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.Originally Posted by 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.
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.
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.
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...
All the things I really like to do are either illegal, immoral, or fattening. And then: Golf.
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.
10/4/04 - 8/20/07
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?
What makes you think that? Just curious.
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.
Here's an update: New data confirms: Neutrinos are still traveling faster than light
http://io9.com/5860744/
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote
