GrahamHill From France, joined Mar 2007, 2541 posts, RR: 1 Posted (1 year 9 months 1 day 3 hours ago) and read 1974 times:
Some scientists in Lyon discovered that some particles were travelling faster than the speed of light. Those particles are neutrinos. On their way between France and Italy, they should have done 730 km in at least 2.43 thousands of a second. But they were 60 nanoseconds faster.
The experiment will need to be redone again and again to confirm whether this is correct or not.
However, some scientists already claim it is BS, like Chang Kee Jung, a neutrino physicist at Stony Brook University in New York who says the result is the product of a systematic error.
I won't go too much into the debate because I simply suck in science, but I would be interested to read your point of view. Do you stand by Einstein's theory and believe those scientists made a mistake, or do you believe it can be plausible to have a particle travelling faster than light?
"A learned fool is more foolish than an ignorant one" - Moliere
san747 From United States of America, joined Dec 2004, 4936 posts, RR: 13 Reply 1, posted (1 year 9 months 1 day 2 hours ago) and read 1953 times:
From what I take from the article, that 60 nanosecond figure is the average, with a reported 10 nanosecond uncertainty. Even if that uncertainty figure is not true, GPS signals (which are being used to measure the distances/times) have uncertainties still only in the 10s of nanoseconds.
Even with such margin of error, it appears entirely possible then that SOME (remember, this is an average from thousands of launches) of the neutrinos did travel very slightly faster than light. If such resulted can be affirmed and reproduced in another experiment, it would be one of the most important scientific discoveries in decades!
Dreadnought From United States of America, joined Feb 2008, 7892 posts, RR: 22 Reply 3, posted (1 year 9 months 1 day 2 hours ago) and read 1934 times:
NoWorries From United States of America, joined Oct 2006, 523 posts, RR: 1 Reply 4, posted (1 year 9 months 21 hours ago) and read 1840 times:
For quite a few years there was debate about whether neutrinos had any mass; massless particles necessarily move at the speed of light. In recent years the latest evidence seems to suggest that neutrinos in fact have a very small mass, which requires that their relative velocity never reach the speed of light (lest they achieve infinite mass). So if this is true, something has to break to allow a massive particle to exceed the speed of light. My bet would be on the systematic error thing -- maybe they forgot to account for the fact that the earth is revolving .
flymia From United States of America, joined Jun 2001, 6328 posts, RR: 6 Reply 5, posted (1 year 9 months 21 hours ago) and read 1828 times:
Quoting san747 (Reply 1): From what I take from the article, that 60 nanosecond figure is the average, with a reported 10 nanosecond uncertainty. Even if that uncertainty figure is not true, GPS signals (which are being used to measure the distances/times) have uncertainties still only in the 10s of nanoseconds.
Exactly what I was thinking. The margin for error still makes it seem that the results could be possible. Should be an interesting few weeks/months while they study this more.
Quoting NoWorries (Reply 4): My bet would be on the systematic error thing -- maybe they forgot to account for the fact that the earth is revolving
Now that would be something.
"It was just four of us on the flight deck, trying to do our job" (Captain Al Haynes)
Dreadnought From United States of America, joined Feb 2008, 7892 posts, RR: 22 Reply 6, posted (1 year 9 months 20 hours ago) and read 1809 times:
Quoting NoWorries (Reply 4): maybe they forgot to account for the fact that the earth is revolving
2.43 thousandths of a second = 2,430,000 nanoseconds = the speed of light for that particular distance. 60 nanoseconds would thus equate to a variance of 16,500 miles per hour, at the earth's surface. Circumference of the earth is 24,900 miles. That would indicate that the earth is rotating once every 1.5 hours.
sebolino From France, joined May 2001, 3667 posts, RR: 5 Reply 9, posted (1 year 9 months 15 hours ago) and read 1749 times:
Quoting GrahamHill (Thread starter): Do you stand by Einstein's theory and believe those scientists made a mistake, or do you believe it can be plausible to have a particle travelling faster than light?
Actually Einstein didn't say that a particle can't travel faster than light, but that it speed can't be higher than the speed of light (AFAIK).
If the particle actually travel in time, there's no contradiction ...
The physics world is abuzz with news that a group of European physicists plans to announce Friday that it has clocked a burst of subatomic particles known as neutrinos breaking the cosmic speed limit — the speed of light — that was set by Albert Einstein in 1905.
If true, it is a result that would change the world. But that “if” is enormous.
There was a better way to fly it was called Concorde
NoWorries From United States of America, joined Oct 2006, 523 posts, RR: 1 Reply 12, posted (1 year 9 months 12 hours ago) and read 1708 times:
Quoting Dreadnought (Reply 6): 2.43 thousandths of a second = 2,430,000 nanoseconds = the speed of light for that particular distance. 60 nanoseconds would thus equate to a variance of 16,500 miles per hour, at the earth's surface. Circumference of the earth is 24,900 miles. That would indicate that the earth is rotating once every 1.5 hours.
Interesting, I'm actually surprised that it's even in the ballpark of consideration -- 1.5h vs 24h means that it might account for a small part of the difference and would have been corrected for (and I'm sure they would have) -- and that's assuming that the a significant part of the velocity is along a path tangential to the rotation of the earth.
AustrianZRH From Austria, joined Aug 2007, 1265 posts, RR: 0 Reply 13, posted (1 year 9 months 11 hours ago) and read 1665 times:
Quoting NoWorries (Reply 12): 1.5h vs 24h means that it might account for a small part of the difference and would have been corrected for (and I'm sure they would have)
You don't have to correct for it. The speed of light is independent of the system of reference you are in (a weird byproduct of time dilatation and relativistic length contraction). Actually this speed of the earth was exactly what Michelson and Morley used to empirically corroborate the theory that c is independent of the system of reference.
NoWorries From United States of America, joined Oct 2006, 523 posts, RR: 1 Reply 14, posted (1 year 9 months 11 hours ago) and read 1656 times:
Quoting AustrianZRH (Reply 13): You don't have to correct for it. The speed of light is independent of the system of reference you are in (a weird byproduct of time dilatation and relativistic length contraction). Actually this speed of the earth was exactly what Michelson and Morley used to empirically corroborate the theory that c is independent of the system of reference.
The speed of light isn't the thing being corrected though, it's the speed of the neutrino relative to the detector that's being corrected. The speed of mass-less particles (e.g. photons of light) always move, well, at the speed of light and have that same speed relative to all observers. Particles with mass: electrons, neutrinos, etc. (at least up 'til now) could have differing relative speeds and therefore the speed of a massive object "depended" on the observer's frame of reference.
That is why, if this is true, it throws a great big monkey-wrench into physics as it's been known for the pat 100+ years.
This is a pretty good synopsis, and it points out that a similar experiment was done at Fermilab a few years back and it's results were consistent with physics -- however the experiment wasn't conducted at the same level of accuracy as this latest experiment.
So they did what all good scientist do -- they publish a paper stating they've observed something that can't be explained using the current laws of physics -- it's an invitation for other scientists to refute or affirm their findings.
I think a lot of scientists are skeptical because 100+ years of experimental results have affirmed the current theories -- of course Newton had been "correct" for over 200 years before Einstein came along in 1905 and said -- "not quite right".
AustrianZRH From Austria, joined Aug 2007, 1265 posts, RR: 0 Reply 17, posted (1 year 9 months 9 hours ago) and read 1610 times:
Quoting NoWorries (Reply 14): Particles with mass: electrons, neutrinos, etc. (at least up 'til now) could have differing relative speeds and therefore the speed of a massive object "depended" on the observer's frame of reference.
Now I'm feeling REALLY stupid and think I should consider stopping my PhD .
WARNING! The post above should be taken with a grain of salt! Furthermore, it may be slightly biased towards A.
YYZatcboy From Canada, joined Apr 2005, 823 posts, RR: 0 Reply 18, posted (1 year 9 months 8 hours ago) and read 1591 times:
Quoting homsar (Reply 16): The neutrinos took a shortcut through an extra dimension.
That might actually be a realistic possiblity. If there was a small warp in spacetime (like a worm hole or an extra dimentional shift) the nutreno might still be traveling at the speed of light but have only travelled a shorter distance.
Or perhaps they messed up in their observation.
Or perhaps Nutrenos can go faster than light. If they are massless then they really have not broken E=mc2 because their mass would not increase as their speed increases if they are massless.
It's going to be an interesting time trying to see what happened!
The big relativistic issue here is simultaneity. If a neutrino arrives faster than the speed of light at point A from point B, then it actually left point B earlier than it actually did as per Einstein. 'Now' to me at point A is actually distance/c displaced to a guy at point B.
Theories are theories...practice is practice. Einstein could create as many theories as he wanted, but he simply didn't have the means to prove or disprove them. We are starting to have the means now...starting. I see no reason to stick to Einstein's unproven theories when we are starting to see evidence that they might (I stress might...could...maybe) be wrong.
Quoting NoWorries (Reply 4): In recent years the latest evidence seems to suggest that neutrinos in fact have a very small mass
Yes, that was my understanding
Quoting nighthawk (Reply 10): Maybe French ATC were on strike, and the airspace was much clearer than average?
If particles went faster every time France was on strike, god knows what we would have proven by now...
san747 From United States of America, joined Dec 2004, 4936 posts, RR: 13 Reply 21, posted (1 year 9 months 5 hours ago) and read 1539 times:
Quoting sw733 (Reply 20):
Theories are theories...practice is practice. Einstein could create as many theories as he wanted, but he simply didn't have the means to prove or disprove them. We are starting to have the means now...starting. I see no reason to stick to Einstein's unproven theories when we are starting to see evidence that they might (I stress might...could...maybe) be wrong.
Well a theory is the best working explanation for a natural phenomenon we observe. I agree we will have to reconsider Einstein's theories if this is true (and believe me, I'm rooting for it because of the implications should it be true), but I don't think we should abandon those theories until such evidence against them can be corroborated independently.
iflykpdx From United States of America, joined Mar 2007, 286 posts, RR: 0 Reply 22, posted (1 year 9 months 5 hours ago) and read 1523 times:
The skeptic in me is leading to the conclusion that the simplest explanation is probably the correct one: They made an error in measurement or calculation, or the instruments malfunctioned or were incorrectly calibrated. A challenge to such a mountain of evidence in favor of relativity has a damn high burden of proof to overcome.
26 sw733: Well of course. But the idea that Einstein's once groundbreaking theory, years and years ahead of its time, could even possibly be proven wrong...wow
27 comorin: This discovery, if true, would also stand cause and effect on its head. In the world as we know, cause precedes effect, but at faster than light, effe
28 flybaurlax: It's all very interesting and I'm patiently waiting further news on this. In the meantime, here's a funny comic about it. http://xkcd.com/955/
29 er757: That's pretty mind-blowing stuff. But I'm not really sure about how it would work in practice. We might not see the cause before the effect but it wo
30 comorin: You're right. I once attended a lecture by two Nobel Laureates (Cosmic Background Radiation and Dark Matter) who said that we know nothing of 96% of
31 NoWorries: This stuff is just darn tricky to think about -- so now I'm thinking correction doesn't make sense ... If I fire a gun from a moving car and observe
32 mffoda: In regards to the title of this topic... This is A-net! I'm sure the average member should find this an elementary question!
33 NoWorries: These kinds of thought experiments make my head hurt Cause and effect is at the core of classical physics -- on the other hand, quantum physics tosse
34 vikkyvik: Not to be picky, but a parsec isn't a light-second (at least not in the same way as a light-year). Indeed, a parsec is much larger than a light-year.
35 comorin: Sorry about that, that's a big boo-boo! I should stick to the troll threads....
36 Pyrex: The funny thing is, they were still overtaken by some Italian drivers on their way back home.
38 san747: Oh absolutely. I love that we're in a position to make all these new discoveries. Science is all about updating our information and explanations for
39 NoWorries: Part of the problem is our ability to define space and time. Classical and quantum physics, for example, have somewhat differing views. Classical phy
40 AustrianZRH: No, that's the easy classic stuff. If you fire a Steyr AUG from a car moving at 30 m/s and measure the muzzle velocity sitting in the car relative to
41 DeltaMD90: Where did all you a.netters learn your physics stuff? Is there a website that breaks it down and takes you from square 1? It really interests me and I
42 san747: This is a good starting point, covers all the ideas of special relativity well without getting too technical and confusing: http://en.wikipedia.org/w
43 NoWorries: I don't think I stated that very well ... measuring velocity from the car perspective of a round fired from the car is the same as measuring velocity
44 NoWorries: Before delving into relativity or quantum, it's a good idea to have a good grounding in classical dynamics -- understand the difference between scala
45 Dreadnought: Does that apply to light? Speed of light is 186,000 miles per second. If you put a flashlight on the nose of a rocket travelling at 100,000 miles per
46 san747: Correct. The speed of light is always the same value of ~186,000 miles/second no matter your speed or relative position compared to the light.
47 NoWorries: The speed of light is constant in all frames of reference -- though the frequency shifts higher or lower depending on whether the observer is traveli
48 NoWorries: An oldie but a goodie is http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/hframe.html This isn't really a tutorial, but a nice frame of reference in which
49 homsar: Old news. This kid already figured out that the cosmic speed limit was faster than the speed of light: http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?A
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