Speed of Light broken: Massive implications for Science (1 Viewer)

Glorious

Member
Joined
Sep 20, 2011
Messages
219
Gender
Female
HSC
2011
Einstein's going down, physicists!

Breaking news suggest that new tiny particles, neutrinos, pervading the cosmos, have broken the speed of light. Found to have arrived 60 nanoseconds quicker than light in Italy.

Thought I'd share.
 

Garygaz

Active Member
Joined
Oct 25, 2007
Messages
1,827
Gender
Male
HSC
2008
http://www.smh.com.au/technology/sc...allenging-laws-of-physics-20110923-1kntb.html

An international team of scientists says it has recorded sub-atomic particles travelling faster than light - a finding that could overturn one of Albert Einstein's long-accepted fundamental laws of the universe.
Antonio Ereditato, spokesman for the researchers, said that measurements taken over three years showed neutrinos pumped from CERN near Geneva to Gran Sasso in Italy had arrived 60 nanoseconds quicker than light would have done.
Advertisement: Story continues below
"We have high confidence in our results. We have checked and rechecked for anything that could have distorted our measurements but we found nothing," he said. "We now want colleagues to check them independently."
If confirmed, the discovery would undermine Einstein's 1905 theory of special relativity, which says that the speed of light is a "cosmic constant" and that nothing in the universe can travel faster.
That assertion, which has withstood over a century of testing, is one of the key elements of the so-called Standard Model of physics, which attempts to describe the way the universe and everything in it works.
The totally unexpected finding emerged from research by a physicists working on an experiment dubbed OPERA run jointly by the CERN particle research centre near Geneva and the Gran Sasso Laboratory in central Italy.
A total of 15,000 beams of neutrinos - tiny particles that pervade the cosmos - were fired over a period of 3 years from CERN towards Gran Sasso 730 kilometres away, where they were picked up by giant detectors.
Light would have covered the distance in around 2.4 thousandths of a second, but the neutrinos took 60 nanoseconds - or 60 billionths of a second - less than light beams would have taken.
"It is a tiny difference," said Ereditato, who also works at Berne University in Switzerland, "but conceptually it is incredibly important. The finding is so startling that, for the moment, everybody should be very prudent."
Ereditato declined to speculate on what it might mean if other physicists, who will be officially informed of the discovery at a meeting in CERN on Friday, found that OPERA's measurements were correct.
"I just don't want to think of the implications," he said. "We are scientists and work with what we know."
Much science-fiction literature is based on the idea that, if the light-speed barrier can be overcome, time travel might theoretically become possible.
The existence of the neutrino, an elementary sub-atomic particle with a tiny amount of mass created in radioactive decay or in nuclear reactions such as those in the Sun, was first confirmed in 1934, but it still mystifies researchers.
It can pass through most matter undetected, even over long distances, and without being affected. Millions pass through the human body every day, scientists say.
To reach Gran Sasso, the neutrinos pushed out from a special installation at CERN - also home to the Large Hadron Collider probing the origins of the universe - have to pass through water, air and rock.
The underground Italian laboratory, some 120 kilometres to the south of Rome, is the largest of its type in the world for particle physics and cosmic research.
Around 750 scientists from 22 different countries work there, attracted by the possibility of staging experiments in its three massive halls, protected from cosmic rays by some 1400 metres of rock overhead.
Amazing. Could change to many assumptions and theories in science.
 

unknown88

Member
Joined
Sep 2, 2011
Messages
213
Gender
Male
HSC
N/A
Re: Einstein's going down, physicists!

Breaking news suggest that new tiny particles, neutrinos, pervading the cosmos, have broken the speed of light. Found to have arrived 60 nanoseconds quicker than light in Italy.

Thought I'd share.
WOW, l must read this.
 

interesting

Member
Joined
May 10, 2010
Messages
340
Gender
Undisclosed
HSC
N/A
Re: Einstein's going down, physicists!

Wtf link pliiiiiiiz
 

kfnmpah

Well-Known Member
Joined
Oct 15, 2009
Messages
2,245
Location
Motley Crewcastle
Gender
Female
HSC
2009
Re: Einstein's going down, physicists!

saw this earlier this morning... what... do we do now?!


:eek2:
 

SpreadTheWord

Member
Joined
Apr 26, 2011
Messages
349
Gender
Male
HSC
2011
Re: Einstein's going down, physicists!

Breaking news suggest that new tiny particles, neutrinos, pervading the cosmos, have broken the speed of light. Found to have arrived 60 nanoseconds quicker than light in Italy.

Thought I'd share.
E=mc2 speaks for itself. Therefore it's not likely. They need to validate their results, and provide conclusive evidence. After all, Einstein's notions with the clocks on Earth, and in a plane did.
 
Last edited:

iRuler

Premium Member
Joined
Oct 13, 2008
Messages
6,731
Location
3.141592654
Gender
Male
HSC
2010
Uni Grad
2014
Saw this in the morning, found it rather interesting, nice to see further development in physics.
 

jamesfirst

Active Member
Joined
Jan 30, 2010
Messages
2,005
Gender
Male
HSC
2011
Re: Einstein's going down, physicists!

Hasn't ANSTO already produce a particle accelerator that could cause a particle to exceed the speed of light?


I think it was the OPAL <- wait this is fission reactor. Hmmm, but the lady there said that they have achieved a speed greater than the speed of light.
 

LightXT

Member
Joined
May 30, 2011
Messages
729
Location
Eastern Suburbs
Gender
Male
HSC
2011
Uni Grad
2015
Re: Einstein's going down, physicists!

I doubt any of us has any idea what we're talking about. It's not like HSC Physics is very detailed.
 

cheezcake

Callipygian Member
Joined
Mar 14, 2010
Messages
596
Location
Gliese 581 d
Gender
Male
HSC
2011
Re: Einstein's going down, physicists!

You have to remember that the model of special relativity has withstood 100 years of testing, even if the measurements are completely correct it would probably be due to an incomplete version of relativity rather than a meaning it's entirely wrong.
 

hscishard

Active Member
Joined
Aug 4, 2009
Messages
2,033
Location
study room...maybe
Gender
Male
HSC
2011
Re: Einstein's going down, physicists!

You have to remember that the model of special relativity has withstood 100 years of testing, even if the measurements are completely correct it would probably be due to an incomplete version of relativity rather than a meaning it's entirely wrong.
That is a possibility
 

cheezcake

Callipygian Member
Joined
Mar 14, 2010
Messages
596
Location
Gliese 581 d
Gender
Male
HSC
2011
It doesn't necessarily violate special relativity, special relativity does allow for the existence of theoretical particles which always travel faster than the speed of light (Tachyons), so this experiment might be the first evidence of tachyons? Meaning that neutrinos have the ability to act as tachyonic particles, which has been suggested before like in this paper i just found http://www.tachyonics.com/neutrino.pdf
 

Garygaz

Active Member
Joined
Oct 25, 2007
Messages
1,827
Gender
Male
HSC
2008
so i guess that means they will no longer be hypothetical? i'm a bit of a science amateur, i'm just doing intro to astronomy as a gen ed subject at the moment. interesting stuff, i might add.

if it can be proven that tachyons exist will that have many implications on the field of science?
 

cheezcake

Callipygian Member
Joined
Mar 14, 2010
Messages
596
Location
Gliese 581 d
Gender
Male
HSC
2011
Haha my official education in physics only extends as far as the HSC, but if Tachyons exist it will have pretty incredible ramifications for us, faster than light communications, i'm also quite sure i read somewhere that it could be theoretically possible to send messages back in time.
 

soccer16

Member
Joined
Aug 24, 2011
Messages
30
Gender
Male
HSC
2011
Re: Einstein's going down, physicists!

Has this been shown on tv?
 

Users Who Are Viewing This Thread (Users: 0, Guests: 1)

Top