CERN detects neutrinos exceeding the speed of light....Einstein turns in grave!

[Assassin]

http://press.web.cern.ch/press/pressreleases/Releases2011/PR19.11E.html

It'll probably take them 3 years to corroborate the results, but if its true this would be monumental.

[Sapphire]

Layman's terms please?

[David75]

Well, since 1905 and Einstein's theories, we have a rule that nothing can exceed the speed of light in vacuum

Since then, no observations have been able to demonstrate phenomenon that truly are exceeding that limit.

It's a bit hard to exactly understant all that implies, but basically it would be grounds for new theories going beyond what we currently use.
Some think we could break the causality principles, exploring time travel... at least for information.

Interresting fact is that we just had Steins Gate talking time travel and CERN

[Assassin]

basically something has exceeded the speed of light, which under the Standard Model of physics is supposed to be a universal constant and cannot be exceeded.

This effectively makes all our models and theory's from the past 100 years wrong (if true). So now you dont have to go to physics class :p

[Uchiha Barles]

Man...I know this is the kind of thing that should be exciting, but at the same time, I can't help but feel a little bit of apprehension in a "...oh ffs...again?" sort of way.

[David75]

Theories are merely tools we use to describe the world around us and be able design devices with a controlled behavior.
Theories have limits and people search for those limits in order to either create new theory or adapt it.

But that doesn't mean a new theory will necessarilly kill a previous one.

For example we know that Newton's laws are not 100% true. But they are more that sufficient for most of the buildings, bridges humanity build everyday. It's even enough to send probes to Mars!
We still use it in most cases, because it's easy to understand and calculations are also possible for well educated technicians/engineers with the aid of computers when needed.
Relativity is more precise, but a hell lot more difficult for a marginal difference in precision in most of today's humanity needs.

[Kraco]

I hope this is true and not just an error from an unknown source. Considering you don't need to go further than the next planet to find the speed of light annoyingly slow already (in communications), anything proving it's possible to break that limit is welcome. Not that it would likely matter much during our lifetime.

[David75]

I hope this is true and not just an error from an unknown source. Considering you don't need to go further than the next planet to find the speed of light annoyingly slow already (in communications), anything proving it's possible to break that limit is welcome. Not that it would likely matter much during our lifetime.

I did not cover that part yet, but yes, it is still possible there's a mistake in either the system settings or result analysis.

Thing is the detector and its location aren't things you can get easily and quickly. So you need time to get a good contradiction.
You could always be hard on people, thinking this is a way to get your reasearch money granted for some more years...

[Edort4]

I remember reading or watching some documentary talking about this years ago. Maybe this is the first time they measured it but I believe that it has been theorized with great basis long way back. Something about neutrinos not having mass at all how we understand it or being out of phase thus not being applied all the known laws.

Most theories under scientific method just pretend to exlain certain circunstances with the tools and knowledge of their time not closing doors to further improvements and even refundations.

For example Einsntein dedicated almost the last 20 years of his life trying to make a "universal" law that clould close the gap between gravitation and electromagnetic forces. He percieved some flaw in its laws but sadly didnt live enough to withness the new discoveries about strong & weak nuclear forces or the chord theories.

Anyway this is just another proof of all we dont know yet. Some theories say that we live in a 10 dimensional space, with us only percieving 30% of it. We dont even know what the 95% of the universes matter is so this is just another incognite.

[Kagemane_no_Jutsu]

Anyway this is just another proof of all we dont know yet. Some theories say that we live in a 10 dimensional space, with us only percieving 30% of it. We dont even know what the 95% of the universes matter is so this is just another incognite.

This is what thrills me most. When I started reading this I was thinking we probably move in slow motion compared to the other 95% of energy thats condensed to an even smaller form.

[David75]

I hope there isn't a mistake in distance/time measurement.
I hope we are not witnessing a periodic effect... meaning what we think are neutrinos that are FTL are in fact neutrinos that we too slow from a previous wave.
I hope we are not mistaking neutrinos from other sources, after all, earth is constantly bathed in gazillions of neutrinos passing through each second.

Neutrinos are extremely hard to detect, because of their extremely feable interaction with anything we could use to count/measure/describe them.
They also seam to change states a lot all the time, so much that many experiment did not yield results because we didn't know that. Also because there are only a few types/states of neutrinos that interact with those huge/impractical detectors we have.

Somehow, I tend to think we do not know enough about what we conveniently call a neutrino. A bit like the state of knowledge we had before knowing the atom was in fact composed of several sub particules.
It might be that what we call a neutrino, is in fact a much greater ensemble of phenomenons we need to understand. And that will be difficult because of the high inefficiency of our detection devices...

Sure, the guys are very careful in what they state, ask for clarification/help in understanding what might be wrong. But I would not jump the gun yet.
After all, I remember reading about the construction of the Grand Sasso detector in 1987. We talk discoveries that need many decenies and we are not that acustomed to slow progress since we discovered so much in the last 60 years.

I still enjoy that "repeatable deviation" as it is a nice ground for discoveries or even just improving their device. Even the later part, even if less "grandiose" is still a great achievment.

[poopdeville]

Well, since 1905 and Einstein's theories, we have a rule that nothing can exceed the speed of light in vacuum

Since then, no observations have been able to demonstrate phenomenon that truly are exceeding that limit.

It's a bit hard to exactly understant all that implies, but basically it would be grounds for new theories going beyond what we currently use.
Some think we could break the causality principles, exploring time travel... at least for information.


Information is energy is matter. Look up "Maxwell's Demon".

The 90s saying "Information wants to be free" is true, in the same way that "energy wants to lower its potential", and for the same reason.

[Assertn]

There's also the notion that time travel would also be possible if we can in fact surpass the speed of light.

[Carnage]

There's also the notion that time travel would also be possible if we can in fact surpass the speed of light.

Based on our current set of laws, which if proved wrong, that theory might become a useless notion altogether along with everything else.

[David75]

Based on our current set of laws, which if proved wrong, that theory might become a useless notion altogether along with everything else.

...for a number of particules or phenomenon that occur in experiments that are at the limits of our current theory set.

That's how I see it for now. I'm not particularly attached to our theories, it's just that they work so well for all we need to create for now, that it will remain useful for a lot of time, unless new calculation methods/tools get us simple to understand/use ways of resolving problems.

I think what truly was a breakthrough in Newton's laws, were the differential calculations that came with his model. It helped understanding and using said theories a lot and explains why we still use them eventhough we know they do not work in some areas of physics, like Mercury orbit, GPS system calculations, scanners etc...
We still use it, because introducing the tools that came after Einstein's work makes your calculations a lot more difficult, the difference in precision being useless in most applications.

So if we come with a theory after that, and its tools are even more difficult to use than Einstein's and probably quantum physics ones, I think we will still use Einstein's for the remaining few applications where Newton's are not precise enough and will only use the new set in the very rare cases where Einstein's do not work anymore.

Totally random figures but I guess you might have something like that:
99% Newton's are ok
0.999% Einstein's are fit when Newton's are not precise enough
Remaining 0.001% for a new theory.

Unless again, that new theory comes with easy to understand rules and calculation tools and is easier to use than Newton's and Einstein's. I doubt it, but I wouldn't place a bet on that, as I also believe in major breakthroughs.

[DeadlyOats]

I know I'm a little late replying to this topic, but I remember reading an article about this announcement. In the end what I came away with was this: 1) Cern has done over 16,000 tests over many years. 2) They have always had the problem of the measurements being off because the tools used to measure are TOO SLOW to measure correctly. 3) For years, they've been watching that the measurements always pointed to greater than light speed travel for nutrinos. 4) Over the recent few years, they have been tweaking and re-tweaking their equipment to narrow down the error rates of measurements. 5) Now they're positively getting measurements that are greater than light speed, but there are still areas where significant errors in measurements can occur. And finally, 6) They have thrown their hands in the air in exasperation, and have turned the problem over to the world wide scientific community to help them solve the problem.

So, as it stands now, the world is peer-reviewing all of Cern's work to figure out where the errors are. If it turns out there are no errors, or very few errors, then it will be said, that it is possible that nutrinos are indeed exceeding the speed of light. However, Cern and all of the world's scientists are not claiming that the speed of light has been breeched, but that they are looking for errors in the measurements, methodology, equipment, etc. in order to further reduce the error rate in they're measurements.

It is the rest of us regular folk who have gone off exclaiming that the speed of light has been breeched. But in the end the scientists may find that a particular method, or a particular piece of equipment was faulty.

Only time will tell what answer the scientists will come to - 5 or 6 years from now...

[XanBcoo]

So, as it stands now, the world is peer-reviewing all of Cern's work to figure out where the errors are. If it turns out there are no errors, or very few errors, then it will be said, that it is possible that nutrinos are indeed exceeding the speed of light. However, Cern and all of the world's scientists are not claiming that the speed of light has been breeched, but that they are looking for errors in the measurements, methodology, equipment, etc. in order to further reduce the error rate in they're measurements.


Goddamn I love science so much.

[Kraco]

I'm sure the involved CERN scientists would like nothing better than having breached the speed of light. They are humans, as well. It would be a nice story to tell your grandchildren.

[Animeniax]

If they were real scientists, observance of scientific laws would constrain their research and they wouldn't waste time trying to violate them. If they were real scientists.

[Kraco]

Nah. For a real scientist anything called a scientific law is such only until proven otherwise. That's what makes science science: Anything can be questioned. Great many things won't be questioned, however, because nobody would fund useless looking research.

[Y]

I'm late to the party here, but between the idea that virtually everything mankind understands about physics is fundamentally wrong or that there was an error in the measurements, I know which one I'm on board with. I'm not talking "oh, we have to change the numbers in a few equations" wrong. It would disprove things like causality. It was an instrumentation error.

[Carnage]

I'm late to the party here, but between the idea that virtually everything mankind understands about physics is fundamentally wrong or that there was an error in the measurements, I know which one I'm on board with. I'm not talking "oh, we have to change the numbers in a few equations" wrong. It would disprove things like causality. It was an instrumentation error.

Im completely on board with you in that I would bet $100 this was an error in measurements. But if it by some chance did actually happen and wrecks our whole understanding of physics, then it doesnt necessarily disprove causality. It may only prove that we basically know nothing about the real workings of the universe. Like I said before, if it actually did surpass the speed of light, then that may not necessarily mean that we can time travel, but that the universe is actually structured in a way that light isn't the speed limit and even surpassing it might not mean time travel because that concept in itself is based on our current understanding.

[Y]

Unless we literally understand absolutely nothing about the world, most of our understanding of physics still has to be true. Planets obey gravitation exactly as they should, hundreds of thousands of observational experience conforms with relativity. This experiment would mean a great many observations should be VASTLY different. 60ns doesn't sound like a whole lot unless you start thinking on galactic scales. The neutrino burst emitted from SN1987A would have reached Earth four years earlier if it were traveling at the recently observed speeds. Maxwell's equations about electromagnetic waves are all completely wrong if c is really this value, so it would mean that we somehow managed to invent the internet and computers and lasers and whatnot while actually not knowing a god damn thing about how electromagnetism really behaves. It would be insane.

[Carnage]

Unless we literally understand absolutely nothing about the world, most of our understanding of physics still has to be true. Planets obey gravitation exactly as they should, hundreds of thousands of observational experience conforms with relativity. This experiment would mean a great many observations should be VASTLY different. 60ns doesn't sound like a whole lot unless you start thinking on galactic scales. The neutrino burst emitted from SN1987A would have reached Earth four years earlier if it were traveling at the recently observed speeds. Maxwell's equations about electromagnetic waves are all completely wrong if c is really this value, so it would mean that we somehow managed to invent the internet and computers and lasers and whatnot while actually not knowing a god damn thing about how electromagnetism really behaves. It would be insane.

Yeah it would be insane, which is why I like to think that this is all just a fuck up. All Im implying is, if no one believed that the speed of light could be surpassed, then perhaps there are other facets of modern day physics that are also built off of misconceptions. Also, if we are hypothetically wrong about everything, it could simply be several tweaks here or there, that may affect certain large assumptions in physics, while leaving others intact. Ill admit I'm not really speaking off of facts or a profound knowledge of physics, but just thinking this through logically.

[Kraco]

I'm quite positive the CERN measurement equipment as well as the methods followed the best current knowledge. So, at the very least it will teach the whole world something about those practices when the reason for the errors is revealed. Because likely they are measurement errors. However, on the off chance they weren't, it wouldn't change as much as Y said. Because obviously a lot has worked for us thus far, so within the current practical margin, much wouldn't change. It's not like something obvious only on the galactic scale at minimum would affect the precision of GPS or communications through optical fibers that much.

[David75]

We just do not know enough about neutrinos yet.
Why?
Because we do not have practical and efficient detectors yet, due to the nature of those very hard to catch particules

Communications using efficient neutrino emitters/receptors would just be incredible...

[Assertn]

That's the fundamental fallacy of empiricism, now, isn't it? You can only say something is true with absolute certainty until one thing comes along to disprove it. It's very possible that there are other models of the universe similar enough to our current model such that we could be disillusioned into believing ours is correct.

[Assassin]

Great many things won't be questioned, however, because nobody would fund useless looking research.

The mere idea that a universal constant could be broken would be deemed useless research, but therein lies the beauty of physics. Certainty is an illusion.

On another note, i think they've pretty much given up on finding the god particle....i wonder, if they do fail to find it and this neutrino business turns out to be true, what kind of crazy theories would we have for the existence of the universe then?

[Carnage]

On another note, i think they've pretty much given up on finding the god particle....

What makes you think that? Just curious.

[Assassin]

I was reading recently how they've narrowed down the energy states in which they believe the higgs boson could exist....the reasoning being that there aren't very many places for it to hide, therefore its more and more likely that it doesn't exist.

[Munsu]

Here's an update: New data confirms: Neutrinos are still traveling faster than light
http://io9.com/5860744/