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On September 23 2011 16:08 javy925 wrote:Show nested quote +On September 23 2011 15:53 Brett wrote:On September 23 2011 15:47 True_Spike wrote:On September 23 2011 15:45 Brett wrote: What would be the actual real world implications of this though?
I don't understand that aspect... (never did physics at school). Why does everything must have immediate real world implications? It will push our understanding of the surrounding world further. I never said it had to have immediate real world implications. But, as a non-physicist, I'm sort of wondering why I should give a shit? I'm also just trying to understand the 'hype' of those excited by this possible discovery.. I would have thought the possibility of real world implications would be a nice indicator of the hype.... If it turns out that this data is not the result of experimental error or something similar and that the speed of light is not constant, this would be the single biggest discovery in the past century. Everything in physics the past 100 years has worked under the assumption that light travels at c in a vacuum. Simply put, according to Einstein's theory of relativity, if the speed of light isn't constant and something with mass can move faster than c, then time travel is possible. I'm not a physicist, but time travel seems to me to be the biggest real world implication. This, especially considering that neutrinos are not massless (massless particles necessarily travel at the speed of light).
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That begs the question then, where are all the time travels from the future right now?!?!?
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On September 23 2011 16:19 nam nam wrote: That begs the question then, where are all the time travels from the future right now?!?!?
Behind you, phased out of your field of detection :-)
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A good explanation to this would be: The universe has always been expanding since day 1. This means, even thought it may be almost infinitly slight, the speed of light too has always been expanding. Like i said though, it would be extremely slight. For all we know it could be changing at .00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000001 km/s every single 5000 years. But the point is, it is indeed inevitable, the speed of light is changing. I honestly feel like CERN needs to redo their math on THAT before they assume they have found proof of denial of physics.
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On September 23 2011 16:19 nam nam wrote: That begs the question then, where are all the time travels from the future right now?!?!?
they're playing with us, simply waiting until someone confirms that the data is legit and mass can move faster than the speed of light until they show themselves
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On September 23 2011 16:19 nam nam wrote: That begs the question then, where are all the time travels from the future right now?!?!? Time travel into the future is hypothetically possible because of time dilation, but there isn't any way (that we've thought of, at least) for time travel into the past to occur.
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Jesus, that kills a lot of what we thought of as true.
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On September 23 2011 16:23 synapse wrote:Show nested quote +On September 23 2011 16:19 nam nam wrote: That begs the question then, where are all the time travels from the future right now?!?!? Time travel into the future is hypothetically possible because of time dilation, but there isn't any way (that we've thought of, at least) for time travel into the past to occur. Lol, that's what I was about to type.. And I'm not even a physics guy! Seems like a common sense thing: Going fast doesn't mean you can reverse time?
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On September 23 2011 16:27 Brett wrote:Show nested quote +On September 23 2011 16:23 synapse wrote:On September 23 2011 16:19 nam nam wrote: That begs the question then, where are all the time travels from the future right now?!?!? Time travel into the future is hypothetically possible because of time dilation, but there isn't any way (that we've thought of, at least) for time travel into the past to occur. Lol, that's what I was about to type.. And I'm not even a physics guy! Seems like a common sense thing: Going fast doesn't mean you can reverse time?
You know I was joking right?
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For those of you interested, you can watch a live webcast of the discussion of this experiment's results here at 16:00 CEST
http://webcast.cern.ch/
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On September 23 2011 16:20 Kudoku wrote: A good explanation to this would be: The universe has always been expanding since day 1. This means, even thought it may be almost infinitly slight, the speed of light too has always been expanding. Like i said though, it would be extremely slight. For all we know it could be changing at .00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000001 km/s every single 5000 years. But the point is, it is indeed inevitable, the speed of light is changing. I honestly feel like CERN needs to redo their math on THAT before they assume they have found proof of denial of physics.
The point is that a particle moved faster than light. It would be so if the speed of light changed or not.
Also, the data was off by 60 nanosexonds. thats significant
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On September 23 2011 15:58 xM(Z wrote: they should change the direction and shoot neutrinos along the gravitational pull and see what happens. Seems a bit hard if i understand correctly what they did. Since they just a neutrino beam tangential to the SPS you can only potentially shoot such beams on a plane. If the SPS is built to be relatively parallel with the ground, you cannot shoot neutrino beams through the earth's core if that's what you meant. They could try to shoot in direction of japan where another neutrino detector is (iirc) and see if some neutrinos actually register there, but i really doubt gravity will have such a big impact on them.
On September 23 2011 16:20 Kudoku wrote: A good explanation to this would be: The universe has always been expanding since day 1. This means, even thought it may be almost infinitly slight, the speed of light too has always been expanding. Like i said though, it would be extremely slight. For all we know it could be changing at .00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000001 km/s every single 5000 years. But the point is, it is indeed inevitable, the speed of light is changing. I honestly feel like CERN needs to redo their math on THAT before they assume they have found proof of denial of physics. What did i just read? If you didn't notice, no one is trying to "deny physics". And varying speed of light due to changing physical constants can be essentially ruled out as you can measure the speed of light quite easily now. For all we know it hasn't changed measurably in the past few decades. If it did, GPS and other things relying on it's precision would be kinda useless right now.
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It's hilarious how people believe science has the universe solved in the 21st century. Back in the 19th century, they probably believed that as well :p Kinda reminds me of some other people, you know those people who've also been sure about "everything" for a couple thousand years now...
Time to embrace our ignorance, boys!
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There has been speculation that neutrinos might be superluminal for years, going back to at least the 80-s. The biggest problem with this is that neutrinos are not spinless. Superluminal particles with spin create big problems in nearly all working theories. There are a few ideas how to make superluminal neutrinos work, but they seem rather flimsy.
Weird thing is, pretty much all experiments and observations about neutrino speed and mass have not this far ruled out superluminal neutrinos. In fact, they seem to hint quite strongly towards that actually being the case. The mass squared of the neutrino has been measured to be negative in all neutrino mass experiments this far, although a positive mass has not been ruled out either. This would mean an imaginary mass for the neutrino, making it a superluminal particle. The neutrinos from supernovae have always been observed arriving before the light, although the time difference is too small if the speed of the neutrinos was consistent with the Opera result, going at such speed, you would expect them to arrive years before the light from the supernova. However, it is possible that the neutrinos created in supernovae are simply much much higher energy than the ones created at CERN. (The more energy a superluminal particle has, the slower it moves).
Overall a very interesting puzzle, if the new results can be confirmed by other neutrino experiments, this would certainly give theorists a lot to think about.
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On September 23 2011 16:43 Kickboxer wrote: It's hilarious how people believe science has the universe solved in the 21st century. Back in the 19th century, they probably believed that as well :p Kinda reminds me of some other people, you know those people who've also been sure about "everything" for a couple thousand years now...
Time to embrace our ignorance, boys!
Huh? Who claims that we have the universe solved?
Boldet part - If you are refering to religion, there is a fundamental difference; Physists adjust their views based on what is observed, religion does not
I have yet to hear anyone even related to science say "Yup, now we have it figured out" - It's doubtful that it will ever happen
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Does this means all the years I have studied about Physics are a waste if this is confirmed
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Can we please please put a neutrino detector on the moon and send the beam there for more accurate data?
And then hire me to work on the moon base? Please?
On September 23 2011 16:49 RogerX wrote: Does this means all the years I have studied about Physics are a waste if this is confirmed
Thank goodness I only took 2 relativity classes.
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Pandemona
Charlie Sheens House51319 Posts
Well, to be quite honest, im so glad someone has proved a theory of Einstein wrong (or possibly anyway)
The guy was discovering things and making theories over 60 years ago and we've only been able to prove (possibly) one of his theories wrong over that course with all this new technology we have created. To get farther in research you have to challenge theroies and hypothesis to the max and looks like this one is just about to change alot of things.
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as many already has stated this is either big, or a really big mistake. However they did the test over 60 times (according to reuters) and in all cases the neutrino was 60 nanoseconds faster then the light which was sent simultainously.
As a physicist myself I am really excited what this means ^^ The implications of this being true are enormous.. Not only is Einsteins Relativistic view on the universe wrong, but there is a risk that the standard model breaks down. Tbh I dont really know.. Particle physics isn't really my area..
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On September 23 2011 16:52 Singularity wrote: as many already has stated this is either big, or a really big mistake. However they did the test over 60 times (according to reuters) and in all cases the neutrino was 60 nanoseconds faster then the light which was sent simultainously.
As a physicist myself I am really excited what this means ^^ The implications of this being true are enormous.. Not only is Einsteins Relativistic view on the universe wrong, but there is a risk that the standard model breaks down. Tbh I dont really know.. Particle physics isn't really my area..
Actually, they have made the experiment 15.000 times.. The webcast today at 16:00 CEST should be interesting
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