So how about my Neutrinos traveling faster than light

[Patrickssj6]

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/09/22/us-science-light-idUSTRE78L4FH20110922

[{XG}Gijs007]

Yea I just saw this, I wonder when faster then light travel will be possible ;)

[ejburke]

It has to be an error or some other phenomenon at work. I'm sure they didn't pump in the infinite amount of energy required to accelerate that particle to the speed of light and then an infinite amount more to push it beyond.

I used to like hearing stories about this kind of stuff. Then I studied the science and realized that it's never going to happen. The implications of an object appearing outside of its light cone are enormous and paradoxical.

[NullZero]

If not down to miscalculations:

mind = blown

[Patrickssj6]

I used to like hearing stories about this kind of stuff. Then I studied the science and realized that it's never going to happen.
You base your science on what humanity knows. Have you ever wondered why a dog cannot grasp the simplest concept, who says that humans are capable of understanding everything. Just an interesting thought :P

If this wasn't for CERN (and its thorough research) I wouldn't even bother to post.

[ejburke]

The problem is not that we don't understand how to do FTL. The problem is that FTL travel of information is at odds with just about every physical concept that we DO understand. Causality, energy, space, time. Throwing FTL into the mix means discarding everything we know that has led us to this "discovery". And, oh, by the way: if distances in space become arbitrary, then distances in time become arbitrary as well. The big implication from FTL is not being able to go farther and faster, it's being able to go to some distant place, return before you left, and have a conversation with yourself.

I don't believe in that kind of timeline-splitting stuff, so I don't believe that we'll ever be able to travel faster than 1 Planck Length in 1 Planck Time -- traversing the smallest measurable unit of distance in the smallest measurable unit of time, which not so coincidentally is the speed of information (c).

[MXC]

We really need to get out of this mentality of what we can't do. If there is even a sliver of the universe we don't understand, then there is room to advance.

Whatever happened to the whole philosophy of "Why not?"

[Patrickssj6]

I don't want to debate about this with you since you clearly know a bit more than I do but you should not oversee the fact that you make conclusions based on just human invented terms.

Our world distracts us from thinking in terms of physics.

[ThePlague]

inb4 Star Trek.

[Jelly]

FTL ftl. lmao. peace

[=sw=warlord]

The problem is that FTL travel of information is at odds with just about every physical concept that we DO understand. Causality, energy, space, time.
If the universe is deterministic then how can Free choice exist?

[thehoodedsmack]

Warlord, I don't think that has anything to do with what he said. That said, no, free-will as the concept we apply to it does not exist.

[n00b1n8R]

Unless this gets debunked hard, this happened and we need to accept that our current model is wrong. That's a good thing, it means we're opening the door for an objectively better one. Standard models have been wrong plenty of times before so it's not that odd.

[TVTyrant]

Fuck, people can barely understand each other, so how are4 we supposed to say that something is simply impossible and write it right off?

[MXC]

Fuck, people can barely understand each other, so how are4 we supposed to say that something is simply impossible and write it right off?

This needs to be t-shirted. Or made into a poster.

[EX12693]

Hmm.... Cave Johnson should be running the show in those labs. Then we'll get results!

[Phopojijo]

Hmm.... Cave Johnson should be running the show in those labs. Then we'll get results!It's a shame he died of overexposure to carcinogens -- but there's no sense crying over every mistake, let's just keep on trying 'til we run out of cake.

[EX12693]

Meh. I always believed FTL was possible, just had no idea how. Now we need to look into these neutrinos.

[ejburke]

I had a wall of text written before I realized it was turning into some kind of blow-hardy lecture that people either wouldn't get or wouldn't believe.

That's what it all really comes down to: belief. I don't believe in faster than light travel because I see an overwhelming number of problems with a universe where such a thing is possible. None of those problems has anything to do with how it's done. If I just imagine, hypothetically, that FTL exists, that's when the shit starts hitting the fan. "Hmm. FTL = time machine + ultimate weapon of mass destruction in one convenient package. Awesome."

The best analogy I can come up with is Mermaids. If they exist by some biolodical twist of fate, how are you supposed to F them? And wouldn't their human skin get all shriveled and prune-y? If Bigfoot lives in the Pacific northwest, where is he finding a rich enough food source to sustain a large primate brain amidst all those pine trees, without hunting tools, and being rarely seen?

I didn't set out to liken FTL to mythical creations. It's just the only comparison that seems apt.

And by the way, if you really think that established scientific theory is as easily overturned as a game of Monopoly you're losing, then this conversation is kind of pointless. Our understanding of the universe currently has a lot of babies in that bathwater. Still room for more babies and less bathwater, but it's clear that the scientific track we're on is going in a positive direction and changes made have to agree with the things that have been well established.

[=sw=warlord]

Warlord, I don't think that has anything to do with what he said. That said, no, free-will as the concept we apply to it does not exist.
Whoosh.
Straight over your head.

Causality determines there is no choice made by an individual without it being influenced by previous experiences.
We are no less instinctive [IE: bound to certain choices] than the animals in the wild, we just have more tools at our disposal to fulfill it.

On topic now, all we need now is to build a Crucible and get started on that Reality Bomb.

[sleepy1212]

I was under the impression that it was understood that the current models are wrong. Or, at best, sorta right plus or minus a few undiscovered particles and forces.

I hope no one's holding their breath over this. It seems like every other week someone thinks they've found ftl/gravitrons/god and then there's no follow up to read.

[Tnnaas]

Oh, joy! Turns out there's a discusson on this same article on another site I routinely visit.
I haven't the intelligence to discuss this topic with any of you. Please feel free to investigate the views of others that I know.


Could this mean the end of the world? (http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/09/22/us-science-light-idUSTRE78L4FH20110922)

How would that translate into being the end of the world...?

According to the theory of relativity, as objects travel faster than the speed of light, it creates the possibility of backwards time travel, which in turn can cause paradoxes and other such non-sense that could unravel the universe.

But how would a paradox unravel the entire universe? Sure, it may endlessly perplex the human mind and lock up computers, but the universe is neither. I just don't see it happening.

Plus, if Einstein actually was wrong about objects traveling the speed of light, who's to say that he wasn't wrong about it creating the possibility of backwards time travel?

Oh god no, not another space time paradox discussion. Or continuum at that matter.
And this is where the other group goes off topic. Slice this any way you see fit.

[Donut]

neutrinos pumped from CERN near Geneva to Gran Sasso in Italy had arrived 60 nanoseconds quicker than light would have done...

Light would have covered the distance in around 2.4 thousandths of a second, but the neutrinos took 60 nanoseconds -- or 60 billionths of a second -- less than light beams would have taken.

:raise:
so which is it? did the particles get there in 6*10^-9 seconds or were they 6*10^-9 seconds faster than light?

[Zeph]

it's a simple philosophy of mine, but I've never believed the speed of light as a constant. If you can slow something down, you can speed it up. The whole idea that two bodies traveling towards one another can only have a relativistic speed of c towards one another doesn't sit well with me.

This could also simply be a problem of poor geolocation mapping. I know that these guys are pro at math and can determine their margins of error well, but they're so absorbed into their research they may have taken positioning for granted when chugging numbers.

[Patrickssj6]

Press release hurr (http://press.web.cern.ch/press/PressReleases/Releases2011/PR19.11E.html)

[kid908]

It has to be an error or some other phenomenon at work. I'm sure they didn't pump in the infinite amount of energy required to accelerate that particle to the speed of light and then an infinite amount more to push it beyond.

I used to like hearing stories about this kind of stuff. Then I studied the science and realized that it's never going to happen. The implications of an object appearing outside of its light cone are enormous and paradoxical.

This data has to be scrutinized, as all data in science. Remember, they're playing this as a measurement, not a discovery. Measurements are bound by a margin of error. The speed of those neutrinos were measured by technology, making it bound for systematic error, which can make it false data.

You also need to remember that neutrinos is, by definition, dark matter as it does not interact with EMR like visible matter that most of our data is based upon. We don't know the true nature of dark matter since we can't detect them with any form of EMR, our main form of understanding the universe before us. Light is EMR, but it does not interact with neutrinos, meaning their true nature still escapes us for the most part.

As for paradoxical, we still don't know how dark matter works enough to even judge if it is paradoxical to nature. Jumping to the conclusion of light matter FTL from an observation of dark matter is a huge leap.

Theories are based on observation and data, if new data rises, it should be looked at and be confirmed. After which a new working model of the universe be worked around the new data and old data. We can't dismiss the data, but we should not believe the data until it can be replicated. Just take it for what it is, an announcement of new possibilities.

Side note: My UGS, Undergraduate studies, class is examination of popular articles and how it compares to scientific articles and from what I'm getting from the class, there's alot that is lost between science jargon and language everyday people can understand.

[TVTyrant]

If Bigfoot lives in the Pacific northwest, where is he finding a rich enough food source to sustain a large primate brain amidst all those pine trees, without hunting tools, and being rarely seen?
Wat.

Do you even live here? It would be incredibly easy for a primate to sustain itself in the Northwest. There are 5 native types of edible berries, fish runs that go year round, massive numbers of deer/elk that inhabit the mountains, flat valleys full of food, leafing plants, ferns. And not to mention if it ever happened across the sea at low tide it could collect enough food to last it days in clams and mussels.

I'm not saying it exists because i'm pretty sure it does not, but there is a huge bounty of resources here across Oregon, Washington and BC that are easily harvested.

[ejburke]

Dude, don't take my word for it. Go watch the fucking Science Channel. That's where I got that from.

The Pac NW doesn't have enough in the way of fruit to sustain a 7' primate. Berries and pine cones aren't going to cut it. They don't have tools for bringing down big game. And primates don't (can't) hibernate during the winter when food is even more scarce.

The brain is a gas guzzler, that's why encephalization is such a rarity in nature.

[TVTyrant]

You don't need fruit to sustain a primate though. The massive quantities of shell fish would provide more than enough protein to sustain the animals brain. And the runs of fish in rivers here is ridiculous. If the animal could wade it would be easy to catch fish.

[TM_updates]

Why do people like ejburke shoot this kind of stuff down IMMEDIATELY.
Wait for the extra investigations, if they confirm it then...cool, if they don't...well then some of us got excited for no reason.

Either way it's pointless to discuss the possibility or inpossibility of this stuff (especially the inpossibility) since the human mind and brain is simply limited no matter how clever we may think we are.

[=sw=warlord]

Why do people like ejburke shoot this kind of stuff down IMMEDIATELY.
Wait for the extra investigations, if they confirm it then...cool, if they don't...well then some of us got excited for no reason.


Because it rubs them the wrong way and makes them concerned about truths they thought were concrete fact.
The only constant in the universe is that facts are not set in hardened Graphene tablets, facts get altered on a daily basis, removed, exchanged and replaced it's just that this one which if proven correct, will have far reaching implications.

[RedBaron]

I feel like this discovery will not bring us closer to FTL travel, but instead broaden our understanding of a subcategory of physics. Just like how Newtonian physics doesn't apply well to the atomic/subatomic and macro astronomic scales, there may just well be a different set of rules for dark matter. Just because certain particles that are even more discreet than those in EMW's can travel FTL, doesn't translate into actual mass being able to do the same. If you think about it, the smallest mass recordable by human means is probably infinitely more massive than a single particle of dark matter. This is only an assumption on my part, but if it were true, then it could explain the relationship between needing an infinite amount of energy to move something at FTL.

I am no expert on this, but I believe that the scientists' results are due to more than just human/machine error. Afterall, it did take them 3 years to come to their conclusion.

[kid908]

I feel like this discovery will not bring us closer to FTL travel, but instead broaden our understanding of a subcategory of physics. Just like how Newtonian physics doesn't apply well to the atomic/subatomic and macro astronomic scales, there may just well be a different set of rules for dark matter. Just because certain particles that are even more discreet than those in EMW's can travel FTL, doesn't translate into actual mass being able to do the same. If you think about it, the smallest mass recordable by human means is probably infinitely more massive than a single particle of dark matter. This is only an assumption on my part, but if it were true, then it could explain the relationship between needing an infinite amount of energy to move something at FTL. I am no expert on this, but I believe that the scientists' results are due to more than just human/machine error. Afterall, it did take them 3 years to come to their conclusion. Neutrino's mass has never been recorded. Only it's energy. We expect it to have mass, but that doesn't mean it will have mass. Just an example from chemistry, bonding does not always occur how we expect them to. [NO3]^- is an example. We expect it to have 2 single N-O bonds and 1 double N=O bond, but measurements does not support this.

[Patrickssj6]

AFAIK light has no mass and that is why there is nothing faster. If you want to accelerate an object you need to pump energy into it but at some point that energy will not increase its speed but its mass.

[Pooky]

Because it rubs them the wrong way and makes them concerned about facts they thought were concrete truth.

Sorry, that was just bugging me.

[Zeph]

AFAIK light has no mass and that is why there is nothing faster. If you want to accelerate an object you need to pump energy into it but at some point that energy will not increase its speed but its mass.
CERN was looking for a Higgs Boson particle to explain why photons are seemingly massless. It could be that light would attain [further] mass when being pushed beyond its limit in speed creating a relativistic gravity field or there's something we still don't know yet that allows light, and possibly all other particles under the correct condition, to move at a rate higher than c.

[=sw=warlord]

Sorry, that was just bugging me.
Truth is relative to the situation.
What may be true for one thing may not be true for another.

[nuttyyayap]

Light can move so fast because it has no mass, therefore it gains no weight the faster it travels.
Neutrinos have no mass, so this is plausable :downs:
FLT travel won't happen though, sorry!

[CN3089]

Neutrinos have no mass

gvdf5n-zI14

[kid908]

Light can move so fast because it has no mass, therefore it gains no weight the faster it travels.
Neutrinos have no mass, so this is plausable :downs:
FLT travel won't happen though, sorry!

In May 2010, it was reported that physicists from CERN (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CERN) and the Italian National Institute for Nuclear Physics (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Istituto_Nazionale_di_Fisica_Nucleare)' Gran Sasso National Laboratory (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laboratori_Nazionali_del_Gran_Sasso) had observed for the first time a transformation in neutrinos; evidence that they have mass.

excerpt from wikipedia.

[Zeph]

Light can move so fast because it has no mass, therefore it gains no weight the faster it travels.
Neutrinos have no mass, so this is plausable :downs:
FLT travel won't happen though, sorry!

Kinda breaks E=mc^2

[MXC]

Well then, just build an engine that envelops the ship in a sort of anti-mass field, temporarily decreasing the mass to nothing.

[CN3089]

Kinda breaks E=mc^2

but that's the equation for rest energy!!

[Donut]

which is funny since c is a velocity.

[TVTyrant]

energy(joules)=mass*velocity^2

[Pooky]

Truth is relative to the situation.
What may be true for one thing may not be true for another.

I corrected your post because you used the words 'truth' and 'fact' incorrectly. They're not interchangeable.

[Sanctus]

Well then, just build an engine that envelops the ship in a sort of anti-mass field, temporarily decreasing the mass to nothing.
Lawl Mass Effect

Also this pretty much sums up what I think about the whole thing:

2381

[Guardian]

Did they count for the earths rotation? :P

[Zeph]

but that's the equation for rest energy!!
Are you suggesting light can't transfer energy?

[n00b1n8R]

ITT: I am a particle physicist, why aren't you?

[ejburke]

It is well understood in modern science that all mass has energy, but not all energy has mass. Particles can have momentum without mass and thus transfer energy. E=mc^2 is most practically used as a conversion equation. For instance, you could calculate how much mass a beam of light would have, were it converted to a massive energy state. But if you want to get technical and use it as a general expression, then you have to understand the difference between invariant mass and relativistic mass. The invariant mass of light is determined to be 0, but if you were to share the reference frame of a beam of light -- travel at its speed, in a parallel direction -- then it could be observed to have non-zero relativistic mass.


Well then, just build an engine that envelops the ship in a sort of anti-mass field, temporarily decreasing the mass to nothing. I guess nobody told Sheperd that he's flying around in a time machine. Saving the galaxy would be so much easier if he saw fit to use his causality-violating machine to actually violate causality. I let it go, because it's more fun to pretend that it's possible to travel that far and fast while keeping the entire galaxy's wristwatches in perfect sync.

[Patrickssj6]

FY general I: E=MC^2 is incomplete because it does it include the energy of momentum.