Particles found to break speed of light
 

http://news.yahoo.com/particles-reco...164441657.html

GENEVA (Reuters) - An international team of scientists said on Thursday they had recorded sub-atomic particles traveling faster than light -- a finding that could overturn one of Einstein's long-accepted fundamental laws of the universe.

Antonio Ereditato, spokesman for the researchers, told Reuters that measurements taken over three years showed neutrinos pumped from CERN near Geneva to Gran Sasso in Italy had arrived 60 nanoseconds quicker than light would have done.

"We have high confidence in our results. We have checked and rechecked for anything that could have distorted our measurements but we found nothing," he said. "We now want colleagues to check them independently."

If confirmed, the discovery would undermine Albert Einstein's 1905 theory of special relativity, which says that the speed of light is a "cosmic constant" and that nothing in the universe can travel faster.

That assertion, which has withstood over a century of testing, is one of the key elements of the so-called Standard Model of physics, which attempts to describe the way the universe and everything in it works.

The totally unexpected finding emerged from research by a physicists working on an experiment dubbed OPERA run jointly by the CERN particle research center near Geneva and the Gran Sasso Laboratory in central Italy.

A total of 15,000 beams of neutrinos -- tiny particles that pervade the cosmos -- were fired over a period of 3 years from CERN toward Gran Sasso 730 (500 miles) km away, where they were picked up by giant detectors.

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.

"It is a tiny difference," said Ereditato, who also works at Berne University in Switzerland, "but conceptually it is incredibly important. The finding is so startling that, for the moment, everybody should be very prudent."

Ereditato declined to speculate on what it might mean if other physicists, who will be officially informed of the discovery at a meeting in CERN on Friday, found that OPERA's measurements were correct.

"I just don't want to think of the implications," he told Reuters. "We are scientists and work with what we know."

Much science-fiction literature is based on the idea that, if the light-speed barrier can be overcome, time travel might theoretically become possible.

The existence of the neutrino, an elementary sub-atomic particle with a tiny amount of mass created in radioactive decay or in nuclear reactions such as those in the Sun, was first confirmed in 1934, but it still mystifies researchers.

It can pass through most matter undetected, even over long distances, and without being affected. Millions pass through the human body every day, scientists say.

To reach Gran Sasso, the neutrinos pushed out from a special installation at CERN -- also home to the Large Hadron Collider probing the origins of the universe -- have to pass through water, air and rock.

The underground Italian laboratory, some 120 km (75 miles) to the south of Rome, is the largest of its type in the world for particle physics and cosmic research.

Around 750 scientists from 22 different countries work there, attracted by the possibility of staging experiments in its three massive halls, protected from cosmic rays by some 1,400 metres (4,200 feet) of rock overhead.

tl;dr

But I doubt we have any device that can measure the velocity or speed of anything traveling that fast.

LMAO

Yes, we do.

Why not?

Interesting story.

Wish I could remember the story a few months back.

Basically I'm gathering that the more we look at things, it seems the more there's out there we have no idea of how it works.

I'm from K-Pax and we can travel multiple times faster than C.

HOLY SHIT IF TRUE

Pretty much. Einstein was and is wrong.

Yes, but can these sub-atomic particles travel faster than the Speed of Love?

Such an age of discovery we live in. I can't wait to see where this goes...

Ok I read it.

I remember as a kid watching some movie in school about relativity and how the further away from Earth you are (or the speed you are moving...cant remember), the less time it takes to live in the same moment. Theoretically you could go travel space for a year, come back, and time would have advanced 5 years on Earth. I'm not sure what that is called, but I wonder if that has anything to do with this?

Are you trolling?

Science wrong? Color me surprised :rolleyes:

Yeah, Einstein, you ****ing dumbass.

You damned, dirty ape!

FYP

No....I'm not very well schooled in Physics, but it really fascinates me.

So lets say we shoot off these neutrinos at or near the speed of light towards the sensor. As they move away from us, they appear to be traveling faster than they are. They actually were only going the speed of light....

**** it, I have no idea to convey what I want to get across, I just don't really believe anything can go faster than the speed of light.

Make it so.

:spock:

It's called time dilation. And it happens only at measurable speeds in comparison to the speed of light (example .5c)

Well, it happens all the time, but it's just not noticeable or worth calculating.

Yeah, science is stupid.

I hate electronics, refrigeration, sanitation, and medical technology.

Yeah, science is gay.

Until Science can create a life like sex robot, I am unimpressed.

Scientists disprove Einstein and freaking Cassel can't complete a 15yd out.....Mind boggling!

You realize of course that science is all about making mistakes and challenging the way we perceive our universe, right? There can't be any discovery if we assume we already know everything.

Science rarely if ever deals in absolutes. It's why a physics course called Atomic Theory will always be called Atomic Theory and not Atomic Fact. Science admits when it's wrong, because that's kinda the point of the whole enterprise.

I wish someone would put a hat on Stephen Hawking that said, "Git R Dun" or "Judas Priest" or something and he drove around with it on, and didn't know.

Unlike Religion **Cough Cough**


Off to D.C We go!!!

Ehh, just saying we don't know NEARLY as much as we think we do. Next thing we know the Theory of Gravity will no longer be a theory.

Meh, Einstein only had an IQ of 160.

http://www.kids-iq-tests.com/famous-people.html

I remember when people said Jonathan Hayes was fast.

<iframe width="480" height="360" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/mg8_cKxJZJY" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

LMAO

Good for you, Frankie. Good for you.

OK, so in high school chemistry when I said in a quiz essay "Einstein was a total tool" I shouldn't have got an "F"???

My life as a scientist was forever ruined.

I'm suing the Kansas City Public School System.

Do they have any money????

In a related story, a new study at the CASSEL Research Institute show that sub-atomic particles of SUCK are emanating from One Arrowhead Drive at speeds more than a thousand times faster than the speed of light.

I was driving to the Denver airport and I saw what looked like a piece of debris shoot out of the sky downward. I was trying to find online if someone had spotted anything. Im sure it was space debris. And no it wasn't Knowshon Moreno putting on dazzling performance :-/.

If we could just protect the suck particles better, they wouldn't decay their environment so much /true fans

Fascinating...

I like how the scientist says everyone should be prudent about this.

We should be prudent in all things.

I'd love for this to be true.

The speed of light/speed of information barriers casts a dark light on future exploration of the universe.

Still trying to wrap my head around this.

What is your point exactly?

And...I...uh...I.... ROFL ROFL Wow

Scientists spend their careers trying to knock holes in the established theories. That's culture is to foster finding wrong answers and replacing them with better answers.

Entrepreneurship is the same way.

We could use more of a culture of championing failures. We'd be a lot better off if it was ok to make mistakes. It's how you learn and improve.

Without lamps, there'd be no light.

Interesting. I think we went from Division winner to much suckitude in about 60nanoseconds, also.

Why is the speed of light the measuring stick? I mean, duh, obviously there are things faster than it we have yet to encounter.

Yep. That's the thing about theories... they look great until disproven. But look at the value in discovering that the theory may be wrong. Now, we may find a host of new discoveries knowing where to look for them.

No shit. That's why we still have science.

I'm a genius because I can't build a lamp.

Ask Meg in the episode of "Family Guy," where her face melts.

LMAO

What is your point? That science is ever discovering new things at an amazing and exciting pace? You'd be correct. Science is wonderful.

You mock science for being wrong, I get excited by something that opens a LOT of doors for mankind. As I said, this is an amazing age of discovery. You should embrace it.

Well,Maxwell came up with the theory first.

So since we don't know nearly as much as we think we do, we should stop seeking knowledge?

BRAVO! :clap:

And, since the introduction of complex numbers, we are still challenged, to consolidate Newton's and his equations.

That one extra point must be the most important one, because no one's going to remember you even existed.

Is the same true for Christianity?

So the Theory of Relativity was wrong? I bet those folks in Hiroshima and Nagasaki are glad they aren't really dead.
Posted via Mobile Device

Not wrong... just incomplete..

And Einstein predicted as much. He was never content with his Theory of Relativity, and he always felt it was incomplete. He spent quite a bit of time searching for the next step, the Theory of Everything that would explain away the things he struggled with concerning his own theory.

But that's the brilliance of science as a whole. It's so self disciplined that it's always a work in progress. Ever evolving along with our understanding and discovery. So that it's constantly improved.

Maybe I dreamed this or maybe I was visited by the ghost of Herman Melville's brother Mel during an overdose event, but I thought that Max Planck's quantum mechanics theories had predicted this some time ago ... like say ... in the early 1900's or so. I seem to recall that, before they started jamming together, he called Einstein an ugly goober.

More recently, the whole concept of quantum disentanglement leads one to believe that the "speed of light" is not an impassible threshold since information between particles can be passed instantly over enormous distances.

FAX THE SCIENTIST DUDE

I think it is incorrect of the article to say that this finding (if true) undermines the special theory of relativity. By expanding the capabilities of the universe to exceed that theory in highly specialized environments only show it is merely limited, not that it is inherently wrong.

It's like saying relativity undermined copernicus's theory of gravity - when all it did was expand upon it and take it to a new level.

Btw - fantastic if true.

I've always felt that it was silly of us to think that in our current brief stage of evolution, that we could say with any confidence that "c" or any other figure, was the absolute fastest possible speed in the universe.

We have so much to learn... I'm just glad we're seeing so much cool shit during our lifetimes...

We had the speed of sound, and then we had the speed of light. Next up: the speed of smell.

Insta-stink FTW!

I've always considered it interesting that Einstein's "theory" of relativity is just that ... a "theory".

A theory is, essentially, a belief or a supposition. The more plausible the "theory", the more generally accepted it is, of course. But, so far as I know, the scientific community never referred to it as Einstein's Fact Of Relativity.

FAX

http://www.chiefsplanet.com/BB/showt...speed+of+light

This is it!


Thread is a good read.

Depends if GoChiefs is pumping you the love

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...ein_tongue.jpg

http://rubystuff.org/ludicrous/chicken.jpg
Colonel Sandurz: Prepare ship for light speed.
Dark Helmet: No, no, no, light speed is too slow.
Colonel Sandurz: Light speed, too slow?
Dark Helmet: Yes, we're gonna have to go right to nutrino speed!!!
http://img10.imageshack.us/img10/3443/sbev.jpg

Its like a black fly in your Chardonnay...

How many of Einstein's law are still holding up? This isn't his first that's been debunked.

FAX, you seem like a good guy. But this is a dumb post.

Not because it's wrong, but because you are stating the obvious.

Ooops, n00b insults the legend.
:popcorn:

Years ago, Mr. scorpio, when I was a mere N00b (sp?), I not only learned that William Carlos Williams was certifiably insane and a person whose work should be avoided at all costs, I also became acutely aware that stating the obvious is often necessary here on ChiefsPlanet. As I matured as a poster, I later came to realize that some people suffer from such severe, singular, one-dimensional thinking that they cannot see beyond the literal wording of each post they read. These are the posters, by the way, who tend to kill conversation while adding nothing to the discussion themselves.

With that in mind, please allow me to elaborate on my prior comment;

The scientific community (as I'm sure you are aware) have universally accepted Einstein's "theories" (both special and general) as a sort of gold standard in physics. It is taught as fundamental truth in most schools and physicists who have followed Einstein have sought to build upon his work.

Not only that, it's probably safe to say that, over the last 90 or so years, most assumptions made involving particle research, electrodynamics, cosmology, etc. are essentially based upon the "theory". This is due, no doubt, to the "fact" that, according to Einstein himself, the mathematics supporting relativity allow for no deviation. None. And this "fact" has been generally assumed by the scientific community since Einstein published.

Were this not the case, thoughtful persons would neither be shocked nor surprised to learn that the bases of the "theory" can be proven false.

To make it even clearer (hopefully), when or if Einstein is ultimately found to be wrong, much of the research which flowed from his "theory" is little more than a glass house built upon a glass foundation inhabited by glassholes not unlike yourself.

FAX

I totally believe it. I've witnessed particles exceeding the speed of light personally, although it usually happens after eating a burrito from a particular taco truck.

Perfectly put. God almighty,.... SOMEONE UNDERSTANDS!!! :clap:

Yeah, I get what you are saying. It's backwards and it doesn't apply though.

Word.

Cross thread humor.

Yeah, that's exactly what I said.