Neutrinos ----- Newly Discovered Tachyon?

[TheIdioticIdiot]

http://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2011/1121/Faster-than-light-neutrinos-Not-so-fast-say-new-findings.-Video

[Ekki]

Soo, you made a Neutrino|Tachion card, then googled them? Or was it the whole way around??

Anyways, the article seems like a regular news article- a bit mediocre. Saying that the Neutrinos were faster than light by 60 nanoseconds, without saying the magnitudes involved is a bluff.

Now, back to physics, my physics teacher said me that right after the Big Bang, all that matter (that we call Universe) expanded waaaaay faster than light (some light years in a couple of seconds, or if I remember well, even some thousand light years in less than a second). I mean, it's not strictly impossible to travel faster than light. I know that discovering would turn physics around, but I just fail to get it...

[Bloodshadow]

Read the original article here, if you dare.

http://arxiv.org/abs/1109.4897

I read this thing for a university first year project. Unless you're a physicist, I doubt you can say it's a bluff after reading even half of the article; you'll be too confused to say anything.

But apparently they did another experiment that was basically the same as this one except more accurate. And they got the same results. I'm slightly more convinced now.

Anyways, the article seems like a regular news article- a bit mediocre. Saying that the Neutrinos were faster than light by 60 nanoseconds, without saying the magnitudes involved is a bluff.

Actually, it's an early arrival time of 60 nanoseconds. As in, they did some calculations to predict the amount of time it would take for neutrinos to travel a certain distance, then found that they arrived 60 nanoseconds early.

[Sevs]

If i remember correctly i believe they forgot to include the relativity of something in their calculations and that it is actually slightly slower than the speed of light

[Chemist]

If i remember correctly i believe they forgot to include the relativity of something in their calculations and that it is actually slightly slower than the speed of light

No, apparently they did account for the relativistic effects of having two clocks placed at different heights, as well as for the gravitational pull of the moon, the curvature of the Earth and just about everything else the scientists examining the report could think of.

Sheldon Glasgow (Nobel prize winner) published a paper saying that the neutrinos can't have gone faster than light since they didn't lose energy along the way. However, that's a theoretical paper based on current theories - and it's experiments that determine whether a theory is right, not the other way around.

The whole thing won't be settled until other experiments report back with their own measurements in a few months. Until then there can be speculation, but nothing more than that.

[TheIdioticIdiot]

If i remember correctly i believe they forgot to include the relativity of something in their calculations and that it is actually slightly slower than the speed of light

No, apparently they did account for the relativistic effects of having two clocks placed at different heights, as well as for the gravitational pull of the moon, the curvature of the Earth and just about everything else the scientists examining the report could think of.

Sheldon Glasgow (Nobel prize winner) published a paper saying that the neutrinos can't have gone faster than light since they didn't lose energy along the way. However, that's a theoretical paper based on current theories - and it's experiments that determine whether a theory is right, not the other way around.

The whole thing won't be settled until other experiments report back with their own measurements in a few months. Until then there can be speculation, but nothing more than that.

in case people want to know the current theory, it is said that tachyons can't break the speed barrier of light either, difference being, they can't ever go slower than light, and if they lose energy, they go faster, rather than slower

[hell7fire1]

Not many topics so i don't really think this is actually a bump

Well,first of all,what they have a CERN is a really long proton accelerator,

A speed that is faster than light is actually highly probable an (I dare say it) not really that Impossible for mankind to achieve

I mean really, why is faster than light speed not possible?
the speed of light is (rounded up) 3*10^8 m/s
so what stops it from happening?

I mean i can take the example of sound,sound is really fast(terribly slow compared to light but still compared to ye old bicycle,its fast) as we got faster jets,more streamlining and a better understanding of Speed distance and time,We managed to build things that go faster than sound

so why can't we build something that goes faster than light?
I mean light is NOT the "Ultimate thing," It gets sucked in by the gravitational pull of black hole and fails to escape so therefore there is something that is "Stronger than light"

so maybe you can use gravity to achieve Faster than light speeds,
just saying I think its actually really possible

oh,and back to the proton accelerator,it makes protons go to speeds approximately 99% the speed of light(says a certain source)
its not making them go faster than light,I don't think so.
but the CERN project is a bit old now and I hear someone is putting a lot more money than they put in on CERN or make an even bigger accelerator,one which possibly could reach the speed of light

[bobknows]

Light is sucked in by gravity because gravity is literally space bending in towards an object, however gravity drops off at an exponential rate, meaning that with a finite force you can get infinitely away from an object. Now a black hole is sinply a chunk of matter compressed inside its event horizon, or the point where gravity becomes so strong it would take an infinite force to escape. Thats why light cannot escape.
The reason we cant make faster than light speeds with gravity comes from the same relativistic effects that gravity creates. Ever hear about the twins, one on a lightspeed spaceship and one on earth, and then they aged different? This is because of relativity. At lightspeed gravity can only change your direction, not your speed, because you have your own relativistic effects caused by your speed.

Disclaimer: I explained as best as I understand it, so it may not be perfectly accurate.

[qwas296]

SO, you cant go faster than light because to be just as fast as light you need an infinite amount of energy and that`s not possible to achieve.

[Devas]

Brachmanichyons are much more fascinating.

SO, you cant go faster than light because to be just as fast as light you need an infinite amount of energy and that`s not possible to achieve.

Wrong, go watch star trek!

[AnonymousRevival]

Brachmanichyons are much more fascinating.

SO, you cant go faster than light because to be just as fast as light you need an infinite amount of energy and that`s not possible to achieve.

Wrong, go watch star trek!

*Facepalm*. No it can't. Even travelling through a wormhole does not count. It just provides a shortcut rather than ACTUALLY travelling faster than the speed of light.

[Bloodshadow]

I posted this somewhere else, so I'll just copy and paste it here:

Second, one simply cannot move at the same speed as light, due to special relativity and electromagnetism. The way electromagnetic waves, i.e. light, is structured is such that it can only exist if it moves at a very specific speed, namely the speed of light. It has to move at this exact speed in all frames of reference, otherwise light cannot exist. Hence, no matter how fast you move relative to a photon, the photon will still move at the speed of light relative to you; time dilation is merely a consequence of this fact. There is an equation used to predict time dilation, determined by speed. The equation gives division by zero if the speed is equal to the speed of light. If the speed is larger than the speed of light, however, you get an imaginary number, so we have no clue what is physically going on there. Related to time dilation, it requires infinite energy if you want to accelerate yourself to the speed of light, so you can’t do it.

Am I the only one who thinks that quantum mechanics and relativity should be taught in elementary school? It's saddening to see so many people having not even the slightest clue how the universe really works. I mean, you don't have to teach the complicated mathematical details, but the basic gist shouldn't be that hard.