1 Reply #5. Sep 24 11, 3:23 PM |
| lesley153
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OK, Jim! Reply #6. Sep 24 11, 4:21 PM |
| trojan11
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And so, boldly going where no warped individuals had gone before, Jim slammed down the clutch and off they went. Reply #7. Sep 24 11, 6:42 PM |
satguru 
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I recently learnt the actual formula about exceeding the speed of light, and if correct then it appears neutrinos have not breached it, as although nothing can travel to the speed of light and beyond, it never ruled out anything travelling beyond the speed of light if not starting from a slower speed. If the innate speed of neutrinos was always a 2 billionth (I think it said) of a second faster than light it just meant Einstein couldn't discover neutrinos, we have and now measured their initial speed, if confirmed in a second trial elsewhere. It will rewrite known scientific knowledge but not yet any theory unless they reach that speed from below light speed. Reply #8. Sep 24 11, 7:18 PM |
| trojan11
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Back to the real world of the experiment. 3000,006 kilometres per second was what the neutrinos were measured at, roughly six km faster than the speed of light. How this was measured it what puzzles me. Or would that have been a Mean value? Reply #9. Sep 25 11, 7:42 AM |
REDVIKING57
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Never mind those pesky Neutrinos! Keep your eye on those Klingons on the starboard bow! So,perhaps Einstein's Theory of Relativity was just a scientific equivalent of throwing a gauntlet to the floor? "Go on then,boys,prove that wrong!" ? Reply #10. Sep 25 11, 9:15 AM |
| trojan11
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It's going to need further checking, but it does look as 'tho E=mc2, might be going out of the window. But, then, it was only a theory. As RV said, possibly Einstein was merely throwing down the gauntlet? The equipment available today bears no comparison with what was available in 1905. Reply #11. Sep 25 11, 10:46 AM |
Juggernaut314
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As has been pointed out, it will take more trials to confirm these results. It's phenomenal to me that the distance and timing can be so accurately measured. Even though the result w/ the margin of error still exceeds the speed of light, if either the distance or time were off ever so slightly that could easily yield the result seen. Reply #12. Sep 30 11, 4:26 PM |
| lesley153
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How do they know that the speed of light is what Einstein thought it was? Reply #13. Sep 30 11, 4:45 PM |
nasty_liar
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Haha Lesley, you mention A level physics? I think A level physics still teaches based very much on mechanics thought out pre 20th century! Newton's laws and all that. At least it did when I did it. As an interesting aside. A good friend of mine has recently started work with CERN! Glad he's putting his Phd to good use :) Reply #14. Sep 30 11, 5:42 PM |
| lesley153
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It did when I did it too, and that was long before you did it. "Every body continues in its state of rest or of uniform motion in a straight line unless acted upon by some external force." How am I doing? Long term memory still good? Reply #15. Sep 30 11, 6:33 PM |
| satguru
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They had an expert on the radio yesterday who confirmed that if the measurements are correct they are just tachyons, something assumed to exist for decades but not able to find until the equipment was available to do so, and if so it's confirmed what they already expected and has no effect on relativity as tachyons can't go below the speed of light, that is their minimum or fixed speed. But nothing has ever been expected to exceed light speed from below it for the same reasons we've always been told, that has not changed since day one. Reply #16. Sep 30 11, 8:10 PM |
| REDVIKING57
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Where's Jonno when you need him? :)) Reply #17. Oct 02 11, 11:24 AM |
| lesley153
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Probably running up and down a Welsh rugby field. :( Reply #18. Oct 02 11, 1:14 PM |
| trojan11
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At faster than the speed of light. :) Reply #19. Oct 02 11, 1:44 PM |
jonnowales
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I thought my ears were burning...or maybe it is just the recent October summer that has fried my lobes. Trojan, if only! :) From what I have read and heard, there seems to be two main things put forward to explain this result. 1) Something has gone wrong! - Discussed on pages 9 to 13 of the research paper are the errors (uncertainties) associated with the distance the neutrinos have travelled and the time taken for the neutrinos to travel that distance. Further on in the paper, the authors mention that "16000 neutrino interaction events" were detected - larger samples being more reliable than smaller samples. - It appears as though, as would be expected with something like this, CERN and the authors of the paper are throwing this result out to the "science community" to make sure that sources of error haven't been overlooked. The biggest doubt is brought about by the way the distance has been measured - ie indirectly. When talking about a very small difference in velocity, the tiniest of errors in the error could have a major effect on the overall result. - The major comparison at the moment seems to be with the results obtained from a supernova (SN1987a). The light from that supernova was detected in 1987 but also neutrinos were detected from the event as well. The distance between detectors and the location of the supernova was approx. 168,000 light years. The neutrinos were detected three hours BEFORE the photons (light) were detected. This was explained by the neutrinos being emitted from the event when the progenitor star's core collapsed and the photons being emitted only when the disturbance reached the surface of the star. Essentially, the core collapses and like a rock being thrown into a pool of water, the disturbance "radiates" outward. To cut to the chase, the neutrinos and the light were detected more or less concurrently when the above is taken into account. - By comparing the results obtained by CERN and the result from the 1987 supernova, the difference in velocity between the neutrinos and photons detected in the CERN experiment would suggest that the neutrinos from SN1987a should reach the earth about three YEARS before the light, not the couple of hours that it actually took. 2) Neutrinos do travel faster than the speed of light! - See Satguru's post above regarding tachyons and "things" travelling at speeds greater than that of light with 'c' acting as a minimum speed limit rather than a maximum. I'm off to watch Spooks! :) (The actual research paper is available via arxiv http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1109/1109.4897.pdf) Reply #20. Oct 02 11, 3:06 PM |
40 replies. On page 1 of 2 pages. 1 2
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