I can’t find confirmation at the CERN website, but various media reports indicate new experimental work has found subatomic particles that travel faster than light.
The speed of light is considered the Universe’s ultimate speed limit. The foundation stone for Einstein’s special theory of relativity was the constancy of the speed of light.
More here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-15017484
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
I’m no particle physicist by a long shot, but (if this is true) it seems to me that the only way one could argue that it doesn’t dramatically contradict Einstein is to insist that neutrinos have no mass at all. Zero mass, whether at rest or accelerating. Only then would the ‘infinite mass’ postulate be inapplicable. Yet the very existence of neutrinos was originally inferred from the asymmetry of disintegrating protons, as I recall, an asymmetry that pointed to the presence of a third particle, one that would have to have mass in order to interfere. This is quite problematic, then. An unrelated point, perhaps, but let me add that Cherenkov radiation occurs in nuclear reactors when charged particles like electrons travel faster than the speed of light, or more precisely faster than light can travel in that medium. Maybe this has always been a contradiction, too, but it’s been glossed over.
Check out Lubos Motl’s post on this announcement. He seems to think they are stretching their error bars to put it politely.
http://motls.blogspot.com/2011/09/italian-out-of-tune-superluminal.html
Jen,
The science is settled.
Neutrinos would not be allowed to be tabled in parliament either.
For it to be true, the neutrinos would have to have negative mass, and be able to travel backwards in time. It’s only the speed of light in a vaccuum that’s fundamental – Cerenkov radiation isn’t a contradiction.
I think xkcd has the proper perspective on the subject.
http://xkcd.com/955/
It is likely to be a measurement error.
Funny how the CERN experiment results on clouds was kept so quiet so long, but this probable measurement error is trumpeted out nearly faster than the speed of light.
So this, like the idea that CO2 is causing a global climate crisis gets broadcast while the skeptics are always trying to catch up.
What this proves is that bs is the fastest thing in the universe.
There are velocities faster than ‘c’, but I think all the valid ones are features of quantum mechanics.
Tunnelling has been measured faster than ‘c’, so has disentanglement. Superluminal photons have been theorised in a very plausible manner. This particular result could be an aspect of that same quantum mechanical principle given that neutrinos and photons have different qm interactions.
Of course relativity and quantum mechanics do not quite see eye to eye yet. I prefer to keep an open mind on this one – we’ll see.
FTL particles are tachyons and in this universe always travel backwards; so the particles which CERN have found which are FTL are from a FUTURE experiment.
Which is a relief because it means AGW hasn’t destroyed the world after all.
A wee bit OT here but I feel I would like to say a few words on behalf of Nasif Nahle,
Nasif’s contention that there exists no blackbodies in nature,even in the molecular world, is such a fundamental,sensible and plain observation that any layman would say is blatantly obvious. In addition Nasif backs this up with numbers and calculations based on the sound science of those scientists ( the ones with Ls and Compton etc) who have done this all before and are not here to defend him.
Nasif has shoved old basic science under the noses of an elite comfortable clique of academic “physicists”. They rile against it (a la Neutrino) but fail to prove that his calculations are not just simply CORRECT.
It is thanks to an open minded Jennifer that his work and that of his support team have even seen the light of day such is the obsession with CO2. and the prevalent indoctrination. It seems that no other site would take him.
As for Noble Prizes, well we can see how a politician can denigrate the whole value of science and science prizes.
” even in the molecular world”
should read…..
“even at molecular level”
You’ve got to be so bloody careful what you say. 🙂 🙂
Sorry for the o/t here, too but another good green intention dying by the day:
[We’ve just gotta stop Rupert printing stories like this]
http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/queensland/solar-dream-caught-in-gridlock/story-e6freoof-1226144903889
If the speed of light is the law, will these neutrinos be pulled over for speeding? Cohers?
No Mack, because they will be going backwards.
“There are velocities faster than ‘c’, but I think all the valid ones are features of quantum mechanics.”
Velocities faster than c certainly exist, but the entities that travel at those speeds are not material, and cannot carry information. Quantum tunnelling isn’t faster than c – that’s an error due to misinterpreting the way wave shapes change as they pass through a barrier. Entanglement effects do occur between locations too far apart for lightspeed communication, but nothing material moves from one to another, they cannot convey information, and in several interpretations of quantum mechanics, don’t require any FTL propagation. The Everett-Wheeler interpretation can explain them quite nicely without any FTL physics at all.
You don’t need anything so exotic if you want real FTL velocities, though. The easiest and most familiar example is a shadow. Imagine travelling parallel to a wall at 99% of the speed of light, 1 km away from it, and passing a stationary light source 1 m away from you on the other side. How fast does your shadow on the wall move?
Although I can quite understand why people would like it to be true, the consequences of FTL would have some extremely difficult (and somewhat mindbending) implications that would need to be reconciled. For example, special relativity says that moving objects contract along the direction of motion. (So a spaceship travelling at near lightspeed would see the rest of the universe contract along the direction of motion, shortening the distance.) As you get closer and closer to lightspeed, the distance gets shorter and shorter, until at the speed of light the distance is zero and you arrive where you’re going (from the traveller’s point of view) instantaneously.
So having reduced the universe to zero, what happens if you go even faster? Where is there to go? The math says that from the point of view of an FTL traveller, the length of the universe becomes the square root of a negative number, its mass becomes negative, and clocks show imaginary time. Quite what this means in practice is anyone’s guess.
The lightspeed limit is not like the road traffic laws. It’s not that you get up to light speed and then have to sit there waiting to arrive, one year for every light-year travelled. Things get really *weird*. I’m not going to say it’s not possible, but I will say that the real universe is a *lot* stranger than Star Trek.
And for those dreaming of travelling to the stars – relativity, far from putting barriers in the way, actually makes it easier. You can get to the other end of the galaxy 70,000 light years away in about 20 years (from the traveller’s point of view), with a constant acceleration of 1g. There is no light barrier, and never was.
The experimental result is almost certainly wrong. But that doesn’t mean we should ignore it. Finding out where the error is may teach us something new and interesting, or improve our understanding, or prevent the same error occurring elsewhere when it is less obvious. The researchers are to be praised for their openness and honesty (and bravery). Physicists take the proposal seriously enough to work out the consequences, set out what else would have to be explained, and are not calling the research group anti-science loonies for having raised it. That, surely, is the message to take away.
If physicists can announce FTL travel and not get called rude names, then it’s not scientific to try to shut down debate or claim an unquestionable consensus of settled science on climate.
One scientist said he will eat his shorts if this faster than light theory is shown to be true, while others think its the greatest discovery since sliced bread.
‘Celebrity scientist Brain Cox was not so dismissive, saying that if the results are confirmed it would be ‘one of the greatest scientific discoveries of all time’.
‘Others were more cynical. Jim Al-Khalili, Professor of Physics at the University of Surrey, said: ‘Let me put my money where my mouth is: if the CERN experiment proves to be correct and neutrinos have broken the speed of light, I will eat my boxer shorts on live TV.’
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2040735/Speed-light-experiments-baffling-result-Cern-Did-Einstein-wrong.html#ixzz1YuHlJHnE
Nullius – my point primarily is that photons may be able to go faster than the speed of light in vacuum, because QM allows for a quantised vacuum energy between Casimir plates – ie less ‘vacuum’. The photons are slowed by virtual particles in normal vacuum. Neutrinos which interact via the weak force may interact less with vitual particle pairs and be slowed by less. The upshot is that ‘c’ is not quite the constant it should be, because we cannot achieve a true vacuum without those pesky Heisenbergian virtual particles whizzing about.
As far as I know no one has proved Scharnhorst, but it looks plausible to me – the alternative is the photons between Casimir plates would have to gain energy, which I don’t know to be consistent with the 1st law.
As the neutrinos seemed to arrive after the light from supernova 1987A, as I said I’ll keep an open mind on this result.
Casimir would seem to be proof of black holes as a possible source of the energy gain between the plates:
http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/gr-qc/pdf/9801/9801045v1.pdf
Cohenite – hmmm, difficult to test…and the engineering would make ITER look cheap!
I might add that I’m open minded on Rossi’s infernal machine too. I’ve seen too many patents come from finding out stuff works that people thought couldn’t be done. On other hand there’re plenty of perpetual motion machines you can buy with just $49.95 and six easy payments.
Please call me stupid.
I am looking at a small light bulb emitting photons in all directions.
To my right, they are travelling at around c
To my left they are also travelling at around c
The differential velocity between them is therefore nearly 2c
What am I missing? ( Other than a lot of neurons!?)