# Faster than the speed of light



## TxllxT (Mar 2, 2011)

Again the CERN in Geneva has got a particle flying faster than the speed of light. Perhaps this has caused harddisks to crash.....


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## Polednice (Sep 13, 2009)

Did anyone see the BBC documentary on this, hosted by Marcus du Sautoy?


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## Aramis (Mar 1, 2009)

I thought that Liszt proved that you can cross the speed of light centuries ago.


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## waldvogel (Jul 10, 2011)

The trouble with CERN's experiment is that it needs to measure a 730 km long path to within ±18 m - that's the distance that light would travel in 60 nanoseconds. This path must go through the Earth's crust, so it's not as if the neutrinos and the light waves used to calibrate the experiment were taking the same path. So there's a huge possibility of measuring either distance wrong, and hence getting the neutrinos' speed wrong. 

The neutrino also has a rest mass of zero, so nothing in General Relativity precludes it from traveling faster than the speed of light. I'm pretty sure that, if it did travel faster than c, the neutrino would actually "age" at a negative rate during its 2.4 millisecond route from Geneva to Gran Sasso. It might also lose energy (and thereby go faster!) if it interacted with particles along the way.


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

It seems unlikely, but I wonder if these guys are getting into relativistic speeds when they obtain the neutrinos.


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## Philip (Mar 22, 2011)

waldvogel said:


> The trouble with CERN's experiment is that it needs to measure a 730 km long path to within ±18 m - that's the distance that light would travel in 60 nanoseconds. This path must go through the Earth's crust, so it's not as if the neutrinos and the light waves used to calibrate the experiment were taking the same path. So there's a huge possibility of measuring either distance wrong, and hence getting the neutrinos' speed wrong.
> 
> The neutrino also has a rest mass of zero, so nothing in General Relativity precludes it from traveling faster than the speed of light. I'm pretty sure that, if it did travel faster than c, the neutrino would actually "age" at a negative rate during its 2.4 millisecond route from Geneva to Gran Sasso. It might also lose energy (and thereby go faster!) if it interacted with particles along the way.


Correct me if i'm wrong, but i think both of your points are slightly off... Firstly, any actual measurement such as length is accounted for in the uncertainty, and the results fall well outside this uncertainty, hence they are significant. Secondly, data has shown that neutrinos supposedly have non-zero mass. Adding to that, even if it had null mass, it would travel at exactly c.

I'm sure mmsbls can elaborate on that...


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## KaerbEmEvig (Dec 15, 2009)

Philip said:


> Correct me if i'm wrong, but i think both of your points are slightly off... Firstly, any actual measurement such as length is accounted for in the uncertainty, and the results fall well outside this uncertainty, hence they are significant. Secondly, data has shown that neutrinos supposedly have non-zero mass. Adding to that, even if it had null mass, it would travel at exactly c.
> 
> I'm sure mmsbls can elaborate on that...


You're correct in both instances.


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## Huilunsoittaja (Apr 6, 2010)

Now why would someone be so skeptical about the idea of something moving faster than light? Would it actually break down anything we know? Would it really cause anyone extreme confusion over the nature of reality?


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## Kopachris (May 31, 2010)

Huilunsoittaja said:


> Now why would someone be so skeptical about the idea of something moving faster than light? Would it actually break down anything we know? Would it really cause anyone extreme confusion over the nature of reality?


No.


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## kv466 (May 18, 2011)

Well said, Pinguino...it would simply be another speed and not that important at all.

Good thing they have all this grant money to waste, though, while some of us really work.


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## Philip (Mar 22, 2011)

Huilunsoittaja said:


> Now why would someone be so skeptical about the idea of something moving faster than light? Would it actually break down anything we know? Would it really cause anyone extreme confusion over the nature of reality?


facepalm



Kopachris said:


> No.


double facepalm



kv466 said:


> Well said, Pinguino...it would simply be another speed and not that important at all.
> 
> Good thing they have all this grant money to waste, though, while some of us really work.


TRIPLE facepalm


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## Aramis (Mar 1, 2009)

Philip said:


> facepalm
> 
> double facepalm
> 
> TRIPLE facepalm


Mahler facepalm:


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## Philip (Mar 22, 2011)

Aramis said:


> Mahler facepalm:


Foucault double headpalm:


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## Philip (Mar 22, 2011)

Aramis said:


> Mahler facepalm:


the best you got??? (Stravinsky earpalm)


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## NightHawk (Nov 3, 2011)

So long as it makes my computer run faster.



waldvogel said:


> The trouble with CERN's experiment is that it needs to measure a 730 km long path to within ±18 m - that's the distance that light would travel in 60 nanoseconds. This path must go through the Earth's crust, so it's not as if the neutrinos and the light waves used to calibrate the experiment were taking the same path. So there's a huge possibility of measuring either distance wrong, and hence getting the neutrinos' speed wrong.
> 
> The neutrino also has a rest mass of zero, so nothing in General Relativity precludes it from traveling faster than the speed of light. I'm pretty sure that, if it did travel faster than c, the neutrino would actually "age" at a negative rate during its 2.4 millisecond route from Geneva to Gran Sasso. It might also lose energy (and thereby go faster!) if it interacted with particles along the way.


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## Couchie (Dec 9, 2010)

I'm amused you all buy the Official Story. You really think they got 7 billion in funding to **** around with particles for ***** and giggles? 

Nope, they're making an antimatter bomb, a bomb to end all bombs which will be necessary to transition the United Nations to the new One World Government where nations will be given the choice of either surrendering to the New One World Government or facing utter annihilation.

Also that's 7 billion EUROS, not USD (soon to be known as the Adjusted Theoretical Currency of the Former United States). Think about that for a bit, you sheep.


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

Huilunsoittaja said:


> Now why would someone be so skeptical about the idea of something moving faster than light? Would it actually break down anything we know? Would it really cause anyone extreme confusion over the nature of reality?


Those are excellent questions. It may seem as though the speed of light is a somewhat arbitrary value and physics would not change if something could go faster, but actually it would potentially impact much of physics.

_Would it actually break down anything we know?_ Very much so. Einstein's Special Relativity describes the dynamics of all particles and explicitly prohibits particles from accelerating to or past the speed of light. The neutrino has mass, and therefore, must travel slower than the speed of light. Special Relativity has been extensively tested in particle accelerators (like CERN) all over the world for over 60 years. In addition thousands of accelerators for non-research purposes (radiotherapy and other industrial processes) have operated for many decades. All of these devices operate on the principles of Special Relativity.

_Would it really cause anyone extreme confusion over the nature of reality?_. That depends on what you mean by extreme confusion. Physicists consider Special Relativity one of the most important principles of the physical world. Essentially _every_ physics theory proposed in the past 100 years includes the principles of Special Relativity. If a theory violates Special Relativity, physics will be extraordinarily skeptical of the theory. Certainly if experiments verify that certain particles can exceed the speed of light, there will be "crisis" in physics in the sense that many (most?) theorists will drop what they are doing and work on new theories that incorporate the faster-than-light phenomena.


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

kv466 said:


> Good thing they have all this grant money to waste, though, while some of us really work.


I'm not sure if you're joking, but the question of how to spend public money on research is enormously important. For a long time people have realized that technology drives the economy as well as many improvements in the standard of living. In general money spent on basic science has the largest returns. Unfortunately it's hard to know what those returns will be and when they will occur.

I believe the largest return on investment ever was time and money spent on the understanding of basic particles and forces (what CERN does now) about 150 years ago. That work led to the Electromagnetic Theory which dominates most people's lives today (computers, electronic devices, electrical power, much medical technology, phones, etc.).

Incidentally, the World Wide Web was developed by a researcher at CERN in 1989. I guess most of us are thankful for his work.


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## TxllxT (Mar 2, 2011)

I rather see money spent on this fundamental research than sending men/women to Mars. I also support the idea to have drones replacing all war aircraft & space aircraft.


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

TxllxT said:


> I rather see money spent on this fundamental research than sending men/women to Mars. I also support the idea to have drones replacing all war aircraft & space aircraft.


I am not much interested in the former endeavor; I'd rather see the development and propagation of Dyson Spheres. As to the latter... space aircraft?


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## AmateurComposer (Sep 13, 2009)

waldvogel said:


> The neutrino also has a rest mass of zero, so nothing in General Relativity precludes it from traveling faster than the speed of light. I'm pretty sure that, if it did travel faster than c, the neutrino would actually "age" at a negative rate during its 2.4 millisecond route from Geneva to Gran Sasso. It might also lose energy (and thereby go faster!) if it interacted with particles along the way.


Rest mass zero is also the property of the light particle, the photon. Yet light has been never observed to move faster than light.

Interestingly, Sommerfeld introduced the concept of speed of information, and equated it to the speed of light. His point in doing so is that speed of information *must be by definition* the fastest speed of any physical entity. Anything faster would provide information faster and by doing so would redefine the speed of information.

Therefore, according to Sommerfeld, if these neutrinos move faster than light, they redefine the speed of information.


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## Igneous01 (Jan 27, 2011)

Kind of makes me think of quantum entanglement, and the supposed simultaneous actions of two or more particles that have been entangled - no matter their position or distance to one another. 

Has any light been shed on this anomaly?


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