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walker

CERN anounce faster than light particles.

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Hi all

Scientists at CERN have announced that they appear to have found particles that exceed the speed of light.

If true then it is the equivalent of the flat earthers finding the world was a sphere.

http://gizmodo.com/5843006/faster-than-light-particles-could-wreck-einsteins-relativity-theory

http://m.guardian.co.uk/science/2011/sep/22/faster-than-light-particles-neutrinos?cat=science&type=article

I need to read more and see other sources before I am convinced.

Kind regards walker

Edited by walker

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Interesting...still doesn't mean faster than light speed is possible though...unless we have to rethink that area as well in light of this...if its true, as you said.

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I thought they already knew that neutrinos can travel faster than light. I just looked up what new particle they found based on this thread, and found that it was neutrinos. I don't remember where I heard it, but the 1980s Teenaged Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon had some inter-dimensional character called the Neutrinos, and for decades I have associated those characters, the particle, and faster-than-light travel. It seems like nothing new to me. This idea of faster than light neutrinos has been bandied about for a long time. Is this research just more convincing than other research they have done in that area?

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Here are a couple of scientific abstracts exploring whether or not neutrinos are faster than light. One is from 1986, the other from 2008.

Neutrinos seemed to transmit information faster than light, and this was accepted until they found that neutrinos had mass. Now, I guess, CERN has found better evidence.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0370269386904806

http://arxiv.org/abs/hep-ph/0105153

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Read about this yesterday and am definitely excited.

The sci fi fanboy in me would love to believe that this could be a first step toward FTL communication. Who knows, perhaps the reason we're not picking up radio signals from other civilizations is because they're all using neutrinos, right? RIGHT?! :D

In all seriousness though, it's going to be interesting to see how this pans out.

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Not that I'm an authority on physics by any means, but I intuitively suspect that there was an error somewhere in the experiment. This would be a pretty radical revelation if it gets confirmed, though.

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Hi ST_Dux

The scientist thought the same themselves, hence why they repeated and refined the experiment for 3 years hoping to find the error in their method; also why the Japanese Scientists also doing (the same/a similar) experiment with the same findings also did not report.

No one wants to stand up and in a small voice say "Errrr...? Einstein got it wrong."

That way lies the scientific Siberian gulag.

Even though they have announced it they made clear they really want some one to explain the error as that would make them happier in a way, though a Nobel Prize might make them happier still, which is why they finally reported after 3 years.

Kind Regards walker

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No one wants to stand up and in a small voice say "Errrr...? Einstein got it wrong."

That way lies the scientific Siberian gulag.

Even though they have announced it they made clear they really want some one to explain the error as that would make them happier in a way, though a Nobel Prize might make them happier still, which is why they finally reported after 3 years.

Kind Regards walker

Well in fact it's much more complicated than it seems. Neutrinos travelling faster than light may not be antagonist with Einstein relativity, it's more like the space-time structure could be much more complex than expected. Einstein's Relativity of time has been "proven" right numerous times by modern physics experiences, for example gravitational time dilation measured numerous times with atomic clocks.

Edited by ProfTournesol

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Well in fact it's much more complicated than it seems. Neutrinos travelling faster than light may not be antagonist with Einstein relativity, it's more like the space-time structure could be much more complex than expected. Einstein's Relativity of time has been "proven" right numerous times by modern physics experiences, for example gravitational time dilation measured numerous times with atomic clocks.

In science, if a law is broken once, it's not a law anymore.

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Operative;2026533']It's for that reason it's called Relativity Theory ;)

The Principle of Relativity is the foundation on which physical laws are made, and a prediction on how nature behaves. Therefore, if relativity is invalid, many natural laws will also be invalid.

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The Principle of Relativity is the foundation on which physical laws are made, and a prediction on how nature behaves. Therefore, if relativity is invalid, many natural laws will also be invalid.

The Principle of Relativity is one of the principles the Theory of relativity is based on. This theory consequences are that nothing can be faster than light in vacuum, the speed of light is the same for every observer, regardless of the motion, the interelation between mass and energy (being c^2 the square of the speed of light) and others.

Edited by [GR]Operative

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Operative;2026608']The Principle of Relativity is one of the principles the Theory of relativity is based on. This theory consequences are that nothing can be faster than light in vacuum' date=' the speed of light is the same for every observer, regardless of the motion, the interelation between mass and energy (being c^2 the square of the speed of light) and others.[/quote']

Einstein ratified the principle of relativity to an axiom with his work on special relativity.

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Personally I think its more of a Quantum mechanics side of thing that neutrinos find ways to by passing Principle of relativity

And they did not "found" particles that exceed the speed of light, they found neutrinos, a already know sub-particles, may have the ability to travel faster then light.

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as Ive heard someone else say, if they were to travel faster than light, they would arrive at their destination before leaving, so perhaps it was a factor of lorenz contraction/time dilation, or both, that gives the impression that they travel faster than light in a vacuum.

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This won´t wreck the theory of relativity. It just would mean that our understanding of the universe is (no surprise there) even less complete than we thought it was.

Einstein´s theory of relativity has been tested often, and so far without any wrongs showing up that would have wrecked it. One example is Einstein´s own calculation of the perihelion of mercury (which was previously inexplicable, using newtonian gravity), which turned out to be exactly what the orbit of mercury was. If the theory wouldn´t work, it would constantly come up with the wrong numbers: it doesn´t. So it´s not wrong, it´s just incomplete, if anything.

We also have experience with particles exceeding the speed of light in a medium, so it might be that something similar is going on here (which I doubt, since neutrinos don´t interact with anything, bar a few very, very rare occasions. They can fly trough a galaxy of lead and not be stopped).

There might be something going on here. Hopefully it´s not as wrecking as some things string theory might suggest (ie, causality just being an illusion that could fall apart for no discernible reason at every moment.)

Interesting find, though, will try to keep updated on this.

Edit: No confirmations from other places like this. Something like what lawrence krauss once said, if the data is radically different from what you´ve been expecting, most of the time the data is just wrong. So I´ll hold my breath on this, until something more definite is confirmed by the other labs working on this.

Edited by InstaGoat

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Hi rstratton

You are mixing

Neutron

With

Nutrino

They are not the same. I do not think Tesla was alive when the Nutrino was discovered though he may have been exposed to them as theoretical particles from the work of Wolfgang Pauli.

Kind regards walker

Edited by walker

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Hi all

A nice BBC Documentary explaining the significance and details and possible weaknesses of the CERN OPERA findings as well as other evidense supporting the CERN OPERA findings or disputing it.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b016bys2/Faster_Than_the_Speed_of_Light/

As papers discussing and testing the CERN OPERA findings pour in:

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn21064-neutrino-watch-speed-claim-baffles-cern-theoryfest.html

CERN may also be announcing something else soon. ;)

Kind Regards walker

Edited by walker

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watched that show last night

my head was melted :L

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