Test confirms particles appear to travel faster than the speed of light
(CNN) – Travel faster than the speed of light? Really?
Back in September, scientists found that tiny particles called neutrinos appeared to do just that, defying Einstein’s special theory of relativity.
It could be a fluke, but now the same experiment has replicated the result. It’s not hard proof yet, though; other groups still need to confirm these findings.
Physicists with the OPERA (Oscillation Project with Emulsion-tRacking Apparatus) experiment said in September that neutrinos sent about 454 miles (730 kilometers) from CERN in Switzerland arrived at Italy’s Gran Sasso National Laboratory a fraction of a second sooner than they should have according to Einstein’s theory.
Other scientists were skeptical, raising questions about possible flaws in the study.
So OPERA scientists rechecked parts of the experiment to take into account suggestions from their critics. They announced Friday that the new test confirms the initial findings.
“This result confirms that neutrinos arrived at Gran Sasso lab 62.1 nanoseconds in advance with respect to the time computed assuming the speed of light in vacuum,” according to Lucia Votano, director of INFN-Gran Sasso Laboratory.
The OPERA team's initial result was based on observing more than 15,000 bunches of neutrinos, or electrically neutral subatomic particles. But the scientists did not track any one specific neutrino. Instead, the neutrinos were produced in long pulses that lasted about 10 millionths of a second.
“Although this sounds short, it is hundreds of times longer than the 60 nanoseconds early arrival time of the neutrinos at the Gran Sasso in Italy,” said Andy Cohen, a professor of physics at Boston University, who is not involved in OPERA.
This means that when a neutrino arrived at Gran Sasso there was no way to know exactly when it was produced during the pulse, preventing an accurate measurement of its speed.
The new study used shorter pulses making it easier to know more precisely when an individual neutrino was generated.
“They did this for only 20 neutrinos,” Cohen said, “but since the speed of each one is known, this leads to a very precise result, confirming that the neutrinos appear to be arriving 60 nanoseconds earlier than expected.”
But don’t throw your physics book just yet. Cohen said there are other potential issues with the experiment that haven’t been addressed yet. “While this result is a very significant improvement over the previous measurement, many of the concerns that have been raised about possible sources of uncertainty remain.
“We should probably remain skeptical until we have confirmation from other experiments,” he said.
Votana agrees and said the OPERA measurement needs to be confirmed by independent scientists. Even if the results are confirmed, we won’t toss out all of Einstein’s theory. A broader theory would be generated that would include Einstein’s theory, Votana said.
Scientists at Fermilab in Illinois and in Japan are expected to try to replicate the findings.
“If the neutrinos are truly traveling faster than light this would require profound changes in the way we understand space and time,” Cohen said.
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this prooves that god does not exist because atheists are smarter than christians. go take a look at cnn's belief blog and you'll see
Huh? Your hangovers gonna be bad
Christians aren't the only ones who believe in a supernatural being, but what this guy put could be sarcasm.
The only thing that moves faster than light are IDIOTS like YOU who obviously are uneducated and lack intelligence. It's a wonder you figured out how to use a keyboard. My bet is someone helped you.
AWWWW! how truly christian.. yes christian.. not Christian. why do you think you are as such, and why do you think the majority of this world WAS christian for so many centuries? we now call them extremists. Those that ridicule, persecute and ultimately threaten death or conversion of their beliefs. good job. way to continue this long standing christian tradition.
Man has used religion and other means to gain and secure their power. It's called exploitation. Their use of it does not in anyway devoid the vehicle which they use for their personal gain.
Hey Pete, that's what the NRA says about guns too.
Religion doesn't kill people, people kill people.
But if a tool is used over and over again for exactly what it was designed to do, and said intent is evil, its not hard or unnatural to extend one's antipathy from the constant stream of idiotic users of the tool to the tool itself, its inventors, and its "innocent" proponents.
I don't see how this proves or disproves anything. "our understanding of time and space" would require profund changes. The Universe might not be as old as we were lead to believe if neutrinos can travel fast thatn light, then the age of the universe cannot be measured by light.
interesting. however tons of people have maintained that there are different rules governing the sub-atomic world
Light still travels at the "Speed of light". So ... light based measurements would still be accurate.
The only reason we use light to measure the age of the universe is becuase it is the most common thing we can 'see' with our instruments. Electromagnitism and the strong and weak nuclear forces are only observable via photons. Observing space using gravity is still new and we don't have a lot of knowledge about it. the biggest flaw with light measurements is that it travels too slow (and it gets distorted from gravity)....light from 14 billion light yeras was shed 14 billion years agon, but in that 14 billion years tims the universe has expanded so even though we measure that the light came from 14 billion light years away, it actually came from a lot farther if you account the time it took to get to us and the expansion within that 14 billion years.
Ballet fans are smarter than NASCAR fans. Therefore, NASCAR does not exist.
To "Reason", regarding ballet and NASCAR: Clever point. Well stated.
What Einstein did was math, not physics. Crucially, he assumed that nature follows the mathematical axioms which were invented by humans.
math was discovered not invented
Math was discovered, but Mathematical Axioms were invented.
Math is a language, much like music notation, developed (invented) by humans to explain the complexities of physics. It is not yet a fully developed language, and will not be until we have a full understanding of the physics of the universe; which will be never.
actually, i invented math and math discovered me
Einstein's laws did not include an assumption about nature. He used mathematical formulae to confirm the relationship between time, space, gravity and speed. All physicists use math to confirm or disprove their theories.
Math models nature.
Nature models math
Unlike Issac Newton, Einstein was by no means an outstanding mathematician, something he freely acknowledged. He needed to be tutored, with great diffculty, in tensor analysis by Marcel Grossman in order to complete his treatise on general relativity in 1915. What Einstein really was was a tremendous intuitive thinker who also possessed the ability and drive to reduce his intuitions about the physical world into quantifiable proofs.
Heres a topic related to the article: "unlike ordinary particles, the speed of a tachyon increases as its energy decreases. In particular, E approaches zero when v approaches infinity. (For ordinary bradyonic matter, E increases with increasing speed, becoming arbitrarily large as v approaches c, the speed of light). Therefore, just as bradyons are forbidden to break the light-speed barrier, so too are tachyons forbidden from slowing down to below c, because infinite energy is required to reach the barrier from either above or below."
Ah .. the wonderful (hypothetical) Tachyon ... Really reminds me the good old days of watch star trek TNG. This is the magical beam that will solve any problems. Got a temporal rift that needs to close? Tachyon beam it. Can't detect a cloaked vessel? Tachyon scan it. LOL ...
Yes...correct! And don't for get the "inverse tachyon pulse". That thing can break or repair anything!
Don't diss da Tachyons! In da final episode of STNG, a tachyon pulse stopped a quantum paradox and saved the entire universe, ya hurd?!
But Q started that event thus he could have ended it just the same. In fact if he left it alone, it would have made the Q cease to exist since it grew larger backwards in time. Thus it would be so large that Q was never made.
To put it mildly- this changes everything!
Even as a kid when I first heard my 5th grade science teacher explain the speed of light and E's theory that "if something travels faster than the speed of light, it travels back in time" I called it Bull... After I grew up and understood "some" of E's relativity, I thought it made sense on paper, but still thought such a generalized statement was Bull..
Here is how I reasoned it. If I take two clocks perfectly synchornized, and hold one stationary (wrt earth, lets say) and move the other clock in some trajectory at a speed faster than speed of light, and bring them back togather, what happens? I mean, wouldn't the amount of time that passed on each clock with respect to itself be the same amount? which means they would have counted the same amount of time, isn't it? which means, they would still be synchronized, isn't it..
As a disclaimer, I have to say I am not a physicist..
Yeah...we know.
Actually I think the clocks would be off by a bit. I know there was an experiment where they synced two atomic clocks, left one on the ground and put the other in an airplane. They flew around the world with the one clock and when they got back they were off from each other by like billionths of a second. I also hear that astronauts age less when they are in space than people on earth. But I could be wrong.
Simple elevation accompishes the same, if I remember correctly, they've put two atomic clocks side by side and essentially 'put blocks' under one to elevated slightly higher and over time the two clocks did not stay in sync. It had something to do with distance from the earths core, gravity bending space time, etc.
you are right!
Your instinct is wrong here. Even just going faster at all the clocks end up different. No need to go faster than the speed of light. This experiment has been done, look up the Hafele–Keating experiment. In a nutshell, atomic clocks flown around the world on jet planes show different time than their synchronized partners on the ground. The time dilation effect is even large enough that the worlds' GPS systems have to compensate for it to give correct coordinates.
That's the Earth's gravity affecting the atomic clock at different altitudes (basically distance from a large planetary body. Not much to do with faster than light travel.
@Soulcatcher Actually the distance from Earth does effect the speed it's moving. Think of two points on a wheel, one near the center and another near the edge. While the wheel spins, if it is rigid, both points will rotate about the axis the same number of times in the same amount of time, but the point farther from the center is actually traveling faster, because it must move in a larger circle to maintain the same amount of rotations than the circle close to the center. The same is true of things like geosynchronous satellites, they must move in a much larger circle in the same time we move in a smaller circle around Earth's rotational axis, and in order to do so they must be moving much faster than us, leading to timing issues because of relativity.
Here are thoughts from a guy that doesn't know anything about this stuff...
We measure the speed of things in relation to our position in the universe. I assume everything in the universe is moving, some things faster than others, and everything in different directions in relation to some other object in the universe.
Given this thought, if you are an object moving near the speed of light in one direction, and another object is moving towards you at the speed of light, isnt that other object moving at the speed of light plus your speed, when the speed is measure as to its relationship with you? Therefore, the fastest speed measurable by you would be an object traveling at nearly twice the speed of light (if it was on a trajector heading straight at you).
Arthur C Clark, or someone, wrote an interesting short story(read it 25 years ago) about a scientist who discovered how to make an object stand still in the universe. Once he did this to an object, it appeared that it sped up instantaneously to astronomical speeds, since the earth was traveling at an astronomical speed within the universe. (and hence traveling away from the object at an atronomical speed, which had just attained a velocity of zero).
Given these amature thoughts, if the experiment is duplicated at different times of the day, to place the direction of the neutinos in the opposite direction within the universe, I think that would be worth mentioning.
Actually, if you measure everything in relative to your position, then you are always standing still. You are not changing position relative to where you are. The other comment I would make is that all measurements of velocity should be as a proportion of the speed of light and take into account time dilation.
While what you say seems, and is, perfectly logical and correct when measuring the slower velocities at which we can actually travel, things change at the spped of light. If one object is traveling at the speed of light, and another object is traveling directly toward it on a "collision course", also at the speed of light, their speed relative to each other is – the speed of light, not twice the speed of light. I do realize that it seems not to make sense, but it's mathematically sound. I don't know WHAT'S going on with those neutrinos.
No sir, Dead wrong. Logical- but nobody said life had to be logical. YOU CAN NEVER ADD OR SUBTRACT FROM THE SPEED OF LIGHT.
Einstien's big discovery was 'space-time.' He reasoned that since experiments have repeatedly shown that no matter how fast a light source is moving the speed of light is always the same then that means the speed of light must be somehow related to time. That is, space and time must be related in some way so that when you approach the speed of light TIME MUST SLOW DOWN. So when 2 light beams are traveling towards one another they are EACH approaching at the speed of light. Weird huh? Now go smoke some herb and think about it again.
The syncronization of the clocks breaks once you accelerate one and not the other. Accelerating one gives it more energy, which increases its mass and slows time.
Part of me wonders if we're starting to rub up against the half-jokingly proposed "Groucho Marx Effect" [which states, "I wouldn't want to belong to any club that would accept me as a member"].
Applied to cosmology, it would state, according to Prof. John Barrow of Cambridge, "A universe simple enough to be understood is too simple to produce a mind capable of understanding it."
If a universe is too simple to produce a mind not capable of understanding it then a universe is simple enough to not be understood.
Boolean contrapositive?
Neutrinos from supernova SN1987A in large Magellanic cloud (our satellite galaxy) observed arriving at the same time as light, not four years earlier. Don't get too excited folks.
While I'm putting all my chips down on Einstein, those neutrinos that we observed from that supernova are of a far lower energy than the ones used in this experiment.
There is a possibility that quantities once assumed to be constants may end up being functions that just behave like constants at low energies.
Stupid differential equations...
well yes but it would be weird ~ just as I don't see photons of higher energy traveling faster than that of lower energy. But then of course there are other weird stuff like entangled Particles Seem to Communicate Instantly which happened a couple of years ago. Still no explanation.
That .. or European can't time things. ... LOL ...
That's the point I think. It may be that this result is only seen at much higher energy levels. Of course, this will make it more difficult to confirm, since I'm not sure anyone else in the US or Japan can hit these levels.
Yeah, that's actually a very good point.
I'm not wearing any pants.
Jet747 :That is exactly what the top theorist said 100 years ago about dust particls...anything smaller is spiritual....what do you think they will be saying in 100 years? Why is it so easy to make everything unknown attributable to spirits rather than understanding we don't know everything?
They said that 100 years ago before the technology existed to go to the subatomic level. We're now at the jumping -off point where the observer is no longer observing particles (because at that level there are none), there are only strings. The size of a string relative to the size of a hydrogen atom can be like comparing the size of the solar system to a single tree. Beyond strings there're only dimensionalities.
Just stop. Please, please stop.
You're using words that you clearly don't understand. Please learn from Wittgenstein: That which one cannot speak clearly of, one should not speak of at all.
I cant do the math, but not to speak of this stuff at all? Then why have a pure science section in the pop press at all? Fortunately some top scientists disagree with you or we wouldnt have books by Davies, books and shows by Greene, etc. BTW, i was quoting Greene re the "math device" statement. I dont know the math, but he sure does.
My only point was that for a certain segment of the population (99%) people seam to be content with..."well we can't go any further so must be some mumbo jumbo spiritual stuff running the show in that there particle thing"...rather than using common sense which would seam to indicate we just haven't developed the tools, physical or otherwise, to understand. In 100 years there will be an entirely different challege.
@Jet747: I know, it's frustrating. People wanna talk about Paris Hilton and how many BFF's orbit her rather than the more interesting science frontiers....
So did you hear that Paris is coming out with a new line of hand bags...should be all the rage...
Thank god, a discusion that doesn't involves repubs vs. dems.
Im a plumber but find science so cool. Theres little opinion, just math.
Will one of the smart guys here describe in laymens terms how something (protons) can have NO mass? are there other things with no mass? Is there anything that has been proved that CANT exist?
Curious
I am not sure a "thought" has mass.
i think you mean photons (with an H).. they refer to light particles and they indeed have nearly no mass.. Protons (with R) have much much more mass compared to a photon though..
Well, I was going to write something.
I learned that I should probably stay far away from writing popular science. I started trying to type in LaTeX. I'm not even sure if that works on CNN, nor do I feel like trying it today.
A popular science writer who I like is the cosmologist Paul C.W. Davies of ASU. He's the guy that the scientific community has selected to be humanities ambassador to the aliens if/when we make first contact with an extraterrestrial intelligence.
Gah. I meant humanity's. Not humanities.
I'm sorry, I'm a bit out of it today. They made me put up with a chalkboard sized single algebraic statement. That took a while to simplify, and I still have a headache from it.
@Capercorn: Davies eh? I'll have to check him out. Are you familiar w/Brian Greene and his work? If so, whaddaya think of it?
Sort of.
I'm not a fan of string theory, or any sort of Theory of Everything.
Because theories of everything claim to explain everything, they must also be able to explain us explaining them.
Such feedback loops will lead us into a situation where the Second Incompleteness Theorem will come into play, rendering all of the work rubbish.
Paul Davies is a religious apologist. A mind is a terrible thing to waste, especially one as gifted as his.
"Thank god, a discussion that doesn't involves repubs vs. dems. I'm also thankful it doesn't involve Justin Beaver or Kim Kardashian or Gaga. What a relief.
Read "A Breif History of Time".
photons (the "particle" associated with electromagnetic waves: ligh, xrays, radio waves) has zero rest-mass
It does have mas when travelling at the speed of light (C) and they have exactly the mass
m=E/c^2 (Remember E=m*c^2) where * means times and c^2 means c squared or c*c
All science experiments need to be reproducible to be accepted. One experiment proves nothing,
but may suggest further inquiry. Subtle errors can be made in a single experiment, but likely
would not appear in subsequent experiments menat to confirm the experiment.
Objects with non-zero rest mass cannot reach the speed of light, light particles can only move at the speed of
light. If a particle were to be able to exceed the speed of light. it would have to have a purely imaginary
rest mass ( the square root of a negative number). Tachyons were the name given to such theoretical particles,
and tachyons would need to be going backwards in time, and would require energy to slow down closer to
the speed of light. Such particles have not been observed, and
As you accelerate objects they gain mass.
May be there is existance of medium "ether' after all, in which, photon travels. May be there are presence of other mediums, one of which is used by Neutrinos, where value of "c" is different. So General relativity need not be untrue, its just a skewed perspective of the Whole.
Two things:
1. As per the article, "the same experiment replicated the result" doesn't exactly sell me on anything. Then it goes on to state "result is a very significant improvement over the previous measurement". Interesting doublespeak. If it's the replicated result how can it be an improvement over the previous result.
2. Good question, mxuxr. This was only 20 neutrinos (how can you count them anyhow) and since neutrinos can travel through matter without being affected, maybe the neutrinos they detected came from a distant planet, or Chicago.
I live in Chicago... I'm pretty sure we have all of our particles accounted for.
This may sound really stupid, and I know next to nothing about physics, but how did the researchers verify that the arriving neutrinos were the same neutrinos sent?
ID tags (with longform birth certificates).
One clue is difference in travel time is constant: 60 nanosecond. This value would have been random had the source or origin been at random.
Thank you for the response, mx!
This is almost as fast as the collapse of Rick Perry and Herman Cain !
What's the third thing again.. Oh ya. Talibans in Libya. Wait. scratch that.. 999
You know what travels faster than the speed of light? Taxes. And the love of someone you could care less about.
bravo...
I got one for you.. Joke that is.
What do you call a girl.. no wait. I just gave it away. No worries... Ping!
What do you call a no I got that wrong again.. Ping...
wait.. what was I talking about?!?
Assuming these particles can assist me back in time...
Praise be to Thor, who sits as judge of us all at the world tree Yggdrasil! Science has again been struck down by his mighty hammer Mjolner! Praise be to Odin, the All-Father!
Sorry to disappoint you. Loki made the particle go faster. Simply to piss Thor off.
Loki! That foul trickster will surely bring the neutrinos to Surtur the Fire Giant! This can't end well...
Just play Black Sabbath backwards on an old 45 turn table and you will find the answer.
I went back in time just reading that.
scientitsts have already observed certain particles react to the same stimulus simultaneously from two end of the united states. So SOMETHING moves faster than light. Most people dont understand that the TRUE root of science, is composed of what they call "spooky" science. Things that are more spiritual in nature. I always laugh when people make fun of things like ESP or Auras, as they are indeed scientific in nature. Kirlian photography, phantom effects, holographic memory storage, multiple dimensions? all stuff of science.. even ghosts.
With the exception of multiple dimensions, the rest of that statement is hogwash.
And multiple dimensions aren't some sort of spooky thing. It's just math. Yay... Now instead of being stuck with triple integrals, we're stuck with 11-dimensional integrals... Forgive my lack of enthusiasm.
@Capercorn: I must disagree w/one part of your statement about "it's just math". I too thought this way until they interviewed the physicist. They asked "are these real dimensions or just a math device", and his answer was that it's not just a math device.
The concept of temporal-spatial dimensions in physics are tensor quantities that show up in linear algebra. They are the same exact thing.
However, unless I'm working with somebody who also has the requisite background necessary to understand such concepts, I'm going to be misread. And I've taken Wittgenstein to heart; if I can't speak of it clearly given the language set I have to work with, I'm just not going to talk about it.
If you go through about Calc III, and a class on discrete mathematics and logic, I can explain it in a very, very clear way.
However, without that background, I cannot speak of physics clearly at all. For that, I will entrust you to Paul Davies.
PBS Nova has an excellent show on string theory, its role in explaining the universe as well as its skeptics. It's a good start if you want to begin to understand the overall ideas.
sorry man, but its not hogwash. people like you are actually keeping us in the dark ages. And the particles communicating have indeed been documented.. in many many many tests. ESP has been documented. and the term "spooky" has been coined by scientists, not me. Want to explain to me why quantum mechanics and general relativity make no sense together? string theory and mtheory toucch it and if they are true we are in a world of spooky. the fact that you think dimensions are mathematically explainable tells me a lot about how little you know..
This article in no way is saying that pseudoscience like esp and auras are legit
this artical has nothing to do with the sciences of kirlian emissions or esp. who said it did?
Auras, ghosts, etc. I tend to agree. There's a level of existence below the level of the proton/neutron, indeed, even below the level of quarks, where science cannot presently (and may never be able to) observe. It is at this level that philosophy/spirituality comes into play. That's not my opinion, it's the opinion of the top theoretical scientists.
As long as that "thing" you speak of is information, I can agree with you.
If it's not, then STFU.
That is exactly what the top theorist said 100 years ago about dust particls...anything smaller is spiritual....what do you think they will be saying in 100 years? Why is it so easy to make everything unknown attributable to spirits rather than understanding we don't know everything?
nice scientific evaluation with your stfu proposal.. i just lost any faith i had in you as an intelligent human being.. which wasnt much to begin with..
Perception paints reality. Quantum physics offers infinite possibility. An infinite number of perceptions exist. Depending on the level of perception, any particle speed is possible.
Why did the chicken cross the möbius strip?
To get to the other...
Heh... Topology joke.
I approve. Nobody ever does those.
To stay on the same side! 😉
I thought other scientists had already shown that there was something wrong with the calculations - something about relativity factors not being applied to the satellites that were measuring the neutrinos' speed? Or is this a different experiment?
They used GPS for their time data.
2 huge problems:
1) GPS was never designed for particle physics experiments; it was designed for military navigation purposes; big macro/classical things, not tiny quantum things.
2) GPS doesn't work unless you have a direct line of sight. OPERA is way underground. No direct line of sight.
As my comp sci friends like to say: Garbage in/Garbage out.
The real question is.. will it create jobs.
Mike, I read the same thing in another artlcle. And yes it was for this experiment! I'd like to see followup on that. Did the mistake they find end up not being one? Is what we read someone's opinion and it was never really tested against this test?
I had so much fun reading comments here I almost missed the lecture I had to teach today!
The only thing more sad then everyone trying to show how 'silly' this either is or is not, are all the peopel trying to contradict them to show how smart they are. I doubt many ultra high IQ types would bother posting here...and if you ARE an ultra high IQ type why the heck are you in here....go cure cancer or something constructive!! Signed the middle 25%. (At least we aren't clogging up some cities tax dollars ;-P.)
...it seems I can't spell...feel free to get some high end flaming in based on my typos, heh.
As much as I enjoy computing endless numbers of triple integrals, and proving endless number of theorems, eventually the brain needs some rest.
Posting on CNN does not require lots of quantitative analysis. This also lets us blow off steam, as the money-bags who give us money are stupid and have no clue about the stuff we do, and yet they think they know how to do stuff better than we do.
-Mathematician
Why, because scientists can't be interested in current events or the news? There is a ton of misinformation out there. And there are many times that something controversial, disputed, or untested gets sensationalized as "possible" or an "alternative hypothesis." Some of us feel the need to point out sloppy science or when someone jumps to conclusions. Often it's not the scientists themselves, it's some layman pseudo-intellectual that jumps the gun and misinterprets. I get really tired of being vilified and doubted when hot, sexy topics like climate change and evolution come up in the media. So yeah, I'll feel free to point out when someone is misinterpreting or misusing science. Why don't you try learning some so I don't have to do it so often?
I am going back to the God of Abraham, the true source of all knowledge.
Are you planning on coming back any time soon?
Okay. Make sure you take Keith Ward's "God, Chance and Necessity" with you. Then science and you can be best buddies without having to abandon Christianity.
I'm going back to the God of Keith Richards
I'm sure I speak for all thinking people when I say, you won't be missed.
St Paul - Proffessing t be wise they become fools.
I took a rough look calculating the distance using Google Earth and got 455 miles. That should be within there figure of 454 as I'm not sure of there exact starting and ending site. That of course means the neutrinos came out of the ground, followed the curvature of the Earth and went back into the mountian to be timed. I hope they took into consideration the shortest distance between two points is a straight line....
oh, they probably didn't think about that... they probably had a hard time with Algebra I, don't you think?
Only in Euclidean geometry is the shortest distance between two points a straight line.
And we've known that non-Euclidean geometries exist for a couple centuries now. Einstein just proved that space-time is non Euclidean.
In other stories that I've read about this, it indeed was a straight shot through the Earth. Neutrinos are good like that. Interesting article.
What's the precision of measurements on Google Earth?
Neutrinos don't follow the curvature of the Earth. They go in a straight line. They are chargeless and nearly massless, so they are unaffected by gravity as well. I can only assume that both sites were using precisely calibrated atomic clocks, and the neutrino beam travelled straight through the earth from one location to the other.
Anyways Humans can't push their body to go any where near the speed of light
What happened to Neil Tyson Degrasse's Show
By the way, the BBC did a fantastic write-up on this almost 2 weeks ago. CNN is the Walmart of news. Once it's here, you know it's already out of fashion.
There are two comments that I always see whenever any scientist discovers any thing.
1. This is news? Hell, everyone knows that. That's stupid. If they had asked me, I could have told them the findings ten years ago.
2. I hope none of my tax dollars – for which I work my butt off – was spent on this nonsense. Who cares? They should spend money fixing the potholes in my street. That's just a bunch of liberal professors stealing my hard-earned money.
Hey, anybody here been watching PBS lately? They're running Brian Greene's series about spacetime and string theory on Nova. Really good series.
OOoooo can't wait
sounds like a real whizbang
Without expressing a full understanding General Relativity, this article has effectively provided millions of religious hillbillies a reason to remain ignorant to science. Science is never "right" in finality. It's always about being more right than the previous generation. Einstein was more right than Newton. That doesn't mean we dismiss Newtonian physics. Rather, we continue to refine our understanding of the universe as we evolve.
I really take offense to being called a "Religious hillbilly." Get off your freaking high horse and stop. Not everyone who believes in God is pushing their belief on everyone else in the world. I am a strong Christian and actually did a presentation in high school on wormholes and how they could be used for travel in space. Got an A. So there are some of us that like and enjoy science but still beleive in the existence of God. Science can prove a lot of things that we don't understand.
And to chime in, may I add that Rev. Keith Ward is very good at elucidating how science doesn't conflict with Christianity, once Wittgenstein's philosophy of language is applied. And everyone likes them some Wittgenstein.
Problem fundies?
Your horse doesn't have to be very high to look down on religion. They set a pretty low bar. Any person capable of thought who willfully believes in fantasies that cannot be supported by evidence are either children are hillbillies. I'm happy to offend you and hope it's enough to smack your out of the fantasy world you're indulging in. Now use some of your critical thought and my offense as momentum to help you break free of the intellectual laziness that religion inspires. PS: Congrats on your A on your college paper. Assuming you didn't also go do a christian college, I'm sure it was a groundbreaking work of illumination.
Yes, because insults are very proper and academic and conductive to good thinking, aren't they.
Man, you would make a great politician right now. Poo throwing and screaming is all they're good for.
You failed to point what if anything I said was untrue, unkind though it may be.
Your post is full of grammatical errors. I would be cautious about making fun of others for their beliefs, stating lack of education and implying low IQ's when your own post is showing your ignorance. Have a great day!
Once upon a time there was math to "prove" that an airplane could not fly sideways. As the plane rotates thru 90 degrees the load on the wings increases exponentially. If the curve is followed to it's mathematical conclusion the load on the wings should be nearly infinite when it reaches 90 degrees. In practice what happens is that the load on the wings increases to a point then levels off then begins to decrease. As one goes faster one's mass increases exponentially so that, no matter how small a mass you start with, at the speed of light the mass should be infinite. We have demonstrated in experiments that mass does, indeed, increase as speed increases. What if it functions in similar fashion to the wing loading issue? At some point the increase levels then begins to drop (to the best of my knowledge there's no indication that these neutrino's were arriving at the target far more massive than when they left the gun). We've not been able to conduct experiments with anything more massive as the cost to accelerate any object with significant mass to near light speeds, cost in dollars and/or time, has been prohibitive. If that's the case it would mean that the speed of light is NOT the speed limit we thought it was.
Because the equations you're mentioning are generalizations that work for many instances.
However, because they assume a continuum of massive substances, rather than a collection of discrete particles, the equations break in places.
The model was never meant to be accurate in all instances.
And the other thing: Newton's Laws only work if one is working within inertial frames.
Making everything relative to a single point on the aircraft would violate that condition. Once understood that the aircraft is a non-inertial frame, the addition of fictitious forces would make everything work out nicely, even with the classical statics equations.
That reminds me of an ancient "proof:" that Achilles could not outrun a turtle, as long as the turtle had a head start and never stopped moving thereafter. It might have been Aristotle who posed it; I don't remember.
The idea was, since it takes a nonzero, finite time to travel any distance, however small the distance Achilles would have to travel to catch up to the turtle at any particular time, the turtle would have moved some distance further on and would still be ahead.
It is the nature and history of science to observe, experiment, theorize and have your theories challenged, sometimes wrongly, sometimes correctly in ways that shatter it completely, but most often simply adjusted and modified in the light of new knowledge. It's pretty damn rare for any theory beyond the trivial to really turn out to be be perfectly correct.-or even for the science that challenges it to be perfectly correct.
Tesla said Einstein was wrong and demonstrated it repeatedly with "Tesla Wave". The skeptics ridiculing traving back in time have little or no understanding of quantum mechanics. Quantum Theory proposes that all possibilities exist simultaneously and that the resut (effect) is based upon the observer. This has also been demonstrated by scientists.
Tesla never explained how he did what he did.
For all I know, he was using parlor tricks sometimes. And Tesla's demonstrations do not jive up with Quantum Electrodynamics.
I say that Tesla was full of himself after developing AC, and was just angry at everyone in general after Edison tried to humiliate him.
Do a little research on what all Tesla invented or studied. While you're at it, do some reading on how Edison was a complete d*** to him.
Edison was a mean person.
That doesn't mean that Tesla was right about everything. The fact that we cannot reproduce his results is evidence enough that he was a fraud, or he was insane later in life.
Capercorn – Tesla is responsble for everything around you today: your fridge, all indicution motors, radio, flourescent light, Alternating current and much more. Tesla proved all through his applications and all we use today. Einstein's work was all theoretical. Read up on Tesla before speaking for or against his genius. Tesla was probably the only that understood our world. Most others are simply just trying to understand it.
I have a feeling that it's not skeptics who don't know quantum mechanics but rather someone here on the board heard two words "quantum mechanics" but didn't bother to go to college 🙂
Tesla was a true genius of the kind not often found in nature. And true to his genius, he was also bat sh*t crazy. Read up about his obsession with 3, for eg. He was a man so far ahead of his contemporaries and had so outrageous plans for humanity that people simply shook their heads and ignored him. That also does not mean what he did with Tesla wave was not a parlor trick..just that genius comes together with madness.. and the difference is only in the context of a situation
So A.E. was off by a fraction of a second, and he was doing his work on a chalkboard... still the king of modern physics.
This is not the point; see my response to klipan below.
What this experiment has proven is that the instrument is precise.
However, as anyone with any knowledge of ballistics can tell you, precision and accuracy are two very different things.
Light travels at 299704644 ms/s in air; much slower than in a vacuum (299792458m/s). A imperfect vacuum between Geneva and Gran Sasso might explain it, no?
So what if E did not get it PERFECTLY correct?!? Even IF he did not, he was darn close. To Nano-seconds? Back so many decades ago before all the technology we have today? All of our scientists are using what he gave to us, just as the scientists after Newton used his. It is the duty of all of us to build upon each new theory and discovery. I hope that E's theories are built upon and that his is not the final answer. Thank you.
The point is not the precise value of the speed of light; it is that Einstein said nothing could exceed the speed of light. This experiment has not found that the speed of light is faster than Einstein thought, but that Einstein was apparently wrong about the cosmic speed limit. And this implies so much more!
Exactly, he had a chalkboard and did all of this stuff long hand... Probably as much a 'rounding' error as anything.
Omg, you are missing the WHOLE point. This is not about Einstein incorrectly defining the speed of light, the speed of light is what it is. This is about the theory that NOTHING can travel faster then the speed of light, the whole reason one would consider traveling to another galaxy impossible in a lifetime. If in fact physics can be manipulated in a way to exceed the speed of light significatly, say 3 maybe 4 times, then star trek light travel seems atleast possible. Though im guessing the star trek referrence killed it for you.
Nanoseconds across 400 miles. Extrapolated across light years, the difference is rather significant and could have all sorts of cosmological implications.
What needs to be evaluated is, knowing the supercollider is round, would the forces involved in keeping the particles on track around this track affect the neutrinos? Could the neutrinos be cutting corners?
They're being fired in a "straight" line from CERN in Switzerland to OPERA in Italy.
And I only use the word "straight" here because it conveys the meaning I want. I'm perfectly aware of the magical non-Euclidean geometries at work in GR.
Maybe you should reread the article. This isn't about the discovery of neutrinos.
Neutrinos are not the fastest. There is something else faster, but we can't see it.
Faster than neutrinos? That would be tachyons right?
It could just be that this is the speed of neutrinos, and maybe everything else is bound to c as the max, who knows.
Einstein wasn't wrong, we just misunderstood him. Mass doesn't really increase relative to the speed of light, otherwise photons would have the mass of the entire universe as they are 1:1 with the speed of light.
You know that scene in "Enter the Dragon" when Bruce is trying to get the student to look at the moon, but the student keeps looking at the finger instead? Yeah, that's us.
The bartender says, “We don’t serve faster-than-light neutrinos in here.”
A neutrino walks into a bar.
he he he he he he he he hheee heh he he he he he he he he. made my day.
Now THAT is funny.
That was funny
. . . Simpsons did it.
There needs to be a way to double Like this post.
Why did the chicken cross the möbius strip?
I stoled this for my Facebook Status 🙂
i love how all the "einsteins" are commenting on this artical as if they know how the experiment should have been conducted or where it went wrong....... from the checkstand at kinkos
You are so right, lol.
totally.
Definitely "something" is wrong.
Too early to tell exactly what yet.
.
It's our understanding that's wrong. He who sits in the heavens laughs...
Important points to remember:
1) Special Relativity does not forbid particles traveling faster than light – it forbids massive particles traveling _at_ the speed of light. The problems arise when one considers the implications for causality – however, such effects would be weak since neutrinos interact only weekly.
2) Special Relativity is only a localized specialization of a 'more correct' theory – General Relativity. One then wonders if a GR effect could be being observed here, since the start and end points are non-local to one another. Lense–Thirring effect anyone?
i read that they only interact monthly, not weekly.
This is foolish!! this is a serious discussion.....please read some articles before typing such lame comments.....they dont interact anymore!! they used to interact weekly and then monthly...but rt now they dont see eye to eye since they broke up...
Is this THE anirban, famous stat prof?
Thank you for saying this. I'm so tired of listening to people comment who have never take the time to read, let alone understand Einstein's works.
I'm glad I wasn't the guy in Italy waving the checkered flag when those babies came in.
Scientific theory evolves as well. In the immortal words of Captain Picard to Data, "Things are only impossible until they're not."
I'll bet high school kids in this country are excited. Excited that they all got an A in their Everybody Should Feel Good class.
WHICH EPISODE???????????????????? Priceless.
You said it right!
AH HA !! I knew it. I was right all along.
I'm pretty sure Einstein theory never said nothing go faster than the speed of light, just not AT the speed of light.
No, it was at or above the speed of light. According to the theory, as velocity approaches the speed of light (relative to a particular observer), mass increases and tends toward infinity as velocity approaches c. It is impossible to accelerate an infinite mass, so while c can theoretically be approached with arbitrary closeness, it can never actually be attained, much less exceeded.
Of course, the new discoveries that this article is about might do a heavy number on all that, but so far, it hasn't been conclusively disproven yet.
I remember reading back in the late 70's a test site out in the western US involving underground caves and water where they were watching for neutrino's and that these particles actually traveled faster then the speed of light very briefly.
I just always assumed because they had no mass this was possible. I thought Albert s theories applied to particles with mass so general and special relativity do not apply to these particles in the first place. So I am not sure why this is news. Too bad he is not around anymore, imagine what he could have done with the aid of today's computers and number crunching help.
How exactly does it go faster than the speed of light without first going the speed of light, which it cannot go? That's like saying nothing can go 10 mph, but if you can go 11 without first passing 10, that's fine.
Particles such as electrons and photons do not accelerate from a zero velocity – they just take off at the speed of light, instantaneously. So there's no problem with a so-called "light barrier" phenomenon. Also, the neutrino is virtually massless, so apparently the General Relativity mass thingy doesn't apply, either.
Way to go Einstein... You blew it.
Can we leave politics out of a scientific discussion, please?
Mark, can you leave race out of this discussion? Thanks.
"If you run around a tree at 185,999 miles per second, you're likely to screw yourself. Or, you could vote for Obama and get the same effect." .... Albert Einstein
Yeah, because a man of science would obviously vote republican. Republicans LOVE science!
God, take this crap somewhere else you tool.
Its not that hes wrong. Most of his theory still holds, what we are talking about are particles that are alot smaller then what was known at the time.
base7: It could, in ways you might never imagine.
The Neutrinos later tested positive for Steroids.
I like that one!
BTW, can some of you others point me to a serious discussion about politics that I can contaminate with posts about physics? Huh???
Steroids, right. I should have suspected that. By the way, how does one consider a thing to be a "particle" if it has no mass? If it has "almost no mass," that is a way of saying that it does, in fact, have mass. Then the whole idea of mass increading to infinite as velocity approaches c comes into play. I'm saying it's bigger than a breadbox, but smaller than a Volkswagon accelerated to nearly the speed of light. Are you not entertained? Is this not what you came here for?
A recently discovered Einstein theory shows GOP=DUH(2) squared
Congratulations on your threadjack, now go away.
Partisan Particles Pathetically Present.
P to the 4th
It always arrives in time for the next day...
This is why I still toy with the idea of living within an'ether' (wiki Michelson–Morley experiment for a good read)... Could be more quantum related than special relativity related though... or even something a few steps smaller (that we have yet to understand). Neutrinos are massless particles, however most of everything we experience has mass... Is it possible there's benn an overall (or possibly ongoing) shift in time for particles with mass while the massless particles remain unaffected (or vice versa)? Schrodinger's equation contains a derivitive w/ respect to time... Einstein said the speed of light is constant for a given frame (something like that) but could that be true only for particles containing mass, since mass is a function of speed (v)? By having no mass, neutrinos avoid having a relationship with their velocity. Physics buffs feel free to coment...
The general consensus is that neutrinos *do* have mass...
I'm rather short of background to claim to be a buff, but the idea of massless particles doing an end run around Special Relativity (it seems like it would then not matter how closely you approach c; a huge number times zero is still zero) is intriguing.
Exactly what I've been thinking – however, photons have mass, and they're perfectly happy whizzing along at the speed of, er, photons... but something just doesn't add up here.
there are no light producers, there are only dark suckers.
First of all I do not understand how they can measure the speed and the position of a particular particle as it is not possible in Quantum physics. They can only measure one or the other. Only probability. Otherwise Schroeder's cat is either dead or alive and the paradox does not exist. Shucks, I forget the name of the law. Also, there might be some kind of "entaglement" effect. I am waiting for the GD particle to be discovered. Is there any way to use all this new information to help the Jets win?
The site PhysicsWorld has a more detailed explanation on how the test was done, as for the Jets, sorry.
I suppose it would take a change in the laws of physics for the Jets to win. It's still more likely than the Cubs winning.
A good check would be to start the measurement at a checkpoint – as a possible cause of an error would be the exact timing of the neutrinos departure. Of course, I would guarantee the scientists working on this are smarter than I or any other person blogging here, and have likely thought of that. Hope it is true.
I wonder if that's faster or slower than the speed of dark?
Life is as simple as a bridge. Thank you, Firesign Theatre.
This article is OUTDATED. LHC already confirmed that there was an error in the calculations. The error in their calculations further confirmed Einstein's relativity.
Thank you. Oi.
That is not true
Seems like I'm outdated. Last thing I heard there was some time factor they forgot to adjust due to time being clocked from two different locations. Oh well, I doubt they're going faster, there seems to be a lot of uncertainty in their measurements.
i mean I believe the interpretation of the result is incorrect.
Six words: John Moffat Variable Speed of Light (look it up)
All Einsteins report to NASA.
I personally think this result is wrong for a number of reasons. Not least of which is that neutrinos pass through everything, almost never interacting. Since the neutrinos permeate everything everywhere, it would be impossible to say for sure that the neutrinos detected came from the collision from opera with absolute certainty. We would also have to ask the question "did all of the neutrinos detected arrive before the photons or were some of them ariving with and or behind the photons aswell? " If this was the case then I would say the interpretation of these results is incorrect. I won't elaborate as to why on this forum but I believe that neutrinos do not travel faster than light.
Of course they don't travel faster than light. One look at their dog tags will confirm that. "Neutrino A: I have spin, but I don't exceed c."
No, light is not the absolute speed.
No, the "big bang" didn't occur once from a single proton to create the vastness of the universe.
Yes, water is abundant in space and it readily available on most planets if it hasn't vaporized.
Yes, planets do exist in binary star systems.
Yes, our solar system is part of a great cloud.
Yes, life is numerous in the universe; it's the rise and fall of species that makes overlap difficult.
No, we cannot see the edge of the Universe.
Yes, the Universe is much bigger than the observable 14.1 billion light years.
No, gravity will not pull the universe back in.
Yes, there are energies not yet discovered and gravity's affects become lesser as the field grows.
Yes, time travel is possible but only as an observer, it has noreality, substance, or form.
While I really do not know about the validity of your statements. The last makes no sense. If time travel as no substance, reality, or form what would an "observer" be observing?
The time travel people don't seem to remember that nasty "thermodynamics" bit that ensures that time flows in one direction and one direction only.
No, S T F U.
If anyone actually cares about the science behind this other than stupid sensationalized headlines, the smart money is still on this conclusion being wrong. The only thing this new run proved is that the statistical sampling behind accurately knowing when a neutrino leaves and when it arrives isn't a problem. We shouldn't discount this experiment, but it's EXTRAORDINARILY unlikely that it's the result of new physics as opposed to some very trick systematic error we have yet to find.
Perhaps the wave function of a neutrino is very large, like a bubble. Sometimes they seem to be going faster than light because the first part of the neutrino arrives earlier. Another possibility: what we think of as a vacuum is actually full of the "ether" (dark matter / energy) that light interacts with but neutrinos don't.
Sounds like "Vacuum Energy" – look it up.
If it is true then:
Proof that Time Travel is Possible. Also that the Speed of Dark is faster than the Speed of Light. Hmmm...
Little things that move faster than light are simply things that happen before they happen. What's the big deal? BTW, Einstein never insisted he was right. They were theories. He also was sure there was a higher power than man in the universe.
Exactly, he also rejected the idea of an expanding Universe, which has now been proven. And to top that off, the Universe is expanding faster than the Speed of Light, also proven.
Expansion of the universe faster than the speed of light is not proven. Inflation is a theory too.
And the space-time manifold can expand faster than light without violating Special Relativity.
Yeah, but that whole "cosmic constant" he wrote in there as a flub factor more than makes up for that.
Scientific theories are never proven, they can only be disproven. Have you never been fooled before? What's a proven anyway? I'm betting it's a fruit of some kind, similar to a prune.
I always knew that Einstein was a numbskull.
Einstein was a plagiarist, and stole many of his WIFE'S ideas. Do the research.
Material you pulled from the National Inquirer doesn't qualify as "research". Sorry.
Hmmmm....interesting....I doubt whether Einstein will be show to be wrong, but his theory could be incomplete...It does appear that SOMETHING (information) CAN travel ftl, ie the (entangled particles)...just not USEFUL information...I wonder if the math would work if neutrinos had negative MASS ?....This could also provide a mechanism for explaining the apparent acceleration of cosmic expansion....
The crew of Star Trek's Enterprise knew this long ago . . . Warp 9!
This joke came about from the September news release.....
"We don't serve faster-than-light neutrinos in here!" said the bartender.
So, a neutrino walks into a bar..."
Its obvious isnt it? If light is made out of particles, it has mass. Ergo according to Einsteins theory it cannot travel at the speed of light because its mass would become infinite. Ergo einsteins theory is bunk.
Except photons are massless. Back to school for you.
Particles have mass by definition guys.
But Light can not escape the gravity of a Black Hole, which there for suggest that Light does in fact have mass, although be it extremely small, it's still there.
photons are chargelss and massless
@phearis – light cannot escape a black hole because a black hole creates a singularity where the very fabric of spacetime is infinitely bent. Essentially, like the old saying "all roads lead to Rome", all paths lead to the center of the black hole, light has nowhere to go but inside, irregardless of the speed at which it travels.
Light escaping a black hole – same concept as trying to get your money back from a democrat. Doesn't happen.
Uneducated people have no business describing well-established theories as "bunk."
You didn't pass Physics 101, did you?
And we know its energy from quantum mechanics, hence it's non-rest mass is m=hv/c^2. This is why the path of light is deflected by massive objects.
Learn the theory throughly before calling it "bunk."
Photons have no rest mass, only momentum.
Another moron who badly needs to go back to school or a least look up 'light photons' in wikipedia. Yes they have NO MASS. So NO MAS!
Photons are not particles of matter, you moron. Their mass = 0.
Hate to point this out but they found the problem with the experiment about a month ago, Einstein's theory holds. This is a little outdated.
Source?
One place to check, if CNN allows links, is here....
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2011arXiv1109.4897O
Way back in the 1980s I had an oldtime Sergeant in my unit. He joked about his lack of education and "book learning". One day he said: "Cap, what's the fastest thing in nature?". I replied light. He said: "No, Sir! Since two things can't exist in the same place at the same time, the fastest thing must be Dark. When you turn on a flashlight, the Dark has to get out of Light's way!". I guess he was ahead of his time.
No. Just stupid or insane.
Uuummm, its called deja-vu...I've been saying this for years, but people think Im crazy!!
Then try a different tact, try singing it.
;^)
If it is proved that neutrinos are faster than light, then more likely something else must be faster than neutrinos. So dear scientists, the break is over; it is now time for you guys to roll up your sleeves and go back to work. Make sure to start from scratch.
Erm there has never been a 'break'. Scientists are always hard at work. General Relativity was never accepted to be the final theory because it works only on long length scales and breaks in the quantum realm.
Yep, if there's one word to describe the non-stop efforts of science, it's "Falsifiability".
Well, GR didn't satisfy all of Mach's Principle.
It was important is that it kept our understanding of gravity with our understanding of mathematics.
Gravity had moved up from multivariable calculus to manifold analysis.
of course einstein was wrong.. he's white and all white people are wrong.
Bob ob, then to use your logic, you must be white yourself.
Sad that people overlook this article in favor of calling each other a socialist and/or fascist on the others.
Welcome to the internet!
I bet you if Einstein had the computers we have today we would be even further in our knowledge of physics.
says captain obvious.. or should I say OBLIVIOUS. Go take care of your mentally instable children who touch kids at penn state instead of worrying about einstein.
Turn off your computer, Bob ob. Thanks in advance.
What a freaking empty suit you are. Oh, how about getting some facts on the Penn State stuff instead of premature conclusionitus like all the media morons....Trial in the socialist media must be to you liking.
What makes you say that? Einstein's true genius was in his ability to perform thought experiments. Don't need computers for that.
Yeah, I agree... people like Newton, Einstein & Hawking (to name but a few) think on a whole different level! Newton INVENTED differential calculus, Einstein's space/time & relativity ideas, and Hawking's ideas on the structure of the universe, black holes, etc... and that was from a book in layman's terms I once read. Really mind warping! (for me at least!)
I am so awed by the scientists researching the mysteries of the universe. The new physics changes everything.
Yes...Einstein can be wrong. He has become this mythical, supernatural being who's hypothesis became laws. Like Jesus, the myth and image surrounding this man has evolved over time into something that is so far from reality.
Even Einstein was smart enough to admit that his theories were in fact theories, because the science to prove or disprove them didn't exist yet.
Well Said Mikeinfc!
And when you say "turned into laws" I believe you are referring to Einstein's THEORY of relativity? Fail
Saying he was wrong is rather a strong statement. It would be better to say that his theories are limited in applicability. Until September, General Relativity was shown to be consistent with observations to a remarkable level of accuracy. That consistency is still there. These new measurements have (possibly) revealed a domain where the theory does not work, or breaks slightly. Still has profound implications nonetheless.
New laws of physics apply, world. This is a new (to us) energy particle travelling at its own wavelength. The speed of light was considered absolute, until new particles apply. Once, there was a list of all atomic particles, then along came man, who was minded to make even heavier, and new, atomic particles, so the list goes on. Why is anyone surprised?
I respectfully disagree with you on the most important point of your statement. You are implying that it is due to the "god" like status of Einstein is why other scientist are having a hard time with this, but Einstein’s theories have been tested over and over against for the past 60 years and has never failed. His theories have been tested as much as gravity and like gravity always come back as correct. Imagine gravity to be proven faster then we thought? It would not be Newton's "god" like status that would be make scientist skeptical, but 100 of years of testing that would make it so.
You forget, Einstein was known to be wrong about certain things even in his lifetime. For example, his comment that he refused to believe that God would choose to play dice with the universe disliking the statistical nature (and its inherent randomness) of quantum dynamics. Turns out God does, at least as far as we know. So no one in the scientific community believes he in infallible, they just view the fact that he came up with incredibly strong theories with a good amount of awe and respect.
Guys, many of Einstein's theories are no longer considered "theoritical". Experiments in relativity have been PROVEN (such as the airforce jets carrying atomic clocks, etc.). If something moves faster than light it just means a larger more comprehensive model is needed, that's all.
I I am more sensitive to neutrinos than most people that is why my fashion sense is always light years ahead..
Ha!!! +10.
You are confusing a light year for a unit of time when it is in fact a unit of length.
Well, he is correct in its usage. Substitute miles for light years.
You should show off your fashion sense on the Kessel Runway, Charles.
Don't get too c0cky Duckman, for her to say she is "miles" ahead of the competition would make just as much sense than her saying she was "months" ahead of the competition. Either way she is WINNING!
It doesn't change anything for me. This is what happens when the world of science is so convinced they're right that they begin to twist facts to suit theories. They are going to retest and retest this until they find some loophole that allows them to rest easy in the deep couch of relativity once again, or they'll tell us all this changes nothing from a practical standpoint, arguing that they had evidence all along and had been hiding it with Elvis in some mythical Oort cloud beyond Pluto. And oh yes, let's not forget that Pluto is no longer a planet, but it always was a planet until a few years ago. Face it folks, you are destined to believe whatever the minds behind the textbooks tell you, whether they can prove it or not.
That might be the most ignorant thing I have ever heard. If science so deviously attempts to twist data to fit theories then why are they publishing research that could overturn something so fundamental to astrophysics. You even contradict yourself by using the Pluto example. Pluto was overturned as a planet because it doesn't fit the criteria, another example of scientific thought consistently seeking to find truth. Perhaps you should read one of those diabolical science books.
The most ignorant thing I've ever heard is that Wendy's new sea salt french fries are better than McDonald's french fries. They are most certainly not better. Now that is diabolical.
Uriel, are your parent's related? Just wondering
What does inbreeding have to do with french fries? Have you tasted those things?! There really heinous.
heinous french fries!? I'll have to try them, thanks for your invaluable insights today
I have heard reports of the sea salt being used as a solid state crystal to produce the god wavelength. You can actually image god with Wendy's french fries if you pump them with high enough energy, eat that McyDee's. This is final proof that Wendy's will create a population inversion (bah dum dum) and end the world as we know it.
What a load of baloney. In large part, science is peer review driven. If and when someone can actually negate Einstein on this topic, they're going to be hugely famous.
heard of dark matter and dark energy that the scientific community accepts as fact without being able to proof its existence??
see any parallels with religion here
HAHA, except for the fact that scientists say "because we do not know what this is, we will call it dark matter and continue to study it but now we can actually refer to this nameless phenomenon". While your preacher says, "why search for more answers when we know it is just the will of god, problem solved! Now where is little Bill Sandusky, I need my pipes cleaned."
Reply to "really"...
Obviously you're not very well read up on the science of dark matter theory by your misguided statement.
I guess I would rather believe what a scientist has speculated throught years of research and mathmatics that the misquoted ramblings of people who lived thousands of years ago, spoke 6 different languages of which only one is in use today though modern speaking of things they really didn't understand at all. I will take a 20 yr old science book as "proof" over a 2000 yr old book of hersay any day.
You're kind of rambling a bit there.
LMAO!!!! This coming from someone called "Uriel", I guess one shouldn't be surprised at what you posted.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uriel
Lol, it sounds like you're talking about *religion*, not science. Religion accepts dogma as truth regardless of the facts or evidence, not science. In fact, what these scientists are doing (testing, evaluating for proceedural weaknesses, correcting, and retesting) is what we adults call "being responsible and not jumping to conclusions".
What's incredible, compared to dogmatic ideologies like religions, is that science is willing to test and challenge such long-held theories as Einstein's in the first place; can you imagine the Catholic church holding experiments to determine if Jesus really walked on water? Ridiculous. No, only science is willing to challenge itself and push its own boundaries thanks to such brilliant advances as the scientific method and peer review.
So, next time you want to bad-mouth science, try turning that lens onto religion first. You'll quickly find that science is doing quite well.
IIt is difficult to say Einstein was wrong. When you try to understand his equations, you can really sense how closely mathematical formulae work according to universal principles . The real experimental results based on Einstian's equations were always very slightly "off". Considering the fact that neutrinos are faster by tiny fractions of meter/second, applying this observed velocity as "c" in his equations can probably yield much more accurate experimental values.
Just another energy particle travelling at its own wavelength. Wow!!! LOL!! Wait until they time their thoughts and realize they all thunk the same thought at the same time, give or take.
Einstein badly needed a large value constant (just like Plank's, Eulers, pi, etc) to buttress his theories. His theory will still stand, since it is relative.
I'll laugh if the discrepancy turns out to be because of the Coriolis Effect, i.e. the reason it go there 62 nanoseconds earlier was because the Earth was turning, and the remote site was closer when it arrived than when it left.
I know Army snipers have to take the Coriolis Effect into place, and sniper bullets are moving crazy-fast.
Of course, it'd be easy enough to rule that out by firing a particle back in the opposite direction.
I'm looking for signs of sarcasm in your post and I'm not seeing it. You truly can't be serious...no, you can't be serious.
Not only is he serious I was thinking something similar. As in maybe the correct speed of light has never been calculated and it really is still faster than a nutrino.
In each its own particular corner of the milky way, spinning along our axess around the galactic center, around our star, within the total universe. We are never in the same place twice, even though it looks vaguely familiar. Why can't they anticipate this projection into space?
or do it at equator.... no coriolis...
only way to disregard coriolis is do it at equator.. going opposite direction doesnt change a thing dummy... turns right in NH left in SH..
Is the source code running the test equipment from the same source?
SUCK IT EINSTEIN
This is awesome... just waiting for the construction of a tachyonic antitelephone (look it up).
Somehow I'm doubtful, though. Odds are that a flaw will still be found somewhere in the data.
Could it be that the measurement error is on the speed of light- meaning these observations conform to Einstein's theory, we're just off in our understanding of the true speed of light?
True, the cal lab probably does not have that many reference samples to test their speed of light meter.
Amen brother! Thought the same thing while reading the article.
Engage number one.
How bout instead wasting billions on this type of useless research, why don't we spend the money on something good like finding the cure for cancer or something?
Why "useless"?
Science is very interconnected, and results in one field tend to have unexpected consequences in other fields. Microchips are dependent on quantum physics, which arose from exactly this kind of work, for example. You can't just decide to have everybody drop everything and go and work on finding a cure for cancer; it just doesn't work that way.
Very welll said.
Really, cure cancer? There are literally thousands of different types of cancer. Also, billions upon billions are spent on researching cancer around the world each year. This research is not useless, if it is correct, which seems to be a fairly large if, it would completely change one of the fundamental theorems of physics.
Why not cure cancer? Because evolution is wrong. We are not evolving, but degenerating; More disease, more mutations(I did not say improvements), more cellular degeneration. If we were evolving, wouldn't we have less of all of these things? Oh, that's right! Evolution is true, and if it cannot possibly apply, well, it's just a theory. Shut uip quasi-scientists.
We are not devolving. We are constantly being bombarded by chemicals and radiation. There's your cancer. We rushed into technology too fast and greedily without caring about the risks on human health. Yes science can do good, but in the hands of evil it does much more bad than good science can prevent.
Because all science is based on fundamental physics, chemistry, and biology. If the fundamentals change, it can potentially change many other schools of thoughts based on the fundamentals, maybe even the school of thought involve cures for cancer.
WOW Josh, just WOW
We already are spending money of searching for cures for cancers.
Ever hear of radiation treatment for cancer? How about an MRI? CAT or PET scan? All of these use principles of physics, and I'm sure there are plenty that I'm not even thinking of right now. Like the others said, science is interconnected.
Could the error be induced by the time travel associated with traveling at the speed of light?
einstein got it wrong, surprise surprise. i mean you can only base a theory on what you know, from the studies and information at hand and your own access to limited technology. he was pretty smart, but, wrong. Now we can develop superneutrino drives and travel to the furtherest stars in only seconds...when our scientist catch up.
what exactly is the point of this? What advancement can this really help for the human race? And how can you send this little tiny particle 454 miles, and know that is the exact particle you sent. How do you put a label on it?
If you're curious as to how the experiment works, maybe you should read what they said. It's not like anything is being hidden here.
Probably through atomic/electrical markers.
In ways Josh that in the near or distant future may enable our race to do things both wonderful and mundane.
JOSH once you go to college ..even some high school you will learn the importance of science.. but you don't have to wait.. be pro active go research this for yourself you may actually learn something... but ignorance will get you anywhere..
How is it that no one has posted a comment yet? This is potentially the most important news of our time. If this is confirmed further by other tests, it changes *everything*.
Congrats, you were the first. I agree this could be the breakthrough that leads to a new level of revolutionary science.
It wouldn't change anything. The 'cause and effect' idea they mentioned is totally fallacious. Go to Dr. William Lane Craig's website.
Hey Kat, will it lower our national deficit?
Kat, I think replies from people like base7 answer your question! @base7 I'm sure all the satellite companies are thanking Einstein for his contribution to the world economy.
base7, it might in ways you could never imagine.
Peter, illogical to man, but man is now placing logical limitations on God. I don't think man has come that far in the sciences to be absolute. We accepted Einstein's theory of relativity and now this has been proven to be wrong. I agree with Kat, this is a huge milestone. I believe we have only scratched the surface.
I don't think Einstein's theory of relativity has been proven to be wrong.
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