Albert Einstein's 1905 theory of special relativity may be wrong

[ShroomDr]

So what if a particle travels a tiny bit faster than light. Wasn't this Theory open to a little error anyways?

'Unified Field Theory' is what you are referring to. It attempts to 'unify' the 'fields' of 'Newtonian' and 'Quantum' physics. It was Einsteins theory, and even he had problems with it. (Quantum physics apparently work, and Newtons physics apparently work,; it just the unifying the very 'tiny' with the 'normal' size physics that is a problem.)

E=MC^2 is a different theory, and what is being debated with the neutrino experiment.

 

[igrowone]

So what if a particle travels a tiny bit faster than light. Wasn't this Theory open to a little error anyways?

not in the case of the speed of light being the limiting speed
the speed of light and space/time are joined at the hip(so to speak) in special relativity
if something travels faster than light, then in principle it is possible to transmit a signal backwards in time
and is why the original news story got the press that it did

 

[HempHut]

It's possible that general relativity might be able to explain the apparent violation of special relativity:

The OPERA team timed the neutrinos using clocks at each location that were synchronized using GPS (Global Positioning System) signals from a single satellite. Contaldi's paper says the group's calculations do not take into account one aspect of Albert Einstein's general theory of relativity: that slight differences in the force of gravity at the two sites would cause the clocks to tick at different rates.

Because the CERN site lies closer to the centre of the Earth than Gran Sasso, and consequently feels a smaller gravitational pull, a clock at the beginning of the neutrinos' journey would actually run at a slightly slower rate to the clock at the end. "It would reduce the significance of the result," Contaldi says.

http://www.nature.com/news/2011/111005/full/news.2011.575.html

It's a working hypothesis, but there still seems to be doubt about the clock synchronization methodology, so it may not explain the observation. And likely wouldn't explain the full time discrepancy, but lower it enough to make it just a "tentative claim of faster than light travel."

Looks like the jury is still out.

 

[flubnutz]

i'm no physicist ... but, i thought i read once, where the theory states only that to accellerate to the speed of light would require an infinite increase in force to make that last push. but, that it doesn't rule out something already travelling faster than the speed of light. can something come into existence, already travelling faster than the speed of light?

 

[igrowone]

i'm no physicist ... but, i thought i read once, where the theory states only that to accellerate to the speed of light would require an infinite increase in force to make that last push. but, that it doesn't rule out something already travelling faster than the speed of light. can something come into existence, already travelling faster than the speed of light?

they're called tachyons, no proof they exist at all
one of many strange consequences/possibilities from relativity
they do pop up in many a science fiction story

 

[flubnutz]

hey man, they exist, i saw the enterprise use them against the borg i think

 

[ShroomDr]

 

[mugenbao]

Logical Fallacies for the Win!

Logical Fallacies for the Win!

Here's a good one for you:

​

This is the most amusing result so far, even if it was entirely predictable:

The science is not settled, not by a long shot. Last month, scientists at CERN, the prestigious high-energy physics lab in Switzerland, reported that neutrinos might—repeat, might—travel faster than the speed of light. If serious scientists can question Einstein’s theory of relativity, then there must be room for debate about the workings and complexities of the Earth’s atmosphere.

It boggles the mind

Sources:

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/b...rnal-neutrinos-show-climate-change-isnt-real/
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2011/10/07/followup-on-the-wsj-climate-denial-oped/
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203388804576612620828387968.html#articleTabs=article​

 

[HempHut]

Here's something very apt, methinks:

What's in the Box, Schrödinger?

[YOUTUBEIF]aGmfrIgika0[/YOUTUBEIF]

 

[Wacky Tobacky]

eh whats more interesting when it comes to travelling that fast is the use of negative energy to move space-time. its been proven to do tis already we just need to master it and we will be able to move well over the speed of light. its like the space ship in the show futurerama. the ship doesnt move thru space it moves space-time around it. who knows how fast we can go with warp speed.

 

[sso]

somehow einstein´s statement about needing so much energy to reach lightspeed.

reminds me of that old thought about trains "if they´ll go over 40mph, the speed will kill people!"

 

[ShroomDr]

If my understanding is correct, (and it might not be) current thought is that if meaningful time travel could be possible, it is only one way (into the future) and its essentially useless.

If one were to go, lets say 1 light year/sec (which is WAY faster than lightspeed).
Lets also say travel time is only 40 seconds.
And that the flight path was just a large circle, so after 40 seconds, you are back where you started (Earth).

The 40 seconds of life that you experienced, was 40 YEARS to everyone else.

From their point of view, you disappeared (your traveling faster than light, they cant SEE you), and reappeared 40 years later.

From your point of view, 40 seconds passed, but everyone you know is now 40 years older or dead. Technology is now 40 years more advanced (unless their was a setback/apocalypse/etc).

Its like you were living in a cave; society is living 'Jersey Shore' while youve back in the 'Brady Bunch'.

Whats the point?



(We would have to travel somewhere close to that speed to explore other solar systems; and couldnt send 'signals' back to earth faster than light speed)

(Technically, even at sub light speeds, the faster you go, the slower time travels around you.)

 

[sso]

hey, do that, travel 1000 years into the future, in hope´s of finding utopia.

get there, its armageddon wasteland, the one guy that was needed for utopia, missing and it was you.

 

[igrowone]

there is a possible scenario in general relativity that produces 2 way time travel
the basic idea is this, have a wormhole and one end stays in place
the other is affixed to ship(somehow), and that ship takes a trip at relativistic speed, then comes back to the original location
the stationary hole has advanced into the future, the hole on the ship has stayed in the past
there is much debate if this is possible, but the jury still seems to be out in the physics community

 

[mrcreosote]

I have nothing at all to add to this conversation. The smart 'me' is currently in an alternate universe.
I hear he's kind of a dickhead...

But I can't prove it.

 

[MadBuddhaAbuser]

gadzooks!!

http://www.washingtonpost.com/natio.../17/gIQAlRlTWN_story.html?tid=pm_national_pop

Second experiment confirms faster-than-light particles

By Brian Vastag, Published: November 17

A second experiment at the European facility that reported subatomic particles zooming faster than the speed of light — stunning the world of physics — has reached the same result, scientists said late Thursday.

The “positive outcome of the [second] test makes us more confident in the result,” said Fernando Ferroni, president of the Italian Institute for Nuclear Physics, in a statement released late Thursday. Ferroni is one of 160 physicists involved in the international collaboration known as OPERA (Oscillation Project with Emulsion Tracking Apparatus) that performed the experiment.


While the second experiment “has made an important test of consistency of its result,” Ferroni added, “a final word can only be said by analogous measurements performed elsewhere in the world.”

That is, more tests are needed, and on other experimental setups. There is still a large crowd of skeptical physicists who suspect that the original measurement done in September was an error.

Should the results stand, they would upend more than a century of modern physics.

In the first round of experiments, a massive detector buried in a mountain in Gran Sasso, Italy, recorded neutrinos generated at the CERN particle accelerator on the French-Swiss border arriving 60 nanoseconds sooner than expected. CERN is the French acronym for European Council for Nuclear Research.

A chorus of critiques from physicists soon followed. Among other possible errors, some suggested that the neutrinos generated at CERN were smeared into bunches too wide to measure precisely.

So in recent weeks, the OPERA team tightened the packets of neutrinos that CERN sent sailing toward Italy. Such tightening removed some uncertainty in the neutrinos’ speed.

The detector still saw neutrinos moving faster than light.

“One of the eventual systematic errors is now out of the way,” said Jacques Martino, director of the National Institute of Nuclear and Particle Physics in France, in a statement.

But the faster-than-light drama is far from over, Martino added. The OPERA team is discussing more cross-checks, he added, including possibly running a fiber the 454 miles between the sites.

For more than a century, the speed of light has been locked in as the universe’s ultimate speed limit. No experiment had seen anything moving faster than light, which zips along at 186,000 miles per second.

Much of modern physics — including Albert Einstein’s famous theory of relativity — is built on that ultimate speed limit.

The scientific world stopped and gaped in September when the OPERA team announced it had seen neutrinos moving just a hint faster than light.

“If it’s correct, it’s phenomenal,” said Rob Plunkett, a scientist at Fermilab, the Department of Energy physics laboratory in Illinois, in September. “We’d be looking at a whole new set of rules” for how the universe works.

 

[Space Toker]

"Particles recorded moving faster than light - CERN

GENEVA, Sept 22 | Thu Sep 22, 2011 12:42pm EDT
(Reuters) - An international team of scientists has recorded neutrino particles travelling faster than the speed of light, a spokesman for the researchers said on Thursday -- in what could be a challenge to one of the fundamental rules of physics.
Antonio Ereditato, who works at the CERN particle physics centre on the Franco-Swiss border, told Reuters that measurements over three years showed the neutrinos moving 60 nanoseconds quicker than light over a distance of 730 km between Geneva and Gran Sasso, Italy.

"We have high confidence in our results. But we need other colleagues to do their tests and confirm them," he said.

If confirmed, the discovery would overturn a key part of Albert Einstein's 1905 theory of special relativity, which says that nothing in the universe can travel faster than light."

Exciting times so it seems.

excellent! I want to believe but what is your source?

 

[HempHut]

excellent! I want to believe but what is your source?

It's been widely reported that the experiment was repeated with tighter controls and still resulted in measurements indicating faster than light travel.

Here's the nature blog:

http://blogs.nature.com/news/2011/11/neutrino_experiment_affirms_fa.html


And here's the experiment source and a new academic paper:

http://operaweb.lngs.infn.it/

http://arxiv.org/abs/1109.4897


Warp engines -- engage!

P.S. If you had read the thread you would have found sources for the original claim (not to mention one is cited in the bit you actually quoted) -- the discussion is now about a second experiment confirming the first.

 

[igrowone]

i've seen several updates on this story, the 1 just posted where they varied some of the parameters seemed to keep the original results as being true
saw one in the current SciAm issue(yes, i am a science nerd) that stated if the neutrinos actually exceeded the speed of light, there should have been some additional radiation emissions, which were not seen
the discussion continues, the new experiments that replicate the original will have results soon(?), those will be the make or break on the topic

 

[ShroomDr]

i am no nuclear scientist, but i still have my doubts.

FIRST, im pretty sure you need your own Halderdon collider to 'independently verify' their results. So their 'wait for independent verification' could take A LONG TIME;there are no plans to build a larger collider.

Second, im pretty sure the minute differences between gravity at the two locations could also cause the observed results.

when light travels at ~300,000km/sec, 60ns is NOTHING.