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| Science & Technology | |
| Speed of light 'broken' by scientists | |
| 2011-09-23 | |
| It was Albert Einstein, no less, who proposed more than 100 years ago that nothing could travel faster than the speed of light. But last night it emerged that the man who laid the foundations for the laws of nature may have been wrong.
If the findings are proven to be accurate, they would overturn one of the pillars of the Standard Model of physics, which explains the way the universe and everything within it works. Einstein's theory of special relativity, proposed in 1905, states that nothing in the universe can travel faster than the speed of light in a vacuum. But researchers at the CERN lab near Geneva claim they have recorded neutrinos, a type of tiny particle, travelling faster than the barrier of 186,282 miles (299,792 kilometers) per second. The results have so astounded researchers that American and Japanese scientists have been asked to verify the results before they are confirmed as a discovery. | |
| Posted by:lotp |
| #25 And minimum wages raise employment, statistically significantly, too. |
| Posted by: Perfesser 2011-09-23 21:38 |
| #24 The discrepancy is @18 metres over 700 miles. There is no light tunnel to measure it over. I'd say* it has a 99% change of being bovine. *For reasons I have been working out myself. |
| Posted by: Bright Pebbles 2011-09-23 21:33 |
| #23 rjschwarz: Deserve's got nothing to do with it. |
| Posted by: KBK 2011-09-23 15:12 |
| #22 Despite the large significance of the measurement reported here and the stability of the analysis, the potentially great impact of the result motivates the continuation of our studies in order to investigate possible still unknown systematic effects that could explain the observed anomaly. We deliberately do not attempt any theoretical or phenomenological interpretation of the results. http://arxiv.org/abs/1109.4897 |
| Posted by: KBK 2011-09-23 15:11 |
| #21 Funny how this came up within a year of Hawking deciding there was no god. then suddenly a lot of his life's work might be rethought. |
| Posted by: rjschwarz 2011-09-23 14:44 |
| #20 I haven't seen the raw data or anything... but I found an article with more details. I did some calculations. They're saying they measured the neutrinos at 1.000024c. Which is really close to c. This is the sort of discrepancy that makes you think it's probably some sort of experimental error. Another suggestion I read was that the measurements were accurate and the neutrinos were merely travelling at 'c' instead of what we _thought_ c was, and that photons are kept from travelling at exactly c by some virtual-particle vacuum interaction that's currently poorly understood. The only problem with that that I can think of is that 'c' shows up in more places than the Cosmic Speed Limit, and all sorts of variables and constants and quantum mechanical calculations would be thrown off. It would mean we've been getting the curve of binding energy wrong all these years. |
| Posted by: Thing From Snowy Mountain 2011-09-23 14:02 |
| #19 Darth, understand all the rules to the game yet. The game? I think there's a lot more than one game being played and the simple ones have rules like "Calvin Ball". |
| Posted by: AlanC 2011-09-23 14:01 |
| #18 Well, the scientists themselves are asking for independent verification. Kinda like how real climate scientists are suppose to do it.... Einstein said, "God does not play with the dice." Hawking said, "Not only that God does play dice, but that he sometimes confuses us by throwing them where they can't be seen." I have a feeling that the universe has lots of hidden dice for us to find simply because we don't understand all the rules to the game yet. |
| Posted by: DarthVader 2011-09-23 12:44 |
| #17 it's simply our own arrogance that says it is 'settled science'. Here is a tip for everyone who spent high school science class smoking in the restroom: No real scientist will ever use the phrase "settled science" except in a mocking sense. By the nature of science itself, there is simply no such thing. Also, a real scientist will show you his conclusions, the data, AND his calculations so anyone can check the results. Just like these guys are doing and exactly NOT how the 'climate science' people work. |
| Posted by: SteveS 2011-09-23 12:37 |
| #16 CrazyFool, crazy like a fox. |
| Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2011-09-23 12:20 |
| #15 There was a theory that rates of radioactive decay were constant, also. That went out the window a while back. |
| Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 2011-09-23 12:09 |
| #14 The barman says, "We don't serve neutrinos here!" A neutrino walks into a bar. h/t @phl |
| Posted by: KBK 2011-09-23 11:23 |
| #13 Paging Zefram Cochrane... |
| Posted by: Warthog 2011-09-23 11:13 |
| #12 In professing themselves to be wise - they become fools... |
| Posted by: CrazyFool 2011-09-23 11:03 |
| #11 Kant, Godel and others have thoughts that pertain. But none have said it better than when Shakespeare wrote: The are more things in heaven and earth than..." As the Geocentrist's were schooled to their dismay, the Science is NEVER settled. And that was after a couple of millennia! |
| Posted by: My two cents 2011-09-23 10:52 |
| #10 Well, this should be interesting. Every time they think they're close to explaining it all, disproving "God," they're thrown a curve. It's like someone is toying with them. |
| Posted by: anonymous2u 2011-09-23 10:49 |
| #9 Personally I think God simply changed the rules of physics when no one was looking. Fact is we most likely know very little about how the universe really works and it's simply our own arrogance that says it is 'settled science'. I suspect Einstein full expected his theory to be expanded someday into something bigger. Much like relativlty expanded Newton 'laws'. |
| Posted by: CrazyFool 2011-09-23 10:49 |
| #8 "We've broken the speed of light." "You break it, you've bought it!" |
| Posted by: Mike 2011-09-23 10:39 |
| #7 They can't do that! It's settled science!! Cut their funding, make a movie, do something! |
| Posted by: Spot 2011-09-23 10:02 |
| #6 There are many issues of "basic" physics that are taken for granted that have open issues. There's a book by Dr. Lee Smolin that talks about the dogmatism of current physics vis a vis string theory; if you don't "do" string theory you are cut out of the money. One of the claims made about Einstein is that he invented "gravity" because he couldn't tolerate the idea of force at a distance with no mechanism. Magnetism seems to me to have the same problem. Exactly what IS a field? You can measure it and describe its effects but how does it work? One problem for physics is that all there metaphors seem to be breaking down. If you don't speak Math you can't really speak anything and Math doesn't really do much in the world of Meta-physics and theology that seems to be where the rubber is hitting the road. |
| Posted by: AlanC 2011-09-23 09:12 |
| #5 From what I have read, they are putting all of their work online and requesting that the scientific community scrutinize it all for errors. That is the way non-politicized science is done. It's a shame that other branches - those surrounding trends in our climate - are not questioned as to why they cannot do the same. |
| Posted by: Free Radical 2011-09-23 08:08 |
| #4 Two words: Cold Fusion. This needs to be independantly replicated and verified first. And it isn't that Einstein was *wrong* - he was *right* with what could be observed and measured at the time. There is a reason it's called a *theory* and not a *fact* (except by journalists....). |
| Posted by: CrazyFool 2011-09-23 07:54 |
| #3 Or the dude could have been right in his time and wrong now. Like chicken fingers. |
| Posted by: Skidmark 2011-09-23 03:42 |
| #2 AH, perhaps our idea of "space" (thus "traveling through" concept as a derivative) is flawed. |
| Posted by: twobyfour 2011-09-23 03:13 |
| #1 Perhaps those suspect neutrinos weren't traveling in a vacuum after all but in some other medium where Einstein's rules don't apply. |
| Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 2011-09-23 02:06 |