[sicophiliac]

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2011/09/2 ... FH20110922

Its only barely faster than light based on what I have read and I wouldn't at all be surprised if these findings get revised and found to be nothing more than a miscalculation later. Its an interesting read though.

[dolanbaker]

Time to recalibrate the instruments me thinks....

[sicophiliac]

Yeah I agree that its probably a mistake, but imagine if its not. That discovery alone would make the whole CERN project worthwhile.

[Outcast_Searcher]

If this turns out to be for real, so much for thinking we are getting REMOTELY close to understanding a good model for how the universe works. Dark matter. Dark energy. Tachyons proven.

This is NOT your father's cosmology.

[jedrider]

If this turns out to be for real, so much for thinking we are getting REMOTELY close to understanding a good model for how the universe works. Dark matter. Dark energy. Tachyons proven.

This is NOT your father's cosmology.

Transporters. Beam me up Scottie! Let's find another planet to loot!

Unfortunately, got to be an error somewhere in their calculation.

I was reading that as much as we like to believe that science is revolutionary, it has actually been evolutionary in the 20th century as regards physics -- and other sciences as well -- refining our understanding but not necessary invalidating existing theories.

[rockdoc123]

where is it written that nothing can be faster than the speed of light? Do any of you know how that concept came into mainstream thinking? Do I have to lecture everyone here?
Science is all about exploring the boundaries of our knowledge...this is an excellent case in point. The one true fact is that we know less than we think we do, and if you actually think about that statement it is an epiphany of the obvious.
Too bad the so-called climate scientists can't seem to challenge their own belief system.

[rangerone314]

Good god, its obvious what happened... with enormous magnetic fields they've probably distorted time/space, i.e. neutrinos didn't have to travel as far, hence they seemed to be going faster.

[Keith_McClary]

where is it written that nothing can be faster than the speed of light? Do any of you know how that concept came into mainstream thinking? Do I have to lecture everyone here?

It's not exactly "written", whatever you mean by that. Faster than the speed of light means that messages can be sent into the past. Go ahead and lecture, please.

[EnergyUnlimited]

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2011/09/22/us-science-light-idUKTRE78L4FH20110922

Its only barely faster than light based on what I have read and I wouldn't at all be surprised if these findings get revised and found to be nothing more than a miscalculation later. Its an interesting read though.

Lets wait for further confirmations before getting too excited...
If true, these neutrinos are probably born as FTL particles and special relativity is safe regardless...

[dorlomin]

where is it written that nothing can be faster than the speed of light? Do any of you know how that concept came into mainstream thinking? Do I have to lecture everyone here?

It's not exactly "written", whatever you mean by that. Faster than the speed of light means that messages can be sent into the past. Go ahead and lecture, please.

That is a heuristic not a law. We cannot accelerate body with mass to the speed of light because as it gets faster it appears to gain mass. The closer to c the more mass. It approaches near infite mass at near c hence requires infinite energy to accelerate.

[dorlomin]

I am dredging deep into the memory here and should actually do a bit of rereading on this but Feynman reckoned any particle moving backward in time was in effect its anti particle so if the nutrino was moving back in time it is quite likely to have had a rather notable property.

From the observers perspective you would see the nutrino arrive before it left, but then you would actually see an anti nutrino created in front of you then moving back towards the experiment to see it destroyed.

Anyone know if Im wrong on this?

[rockdoc123]

If memory serves Feynman talked about virtual photons which had the property to go faster or slower than the conventional speed of light. I think he talks about this in his book on light and matter.
There was a lot of discussion in the physics community a decade ago with regards to theories on the variable speed of light. I haven't paid much attention to particle physics discussions for many years so please educate me!

[Windmills]

Can't particles travel faster than light through a medium? Aren't these neutrinos passing through a medium from their point of origin to the detector? I thought the speed of light limitation only applied to a vacuum cleaner. Uh, vacuum.

[evilgenius]

Good god, its obvious what happened... with enormous magnetic fields they've probably distorted time/space, i.e. neutrinos didn't have to travel as far, hence they seemed to be going faster.

It doesn't have to be a distortion from magnetic fields either. They shot the neutrinos through solid rock. The standard model doesn't say that should be a problem, but packed mass could have an influence on the curvature of spacetime (enough for this slight variance). Also there is potentially angular momentum at work in the interaction of a neutrino and this presentation of spacetime. This ought only to cause it to distort, like light that has shifted, but if it also causes an interaction with spacetime such a thing could produce this same result by taking advantage of what packed mass is doing. It's like the neutrino took a shortcut, but only if you choose to see it that way. Along that shortcut it would not have been going faster than light.

Those things are much more likely because events in space have been captured from which subsequent particles have arrived at earth. These events also released neutrinos, which did not get here early.

[Rod_Cloutier]

So thev've determined some minute particles can travel slightly faster than the speed of light. Practical engineering and usage value of this discovery...........................

[dinopello]

So thev've determined some minute particles can travel slightly faster than the speed of light. Practical engineering and usage value of this discovery...........................

Basically, it means the shit will hit the fan before you ever see it coming. If you switch the fan off when you see the shit coming, you are already covered in it.

[dorlomin]

If memory serves Feynman talked about virtual photons which had the property to go faster or slower than the conventional speed of light. I think he talks about this in his book on light and matter.
There was a lot of discussion in the physics community a decade ago with regards to theories on the variable speed of light. I haven't paid much attention to particle physics discussions for many years so please educate me!

Feynman was talking about 'force carriers' part of the guage theory (quantum electrodynamics), all forces require a particle to carry it. I have strong doubts that the speed of light varies in that but perhaps Feynman was talking from the perspective of the photon. I will need to do a bit of refresher reading round this.

The variable speed of light was kicking around in the 90s as part of the explanation for something like the speed of the universes expansion (inflation) or something. I think that is all way on the back burner these days.

Anyway I would say 99% likely experimental error. 0.999% that it is something to do with the bit of space-time that the particles are passing through (some weird kink in it or perhaps the famed rolled up dimensions)

And maybe just 0.0001% particles traveling faster than c.

[dorlomin]

If memory serves Feynman talked about virtual photons which had the property to go faster or slower than the conventional speed of light. I think he talks about this in his book on light and matter.

The uncertainty principle implies that individual photons may travel for short distances at speeds somewhat faster (or slower) than c, even in a vacuum; this possibility must be taken into account when enumerating Feynman diagrams for a particle interaction.[22] It has since been proven that not even a single photon may travel faster than "c".

In quantum mechanics, virtual particles may travel faster than light, and this phenomenon is related to the fact that static field effects (which are mediated by virtual particles in quantum terms) may travel faster than light (see section on static fields above). However, macroscopically these fluctuations average out, so that photons do travel in straight lines over long (i.e., non-quantum) distances, and they do travel at the speed of light on average. Therefore, this does not imply the possibility of superluminal information transmission.

Ye olde Heisenberg.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faster-tha ... _mechanics

That sounds like it.

[dinopello]

For Feynman fans, I would recommend finding the videos of the lectures he gave on QED at the University of Auckland in New Zealand. It was geared to laymen. I bought them many years ago on VHS tapes. I'll bet they are on the internet somewhere.

Feynman is so fun to watch and listen to. One could imagine working next to him on a construction job or something. He was not the run-of-the-mill genius physicist.

[Serial_Worrier]

This is all nice, but neutrinos have nothing to do with our ordinary lives or even celestial mechanics.