Faster than Light: Groundbreaking Discovery Could Change Everything

[danmand]

Faster than Light: Groundbreaking Discovery Could Change Everything
September 22, 2011 04:30 PM EDT

The universe originated with a celestial bang 13.7 billion years ago, a rapid expansion and cooling without which life as we know it would not exist. Or did it? Scientists from the European Organization for Nuclear Research (or "CERN") have tentatively discovered a particle that travels faster than the speed of light.

Einstein's theory of relativity (E=MC2) relies on the speed of light as the maximum speed in nature. Without this theory, explanations of the Big Bang to black holes become shrouded in doubt. The discovery is awaiting verification expected to take place in the US and Japan. MSNBC reports:

"CERN says a neutrino beam fired from a particle accelerator near Geneva to a lab 454 miles (730 kilometers) away in Italy traveled 60 nanoseconds faster than the speed of light. Scientists calculated the margin of error at just 10 nanoseconds, making the difference statistically significant." According to John Ellis, a theoretical physicist at CERN, special relativity is relied upon by "pretty much everything in modern physics." The neutrinos in question are reported to have broken the speed barrier of 186,282 miles per second.

Humankind may have yet another great mystery to consider.

 

[AJstar]

Star Trek, here we come.
We currently can"t get anywhere close to traveling at the speed of light.
Warp speed is equal to the speed of light in the sci-fi world. That made warp 1+thru 9 impossible in our world. Maybe not ?
The Earth used to be 'flat' too.

 

[rhuarc29]

The also have what they call "irrefutable" evidence that neutrinos travel slightly slower than the speed of light from observations in the past of a supernova. So the keyword in this new study is "tentative".

 

[Manat33]

Star Trek, here we come.
We currently can"t get anywhere close to traveling at the speed of light.
Warp speed is equal to the speed of light in the sci-fi world. That made warp 1+thru 9 impossible in our world. Maybe not ?
The Earth used to be 'flat' too.

Remember in the final episode of Star Trek TNG "All Good Things..." the Enterprise-D in the future was able to hit warp 13... so I would say that it's possible.
All you have to do is improve the efficiency of the anti-matter input valves. I'll have to recheck the formulas just to make sure. I'll get back to you.

 

[FatOne]

Margin of error of 10 ns, and 60 ns over. Could still be an error I am guessing.

Or maybe a wizard did it.

 

[ritter85]

I can't decide whether this is actually useful or pure academic masturbation.

 

[OddSox]

The also have what they call "irrefutable" evidence that neutrinos travel slightly slower than the speed of light from observations in the past of a supernova.

There are probably speed limits in space. No interplanetary police on Earth..yet.

 

[GG2]

http://johncostella.webs.com/neutrino-blunder.pdf

"The odds, it must be admitted, are that a mistake has been made somewhere in the long chain of timing measurements required to compare the moment when neutrinos are created at CERN by smashing a beam of protons into a target, and their detection in Gran Sasso, though OPERA's researchers have done their best to account for all possible instrumental quirks. What makes the result slightly less than incredible is that an experiment in America, called MINOS, detected a similar anomaly in 2007. MINOS's researchers dismissed that result as a mismeasurement."

 

[blackrock13]

Does anyone remember the cold fusion declaration not too long ago? This experiment needs to be done by others as well.

 

[Scooter Brown]

Outrageous claims require outrageous supporting evidence. I'm very sceptical until then. From what I know, the only particles supposed to travel faster than light are tachyons, postulated by ridiculous 26-dimensional bosonic string theory that was abandoned long ago as nonsense due to many problems, including tachyons.

 

[Mencken]

Interesting article. My only concern is that when dealing with those speeds, an error of 10 nanoseconds is quite a bit.

Yes, it is. It is the margin of error...not error itself. No one can know what the actual error is as long as you have a margin of error.

 

[fuji]

It'll change everything for astronomers if it's true, for the rest of us it's just entertainment.

 

[cye]

http://johncostella.webs.com/neutrino-blunder.pdf

"The odds, it must be admitted, are that a mistake has been made somewhere in the long chain of timing measurements required to compare the moment when neutrinos are created at CERN by smashing a beam of protons into a target, and their detection in Gran Sasso, though OPERA's researchers have done their best to account for all possible instrumental quirks. What makes the result slightly less than incredible is that an experiment in America, called MINOS, detected a similar anomaly in 2007. MINOS's researchers dismissed that result as a mismeasurement."

This intelligent and cogent post would have more credibility if not for your accident.

 

[Hangman]

I can't decide whether this is actually useful or pure academic masturbation.

Well, since we can't make anything larger than a subatomic particle go that fast, I'd have to say this all remains safely in the hands of the academics and theorists to ponder...

 

[Hangman]

Does anyone remember the cold fusion declaration not too long ago? This experiment needs to be done by others as well.

The scientists in this case are seeking independent verification of their findings.

 

[babemagnet]

Faster than Light: Groundbreaking Discovery Could Change Everything
Hasn't changed anything for me so far.

 

[Hangman]

Faster than Light: Groundbreaking Discovery Could Change Everything
Hasn't changed anything for me so far.

Wait another 60 nanoseconds...

 

[Mervyn]

We know, the Neutrino knows it, but no one wants to speak of it, it's been taking performance enhancing drugs.

 

[Ceiling Cat]

I can't decide whether this is actually useful or pure academic masturbation.

Without this discovery, the next discovery is not possible. Some people say that hybrid cars are not efficient enough to justify the cost, the resources and time invested. Even though the hybrid car is not efficient enough to wean the world off oil. We are in the first stages of experimentation to an ell electric car. Improvements are made to the battery all the time. In the future we may see a smaller, lighter, cheaper storage battery. Possibly coupled to a fuel cell. This discovery may lead to future discoveries.

 

[DirtyDaveII]

I believe that Einstein did allow for special circumstances allowing for something to move faster than the speed of light. After checking Wiki, that is correct "apparent FTL is not excluded by general relativity"

As for electric 'coal buring' cars? I dont see the envoirnmental benefit of this. The only benefit is that we do not have OPEC controlling our energy.