Light speed barrier broken?

[Skybird]

That would mean a paradigm change in physics. Or in other words: a revolution.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-15017484

Puzzling results from Cern, home of the LHC, have confounded physicists - because it appears subatomic particles have exceeded the speed of light.
Neutrinos sent through the ground from Cern toward the Gran Sasso laboratory 732km away seemed to show up a tiny fraction of a second early.
The result - which threatens to upend a century of physics - will be put online for scrutiny by other scientists.

In the meantime, the group says it is being very cautious about its claims.
"We tried to find all possible explanations for this," said report author Antonio Ereditato of the Opera collaboration.

"We wanted to find a mistake - trivial mistakes, more complicated mistakes, or nasty effects - and we didn't," he told BBC News.

"When you don't find anything, then you say 'Well, now I'm forced to go out and ask the community to scrutinise this.'"

[mookiemookie]

This would be one of the biggest scientific discoveries....ever, really.

[Tchocky]

It's emerged that the particles concerned were actually handicapped due to a broken rib, acquired in an impromptu late-night horse race.

[TLAM Strike]

The speed of light is the Universe's ultimate speed limit, and much of modern physics - as laid out in part by Albert Einstein in his special theory of relativity - depends on the idea that nothing can exceed it.

There is nothing in physics that says you cannot exceed the speed of light.

However...

You cannot accelerate to speeds faster than the speed of light! Einstein specifically made allotments for objects already moving faster than c.

Detecting one of those is a huge leap forward but I wish the press would get their facts strait.

[Oberon]

This is massive news and shows that no matter how far we go, there's still so much more to learn. I look forward to seeing the results of the investigation and hope that this result is indeed not anomalous.

[Platapus]

Originally Posted by TLAM Strike

There is nothing in physics that says you cannot exceed the speed of light.

Correct

It is rather arrogant for anyone to claim that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light simply because we have never been able to detect anything traveling faster.

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by Tchocky

It's emerged that the particles concerned were actually handicapped due to a broken rib, acquired in an impromptu late-night horse race.

Glennis thanks you.

[Platapus]

"My dream would be that another, independent experiment finds the same thing - then I would be relieved," Dr Ereditato said.

That is the sign of a good confident scientist.

[Garion]

I move faster than the speed of light the morning after a good curry

Cheers

Garion

[MH]

Probably lab trained kept on diet neutrinos...they can't do this in the wild.

[Oberon]

Originally Posted by Platapus

That is the sign of a good confident scientist.

The CERN guys are good eggs, quite modest too for the most part.

[TLAM Strike]

Originally Posted by mookiemookie

This would be one of the biggest scientific discoveries....ever, really.

Yes but not in the way most people think...

Most people when hearing that faster than light objects have been discovered (it happens quite a bit in fact) go:

OMG Warp Drivez!

and Phazors!!


While people who know about science go:

OMG the laws of causality or relativity are going to be destroyed! The universe is doomed!!!

[August]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

Glennis thanks you.

I hear Glennis is quite glamorous in orange...

[Platapus]

Originally Posted by August

I hear Glennis is quite glamorous in orange...

The Bell of the ball, perhaps?

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Platapus

It is rather arrogant for anyone to claim that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light simply because we have never been able to detect anything traveling faster.

I think that is not the reason the claim is being supported. It is being assumed that the speed of loight is an absolute barrier because of the implication we figure in case it would be possible to accelerate an object with mass to the speed of light. An object, in this theory, that accelerates to lightspeed, gains mass, until at lightspeed it would have gained infinite mass. Which would bring our whole cosmologic model of the universe to a collapse.

And it is this model that is "at risk" here if they confirm the finding of certain neutrinos going faster than light. It would let collapse a whole rats tail of attached conclusions that today are considered as almost untouchable. Time travel in reverse, for example. The model of time-space continuums as they get thought out on basis of Einstein's model. Possibly our current understanding of gravity. And who knows what infinte number of doors it would openh on possible ideas about space travel (which does not mean that any possibilities from that insight would become reality in the forseeable number of human generations - many earthly, material, profane and human reasons speak against that).

Mookie said confirming this finding would be one of the greatest scientific discoveries ever. I tend to think in the field of scientific theory-building that is still some kind of an "understatement". Even if for the time being it would be of theoretic value only - we and our children will continue to play pool by the old rules of Newtonian physics.

What would come of this possible chnage in paradigm over let's say the next 400 years, remains to be seen. But we would need to survive as a) a technological high civilization and b) as a surviving biological species for that ammount of time. And at least the first imo is in doubt, considering the next 400 years.

So even when the finding of the present days may be revolutionary - whether they will translate into materialised technological revolutions as well in the end, is something totally different. Becasue in the end people still live by bread and water, oxygene and warmth, health and protection from the elments - not theoretic insight into complex physics. And in these "profane" necessities lies ther answer to the question whether we will survive the next half millenia or not.

Alpha Centauri must wait.