# Speed-of-light experiments give baffling result at Cern



## WhiteLotus (Sep 22, 2011)

> Puzzling results from Cern, home of the LHC, have confounded physicists - because it appears subatomic particles have exceeded the speed of light.
> 
> Neutrinos sent through the ground from Cern toward the Gran Sasso laboratory 732km away seemed to show up a tiny fraction of a second early.
> 
> The result - which threatens to upend a century of physics - will be put online for scrutiny by other scientists.



http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-15017484


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## erocker (Sep 22, 2011)

Ah, it's allright. Einstien was scrutinized and scoffed at too. In a seemingly boundles and endless universe, I never really thought that light was the fastest thing around. *But I guess it still is. Overactive imagination. :/


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## overclocker (Sep 22, 2011)

Makes yea wonder.


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## WhiteLotus (Sep 22, 2011)

Yea, it would really screw the physics world over. This is like disproving gravity.


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## Jegergrim (Sep 22, 2011)

Interesting read, thanks


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## Sasqui (Sep 22, 2011)

erocker said:


> Ah, it's allright. Einstien was scrutinized and scoffed at too. In a seemingly boundles and endless universe, I never really thought that light was the fastest thing around.



I think I'll start showing up to meetings a fraction of a second early, that will upend all of the theories that abound in the office


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## TUngsten (Sep 22, 2011)

WhiteLotus said:


> Yea, it would really screw the physics world over. This is like disproving gravity.



Well, the scientific community got over the "world is flat" and "earth is center of the universe" ideas. I'm sure we will survive this with less fanfare.


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## WhiteLotus (Sep 22, 2011)

TUngsten said:


> Well, the scientific community got over the "world is flat" and "earth is center of the universe" ideas. I'm sure we will survive this with less fanfare.



A lot of theories are based on the fastest thing possible being the speed of light. This has the punch to make all those theories null and void, which is like putting a big cross through peoples LIFE long work.


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## Ahhzz (Sep 22, 2011)

Saw that earlier on my droid... that's just awesome.... It's these kinds of discoveries (if it's correct) that give us huge leaps forward....


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## ZenZimZaliben (Sep 22, 2011)

WhiteLotus said:


> Yea, it would really screw the physics world over. This is like disproving gravity.



No not really. Because even if Light isn't the fastest thing in the universe it is still a constant. Therefore almost all mathematical equations using "c" still apply true. It's just throws a fork in the gears for anything beyond speed of light and only in relation to particles with very little to no mass.

Getting something to move FTL will still require the same energy as it always had and anything we create isn't going to have a mass even close to a neutrino. So really this only affects super sub atomic particles, in a Vacuum.


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## douglatins (Sep 22, 2011)

thespeed is actually super close, so maybe just a new lightspeed thats accurate


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## WhiteLotus (Sep 22, 2011)

ZenZimZaliben said:


> No not really. Because even if Light isn't the fastest thing in the universe it is still a constant. Therefore almost all mathematical equations using "c" still apply true. It's just throws a fork in the gears for anything beyond speed of light and only in relation to particles with very little to no mass.



ah yea, that's true. Still, if one were to label a neutrino particle with a message, you could then (I think) send it forward in time. Crazy shit.


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## Steevo (Sep 22, 2011)

The biggest implications are quantum computing. get a answer before you ask the question.....?


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## ZenZimZaliben (Sep 22, 2011)

WhiteLotus said:


> ah yea, that's true. Still, if one were to label a neutrino particle with a message, you could then (I think) send it forward in time. Crazy shit.



Possible I guess, as long as the message doesn't change the mass of the neutrino. The neutrino itself has less mass than a single electron. Has no charge + or -.

Like you said. Crazy shit happens at the sub atomic level. I can barely grasp some of the concepts. Entanglement...That is crazy stuff and blows my mind. Just by observing the particle changes the behavior...

Who's to say our perception of the 4th dimension is even remotely accurate. We can only measure the 4th dimension in our 3rd dimensional minds that can only perceive the 4th dimension in a slide show.


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## FordGT90Concept (Sep 22, 2011)

Einstein estimated that the speed of light was equal to c in E=mc^2.  It was impossible for him to prove the exact value of c, only that it is really big.  It is possible that his estimate is off a little or there is another layer to the riddle that has yet to be uncovered.


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## ZenZimZaliben (Sep 22, 2011)

FordGT90Concept said:


> Einstein estimated that the speed of light was equal to c in E=mc^2.  It was impossible for him to prove the exact value of c, only that it is really big.  It is possible that his estimate is off a little or there is another layer to the riddle that has yet to be uncovered.



Yeah but we know and can measure the speed of light. He was right on. Light is nothing more than a wave. If you know the Energy and you know the Mass, speed of light is easy to figure.

Sq.Rt (E / M) = C

Where E = Joules.


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## hat (Sep 23, 2011)

WhiteLotus said:


> ah yea, that's true. Still, if one were to label a neutrino particle with a message, you could then (I think) send it forward in time. Crazy shit.



So you're saying faster than light speed would mean time travel, then?


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## streetfighter 2 (Sep 23, 2011)

Whatever happened to spooky action at a distance (quantum entanglement)?


> Originally Written by *Salart et al*
> 
> 
> _For example, if such a privileged reference frame exists and is such that the Earth’s speed in this frame is less than 10^-3 times that of the speed of light, then the speed of the influence would have to *exceed that of light by at least four orders of magnitude*._



Also, I know it violates super-symmetry but I like my tachyon beams: scanning something before you ever thought to start scanning it.

. . .  Haven't read article yet . . .



hat said:


> So you're saying faster than light speed would mean time travel, then?


Although I'm not who you were replying to, yes. 

Rather, traveling back in time.  Traveling forward in time is trivial, just get on a plane.  If you're not following me then start complaining to your GPS. 

Traveling faster than light relative to a certain region of space will make you travel back in time relative to that space.  AFAIK . . .


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## W1zzard (Sep 23, 2011)

the time difference is 60 nanoseconds or 60 feet at the speed of light, total distance is 730 km.
error of the experiment is 10 ns

doesnt the earth get stretched by the moon? wouldnt this invalidate whatever distance measurement they have? anyone know how much the earth gets stretched and able to apply some math to that distance?


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## W1zzard (Sep 23, 2011)

best info in this article:
http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110922/full/news.2011.554.html

webcast at 4 pm cet tomorrow @ cern

and there's the paper: http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1109/1109.4897.pdf

meh


> The high-accuracy time-transfer GPS receiver allows to continuously monitor tiny
> movements of the Earth’s crust, such as continental drift that shows up as a smooth variation of
> less than 1 cm/year, and the detection of slightly larger effects due to earthquakes. The April
> 2009 earthquake in the region of LNGS, in particular, produced a sudden displacement of about 7
> ...


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## The_Ish (Sep 23, 2011)

And what's the purpose of this?


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## Steevo (Sep 23, 2011)

Multi-band GPS in CMR format, I know 8 places of dual band will return less than 2cm of error over 2 weeks. Add in Glonoss and you reduce that to less than 1cm, two sigma over years.

What about the speed of the earth through space, and the rotation of the earth, the speed of the galaxy? Surely they included those measurements in their allowances. Earth is hurtling not only around, but around the sun, around the galaxy, and away. What are the effects of pushing massed objects to the speed of light, are the no longer influenced by the forces that constrain all other matter, thus being able to seemingly travel faster than light?


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## Drone (Sep 23, 2011)

> neutrinos have done just that


in vacuum or in medium?



> Neutrinos come in a number of types, and have recently been seen to switch spontaneously from one type to another. The team prepares a beam of just one type, muon neutrinos, sending them from Cern to an underground laboratory at Gran Sasso in Italy to see how many show up as a different type, tau neutrinos.


Neutrino oscillation is a barely studied process, people even don't know the mass of neutrino. If neutrino appears to be a WIMP then indeed it can exceed the speed of light. 

Neutrino, you are a hero of freedom, I bet you ain't from this world. So where are you going?


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## W1zzard (Sep 23, 2011)

Drone said:


> If neutrino appears to be a WIMP then indeed it can exceed the speed of light.



no. nothing can exceed the speed of light.


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## Drone (Sep 23, 2011)

W1zzard said:


> no. nothing can exceed the speed of light.



ever heard of Cherenkov radiation?


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## heky (Sep 23, 2011)

W1zzard said:


> no. nothing can exceed the speed of light.



Isnt your statement exactly the opposite of what the article says?


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## W1zzard (Sep 23, 2011)

heky said:


> Isnt your statement exactly the opposite of what the article says?



yes, which is why the scientists who wrote the article said "this can't be right. help us find our error"


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## de.das.dude (Sep 23, 2011)

you cant beat the speed of light. if you do we all die


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## HossHuge (Sep 23, 2011)

The_Ish said:


> And what's the purpose of this?



If true, it would be comparable to finding out the world was not flat or the Earth was not the centre of the galaxy.  In short, any theroy that uses the speed of light could not be true.


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## Drone (Sep 23, 2011)

de.das.dude said:


> you cant beat the speed of light. if you do we all die



Does this tell you anything?



> In a superluminal medium the group velocity of an optical pulse peak is faster than the speed of light in vacuum


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## Derek12 (Sep 23, 2011)

The speed of light was surpassed in some cases.


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## Captain.Abrecan (Sep 23, 2011)

Mathematician at work says the speed of light is actually:
E=mc^2 + p^2/2m

to account for harmonic oscillation momentum


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## Drone (Sep 23, 2011)

Captain.Abrecan said:


> the speed of light is actually:
> E=mc^2 + p^2/2m



That equation is classical energy-momentum relation where p^2/2m is _kinetic energy_. The speed of light in that formula is a constant


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## de.das.dude (Sep 23, 2011)

Drone said:


> Does this tell you anything?



we are all going to DIEEEEEEEEE


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## TheMailMan78 (Sep 23, 2011)

This is just nature trolling science again.



W1zzard said:


> no. nothing can exceed the speed of light.



Just like radiation degrades at a constant rate? No matter what? lol

I agree this is just an anomaly. I doubt this thing holds any water. But its definitely worth looking in to ya know?


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## Steevo (Sep 23, 2011)

The earth is in motion at approx 29 m/s

At 730 Km trip with the other detector accelerating at the particles in flight gives me roughly 20ns less time than a standard flight would.
(730 / 299792458) - (730 / (299792458 + 29)) = SUMa (2.35547994 × 10-13)
(730 / 299792458) = SUMb (2.43501789 × 10-6)
Sumb - SUMa =  (2.43501766 × 10-6)

A difference of .000000023 seconds. Or 23ns. 

Unless my math is wrong, and I am just using google for the math. This does not include the effects of how fast the earth is moving in the galaxy, or in rotation.


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## TheMailMan78 (Sep 23, 2011)

Steevo said:


> The earth is in motion at approx 29 m/s
> 
> At 730 Km trip with the other detector accelerating at the particles in flight gives me roughly 20ns less time than a standard flight would.
> (730 / 299792458) - (730 / (299792458 + 29)) = SUMa (2.35547994 × 10-13)
> ...


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## W1zzard (Sep 23, 2011)

did anyone watch the webcast?

recording soon: http://cdsweb.cern.ch/record/1384486?ln=en



Captain.Abrecan said:


> Mathematician at work says the speed of light is actually:
> E=mc^2 + p^2/2m
> 
> to account for harmonic oscillation momentum



isnt the speed of light a fundamental constant that is by definition (of meter and second) 299,792,458 m/s ?



TheMailMan78 said:


> Just like radiation degrades at a constant rate? No matter what? lol



are you talking about nuclear decay ? the half life is constant for a given isotope without external factors.

of course you can "change" the halflife, for example by dropping a neutron in there -> bomb, nuclear power


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## douglatins (Sep 23, 2011)

http://io9.com/5843112/faster-than-light-neutrinos-not-so-fast

Cool article



Steevo said:


> The earth is in motion at approx 29 m/s
> 
> At 730 Km trip with the other detector accelerating at the particles in flight gives me roughly 20ns less time than a standard flight would.
> (730 / 299792458) - (730 / (299792458 + 29)) = SUMa (2.35547994 × 10-13)
> ...



You cant add speed to light speed, if you shoot a bullet that is going at lightspeed that has a lightsource at its tip, their speed will be equal


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## W1zzard (Sep 23, 2011)

douglatins said:


> http://io9.com/5843112/faster-than-light-neutrinos-not-so-fast
> 
> Cool article



this is just a rewrite of an article from another site (they mentioned supernova 1987a, too).

and i found the paper on arxiv after like 5 minutes (link further up)


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## Steevo (Sep 23, 2011)

douglatins said:


> http://io9.com/5843112/faster-than-light-neutrinos-not-so-fast
> 
> Cool article
> 
> ...



Bullet is flying at 100MPH 
The target is moving at the bullet at 50MPH. 

They are 150 miles apart at the beginning of the experiment. We aren't adding speed to the projective as much as subtracting the distance traveled by the target. 


Once the space shuttle took off and reached a certain speed it appeared to be arcing in the sky, in reality the earth was turning under it, if the same physical properties apply but on a much larger scale to a set of particles at lightspeed it would explain the effect they saw here possibly. 

That or much like entanglement the propagation of the particles arrival travels ahead of them causing things to become or be ready for their arrival.


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## Horrux (Sep 23, 2011)

WhiteLotus said:


> A lot of theories are based on the fastest thing possible being the speed of light. This has the punch to make all those theories null and void, which is like putting a big cross through peoples LIFE long work.



Well, given that quantum physics has easily demonstrated discontinuous travel, this might be a 'simple' occurrence of that. It travels slower than light but discontinuously, so the 'skips' add up and it looks like it's faster than light. And they're squarely into the realm of quantum physics there, so it could be any number of weird effects. But they're human too, and humans think in classic terms, not quantum.


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## Fourstaff (Sep 23, 2011)

You people need to take a crash course at relativity again. The more I know, the more it hurts my head so I am just going to stick with 5d matrix calculations and leave the rest to Physicists.


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## Horrux (Sep 23, 2011)

streetfighter 2 said:


> Whatever happened to spooky action at a distance (quantum entanglement)?
> 
> 
> Also, I know it violates super-symmetry but I like my tachyon beams: scanning something before you ever thought to start scanning it.
> ...



Quantum entanglement isn't really something travelling faster than light. Well, you could send information through it at near-infinite speed, of course, but information isn't matter. So in that sense, even considering quantum entanglement, the c "limit" still applies.


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## Steevo (Sep 23, 2011)

So you are saying that entanglement from a object, one neutrino for example is impossible while it is traveling the speed of light? So other neutrino's from the sun that are going to interact with it in the future in the sensor space would be prevented from being entangled by one of the projectiles since that would require faster than light interactions?

If the neutrinos are sending a entanglement "message" ahead saying I will be there in XX ns, GTFO, or if it is traveling as a wave that propagates at speed.....


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## Horrux (Sep 23, 2011)

Steevo said:


> So you are saying that entanglement from a object, one neutrino for example is impossible while it is traveling the speed of light? So other neutrino's from the sun that are going to interact with it in the future in the sensor space would be prevented from being entangled by one of the projectiles since that would require faster than light interactions?



Are you talking to me? If so, that's not what I mean.

I mean that in the case of quantum entangled particles, you can separate these particles by large distances (say, some light-years) and use the entangled particles for binary data transmissions which would be instantaneous, resulting in apparent speeds approaching the infinite for the information passed from one particle to the next. However, information is not particles, so even though the information "traveled" much faster than light, the speed of light limit still holds because it applies to matter. Or energy, which is the same stuff.


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## douglatins (Sep 23, 2011)

Steevo said:


> Bullet is flying at 100MPH
> The target is moving at the bullet at 50MPH.
> 
> They are 150 miles apart at the beginning of the experiment. We aren't adding speed to the projective as much as subtracting the distance traveled by the target.
> ...



Yes i agree, but what he was saying is that we should have added the speed of the earth. But then by your logic the source of the beam is also moving the same, so the earths speed on whatever sys doenst matter


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## W1zzard (Sep 23, 2011)

Horrux said:


> and use the entangled particles for binary data transmissions



you can't use entangled particles for ftl information transfer

let me give an example that serves to illustrate the problem (yes i know it's not perfect):
i have 2 magical boxes with a marble inside each. the marble can be black or white. since the boxes are entangled the marbles inside will always be the same color. you take your box and move away. i open my box and see a black marble -> so _i_ know you have a black marble. if you open your box you see a black marble too, but no information was actually transferred. if you open your box before i do, you see either a black or white marble, and know i will get that color when i open my box. but i dont gain any knowledge from that -> no information transferred


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## Benetanegia (Sep 23, 2011)

I'm pretty sure that our perceived universe/dimensions is/are only a part of the real universe, and only a subset of all the physics laws applies. As an analogy, we live in the surface of an sphere and for us the only x, y and z values that can exist are those that make sense within the sphere -> x^2 + y^2 + z^2 = r^2.

But probably we are not even able to grasp the concept of x, y and z cartessian coordinates since we have measured our world in the polar coordinates of radius and angles (theta and phi).

So light speed might very well be the limit in our subset of the universe, kind of like how only certain values of x, y and z are valid within the surface of the sphere (always =< r). Neutrinos may oscilate not only in the dimensions that we can perceive, but also in one that we don't, its then when it travels faster than light.

I think my example fits kinda well, since we talk about and perceive time and 3 dimensions of space (analogues to r, theta and phi in my example) as separate entities altogether even though relativity very clearly estates that spacetime is a continuum.


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## W1zzard (Sep 23, 2011)

Benetanegia said:


> So light speed might very well be the limit in our subset of the universe



yes, thats the definition of universal law of nature.

nothing prohibits other universes to exist with different physics, but this isnt relevant for our science because per definition we can not test anything outside our universe, hence it is not science but religion, philosophy, <random other term>

if you claim the speed of light (in vacuum) is not constant throughout the universe then that contradicts many observations like cosmic microwave background etc.


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## Steevo (Sep 23, 2011)

Benetanegia said:


> I'm pretty sure that our perceived universe/dimensions is/are only a part of the real universe, and only a subset of all the physics laws applies. As an analogy, we live in the surface of an sphere and for us the only x, y and z values that can exist are those that make sense within the sphere -> x^2 + y^2 + z^2 = r^2.
> 
> But probably we are not even able to grasp the concept of x, y and z cartessian coordinates since we have measured our world in the polar coordinates of radius and angles (theta and phi).
> 
> ...



Exactly how hey have made electrons disappear into another dimension, their energy/mass state was such they moved to the next dimension, and if in that dimension our universe is folded in on itself the distance would be much shorter, or allows for instantaneous propagation of state the outcome would be allowed.


I believe it has already been decided that at a singularity event where there is no time or laws yet created faster than light speed would have occurred.


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## Steevo (Sep 23, 2011)

W1zzard said:


> yes, thats the definition of universal law of nature.
> 
> nothing prohibits other universes to exist with different physics, but this isnt relevant for our science because per definition we can not test anything outside our universe, hence it is not science but religion, philosophy, <random other term>
> 
> if you claim the speed of light (in vacuum) is not constant throughout the universe then that contradicts many observations like cosmic microwave background etc.



Red shift?


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## Benetanegia (Sep 23, 2011)

W1zzard said:


> yes, thats the definition of universal law of nature.
> 
> nothing prohibits other universes to exist with different physics, but this isnt relevant for our science because per definition we can not test anything outside our universe, hence it is not science but religion, philosophy, <random other term>
> 
> if you claim the speed of light (in vacuum) is not constant throughout the universe then that contradicts many observations like cosmic microwave background etc.



I'm saying that neutrinos may oscilate between our universe and another one or various others. It's only during the phase in which they are in our universe when they can travel at speed of light, in the other universe they may travel faster. 

Following my example of the sphere, imagine that our universe has an r = 5, and thus 5 == "speed of light". This willnecessarily be true in the entire surface of the sphere, our sphere, "our universe" but there are seemingly an infinite ammount of other spheres with different radius, if neutrinos can oscilate between r=5 and r=4, if their linear speed is the same, in r = 4 they will travel faster, their angular speed will be faster. When they bounce back to r= 5 they would have traveled farther (greater angle) than they would on r=5.


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## Horrux (Sep 23, 2011)

W1zzard said:


> you can't use entangled particles for ftl information transfer
> 
> let me give an example that serves to illustrate the problem (yes i know it's not perfect):
> i have 2 magical boxes with a marble inside each. the marble can be black or white. since the boxes are entangled the marbles inside will always be the same color. you take your box and move away. i open my box and see a black marble -> so _i_ know you have a black marble. if you open your box you see a black marble too, but no information was actually transferred. if you open your box before i do, you see either a black or white marble, and know i will get that color when i open my box. but i dont gain any knowledge from that -> no information transferred



Yeah but you can change the color of the marble from black to white and vice-versa. Or, in reality, the spin of an electron from left to right. By doing so, the other electron follows, and data can be transmitted. For real.




Benetanegia said:


> I'm saying that neutrinos may oscilate between our universe and another one or various others. It's only during the phase in which they are in our universe when they can travel at speed of light, in the other universe they may travel faster.
> 
> Following my example of the sphere, imagine that our universe has an r = 5, and thus 5 == "speed of light". This willnecessarily be true in the entire surface of the sphere, our sphere, "our universe" but there are seemingly an infinite ammount of other spheres with different radius, if neutrinos can oscilate between r=5 and r=4, if their linear speed is the same, in r = 4 they will travel faster, their angular speed will be faster. When they bounce back to r= 5 they would have traveled farther (greater angle) than they would on r=5.



Yes, that is most likely what was observed as "discontinuous movement", where a particle "skips" parts of space getting somewhere. Adding the skips to the distance would make the particle APPEAR to move faster than it is actually moving. At least in OUR universe. I agree.


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## Drone (Sep 23, 2011)

Benetanegia said:


> I think my example fits kinda well, since we talk about and perceive time and 3 dimensions of space (analogues to r, theta and phi in my example) as separate entities altogether even though relativity very clearly estates that spacetime is a continuum.


String theory says that there're 10D. Before big bang all ten dimensions were equal but after that when universe started to expand our 3 dimensions have grown while other 7 haven't. Neutrino is just like wimps can be only affected by weak interaction and gravity. Electromagnetic interaction doesn't affect it, hence neutrino can't ever be seen. So I think that's not impossible if neutrino (any kind of it) can exceed the speed of light or even sneak into those inaccessable dimensions.


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## twilyth (Sep 23, 2011)

Doesn't relativity just say you can never travel AT the speed of light? I didn't think there was any prohibition against traveling faster. I think every one assumes that since they figure that the only way to go faster is to accelerate through light speed, but if you can somehow jump to superluminal speeds, that wouldn't be an issue.


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## Horrux (Sep 23, 2011)

twilyth said:


> Doesn't relativity just say you can never travel AT the speed of light? I didn't think there was any prohibition against traveling faster. I think every one assumes that since they figure that the only way to go faster is to accelerate through light speed, but if you can somehow jump to superluminal speeds, that wouldn't be an issue.



It says if you were to accelerate a solid object to the speed of light, its mass would become infinite. Which poses a problem for acceleration, of course. But there is also evidence that the void between atoms and subatomic wave-ticles also has an infinite mass, which renders the whole thing somewhat puzzling.


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## Frick (Sep 24, 2011)

This dude from Ars summed it up perfectly:



> Maybe it's a metric versus English screw up.


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## W1zzard (Sep 24, 2011)

webcast is up, gogo watch



Horrux said:


> Yeah but you can change the color of the marble from black to white and vice-versa



yes, the magical box has a button that changes the color of the marble inside from one to the other as long as it hasn't been opened.


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## Wyverex (Sep 24, 2011)

Horrux said:


> It says if you were to accelerate a solid object to the speed of light, its mass would become infinite.


Not exactly. The mass doesn't change. The momentum 
	

	
	
		
		

		
			





 changes when approaching light speed. Relativistic momentum is 
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	




 and although it looks like the mass is changing, it really is (only) the momentum.
I know it looks that both is the same thing, but there is a fine difference between the two.


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## Drone (Sep 24, 2011)

Wyverex said:


> Not exactly. The mass doesn't change. The momentum https://upload.wikimedia.org/math/0/3/b/03bd7352b4e2d7a6ae957ea006521095.png changes



In special relativity everything changes

*Mass increase, length contraction and time dilation*.

http://www.egglescliffe.org.uk/physics/relativity/sreq.html

The most famous is time dilation. So if your vehicle's velocity is ~c and you move inside that vehicle you can't exceed the speed of light because time will slow down. But for (sub)particles it's not impossible. In quantum world everything is different


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## Wyverex (Sep 24, 2011)

From what I was thought, that's just a pop-science simplification.

When you have p_relativistic = gamma * m * v, it is easy to conclude that p_relativistic = m_relativistic * v, but that's not exactly the proper physics. It should actually be p_rel = gamma * p

I actually had to know all this for my exams (physics major at Faculty of Science, University of Zagreb  )

A *better* link, imho:
http://www2.slac.stanford.edu/vvc/theory/relativity.html


EDIT:  a quote from University Physics (12th Edition)


> The use of relativistic mass has its supporters and detractors, some quite strong in their opinions


Needless to say, ALL of my teachers hated the term 

The reason why some/most scientists do not like the term "relativistic mass" is because it just doesn't work (as it should).
For example, the kinetic energy of a particle is NOT  K_rel = 1/2 m_rel * v^2


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## r9 (Sep 24, 2011)

Could it be that the particle was so fast that tempered with the time ? Maybe if the particle was even faster it could arrive even before it was launched. Little scifi .


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## W1zzard (Sep 24, 2011)

r9 said:


> Could it be that the particle was so fast that tempered with the time ? Maybe if the particle was even faster it could arrive even before it was launched. Little scifi .



if the particle travelled faster than light, then that enables time travel, which enables all sorts of causality violations, which could end up invalidating free will, which is why the scientists say "help us spot our mistake"


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## Drone (Sep 24, 2011)

Wyverex said:


> When you have p_relativistic = gamma * m * v, it is easy to conclude that p_relativistic = m_relativistic * v, but that's not exactly the proper physics. It should actually be p_rel = gamma * p




*shrug* whatever rocks your socks if you ignore relativistic mass variation equation lol


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## W1zzard (Sep 24, 2011)

finished watching the webcast, impressive how much engineering went into this, looking forward to find out where the discrepancy is coming from


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## Benetanegia (Sep 24, 2011)

I just read a comment on another site that's making a lot of sense to me, because how simple and stupid it is: is it c (universal constant) really the speed of light that we have measured? c (in relativity) is the maximum speed at which any non-massive particle travels in vacuum. So it's always been correlated to speed of light, but did we ever measured just that really? I mean yeah, a photon is a non-massive particle, but is vacuum really empty? Now, we know it's not (kinda). Could be virtual particles slowing down light in "vacuum", but since neutrinos interact a lot less they are not being slowed down (as much)? Do we have a way to even know that if we cannot ever create absolute emptiness?


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## W1zzard (Sep 24, 2011)

very interesting approach.

the problem here again is that the neutrinos and the light from supernova 1987a arrived at the same time, suggesting over ~200k light years there is no significant difference in speed between those two.


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## Jack Doph (Sep 24, 2011)

W1zzard said:


> ... there is no significant difference in speed between those two.



Isn't *any* difference a significant one though. I mean, I understand that there may be discrepancies in the instruments, but these are the same instruments used for the measurements, thus the outcomes should be the same?
If there is a flaw somewhere, shouldn't that flaw show up consistently?


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## Horrux (Sep 24, 2011)

or maybe c has changed now. XD


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## Horrux (Sep 24, 2011)

Wyverex said:


> Not exactly. The mass doesn't change. The momentum https://upload.wikimedia.org/math/0/3/b/03bd7352b4e2d7a6ae957ea006521095.png changes when approaching light speed. Relativistic momentum is https://upload.wikimedia.org/math/d/2/d/d2dec44ba56c41a31b4d334b144b51d6.png and although it looks like the mass is changing, it really is (only) the momentum.
> I know it looks that both is the same thing, but there is a fine difference between the two.



That's actually a lot less counter-intuitive than its mass increasing to the infinite, thanks.

Nice to see a real physicist commenting on this. I have a buddy in Croatia, do you play games?


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## Wyverex (Sep 24, 2011)

Horrux said:


> I have a buddy in Croatia, do you play games?


Of course I play games, what do you think why am I on TPU?


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## streetfighter 2 (Sep 24, 2011)

W1zzard said:


> isnt the speed of light a fundamental constant that is by definition (of meter and second) 299,792,458 m/s ?


The speed of light in a vacuum is a constant (AFAWK).  The speed of light in a medium can be much slower.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Refraction


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## The_Ish (Sep 24, 2011)

HossHuge said:


> If true, it would be comparable to finding out the world was not flat or the Earth was not the centre of the galaxy.  In short, any theroy that uses the speed of light could not be true.



What about warping space time with gravity, wouldn't that make the objects affected move a great distance way faster than the speed of light ever could? And why would something not be able to go faster than the speed of light? Aluminium does not do 200 mph.. Unless you make a motorcycle of out it first. Did they break the speed of aluminum by making a motorcycle?


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## W1zzard (Sep 24, 2011)

streetfighter 2 said:


> The speed of light in a vacuum is a constant (AFAWK).  The speed of light in a medium can be much slower.
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Refraction



obviously i meant the speed of light in a vacuum, sorry for not indicating that


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## W1zzard (Sep 24, 2011)

Jack Doph said:


> Isn't *any* difference a significant one though. I mean, I understand that there may be discrepancies in the instruments, but these are the same instruments used for the measurements, thus the outcomes should be the same?
> If there is a flaw somewhere, shouldn't that flaw show up consistently?



watch the recording of the cern webcast to get an idea how complex setup and calibration for this experiment was. not significant is everything that has a very small impact, maybe sub-nanosecond in the context of this experiment


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## Benetanegia (Sep 24, 2011)

W1zzard said:


> very interesting approach.
> 
> the problem here again is that the neutrinos and the light from supernova 1987a arrived at the same time, suggesting over ~200k light years there is no significant difference in speed between those two.



Yeah, but afaik neutrinos did arrive some hours or so sooner, which is already an incoherence with relativity on itself, so despite not being coherent with CERN's results, that already means relativity was violated isn't it?

So this is what I can contribute to "my hypothesis" regarding the results obtained from the nova:

Still fantasizing/speculating with the hypothesis of vacuum not really being empty (as in having something capable of interacting with light and neutrinos), a supernova would certainly create some kind of disturbance in that medium and maybe create a shockwave in that medium (whatever that medium really is) akin to that created by a bomb in the air, thus creating a wavefront of high pressure followed by an area of low pressure.

If we further hypothesize that such wave's propagation speed is faster than light in the relaxed "non-empty vacuum medium" that we just hypothesized, but it's slower than c (universal constant, not the measured one) and slightly slower than the speed of neutrinos, we just created a situation in which neutrinos could get "trapped" and slowed down in the "high pressure" medium, while photons could be acelerated to speeds greater than their speed in "normal vacuum" because the low pressure area that follows the wavefront has an smaller influence on them than the relaxed medium would, not to mention the posibility of the shockwave itself being able to accelerate photons beyond their speed in the relaxed medium.

According to that hypothesis both neutrinos and light would arrive at a very similar time, only neutrinos slightly ahead.


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## Steevo (Sep 24, 2011)

W1zzard said:


> very interesting approach.
> 
> the problem here again is that the neutrinos and the light from supernova 1987a arrived at the same time, suggesting over ~200k light years there is no significant difference in speed between those two.



Dark matter/energy could interact with neutrinos and light.


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## Benetanegia (Sep 24, 2011)

Steevo said:


> Dark matter/energy could interact with neutrinos and light.



Yeah but he's saying that the results should be consistent with each other. The neutrinos from the nova should have gotten to us 3 years before the light did in order to be consistent with the results obtained now. They only came within hours of each other.

But I hope that my hypothesis above makes at least a bit of sense and explain the discrepancy.


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## twilyth (Sep 24, 2011)

Neutrinos are not massless since they oscillate from one flavor to another - that implies, according to the standard model, that they must have some mass.  So although they barely interact with normal matter, they shouldn't be capable of traveling at the speed of light - something very close, but not AT.


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## Benetanegia (Sep 24, 2011)

twilyth said:


> Neutrinos are not massless since they oscillate from one flavor to another - that implies, according to the standard model, that they must have some mass.  So although they barely interact with normal matter, they shouldn't be capable of traveling at the speed of light - something very close, but not AT.



The problem is that speed of light might need to be redefined. 

c == speed of light in vacuum > 299,792,458 m/s

speed of light in vacuum >> speed of neutrinos > measured speed of light in "false vacuum"


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## Drone (Sep 24, 2011)

Steevo said:


> Dark matter/energy could interact with neutrinos and light.



Dark matter interacts with everything (by gravity - the weakest interaction). If the theory is right then all the gravity that universe needs to hold everything together depends on the dark matter/wimps. Since neutrinos can be affected only by gravity and weak interaction then it all seems logical.

edit: however they haven't found any wimps yet


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## W1zzard (Sep 24, 2011)

Benetanegia said:


> Yeah, but afaik neutrinos did arrive some hours or so sooner, which is already an incoherence with relativity on itself, so despite not being coherent with CERN's results, that already means relativity was violated isn't it?



the accepted explanation for that is that the neutrinos are generated in a process leading to the supernova, so they are generated before the actual supernova event while the star still exists.



Benetanegia said:


> The problem is that speed of light might need to be redefined.
> 
> c == speed of light in vacuum > 299,792,458 m/s
> 
> speed of light in vacuum >> speed of neutrinos > measured speed of light in "false vacuum"



technically the length of a meter would need to change because it is derived from the speed of light in vacuum. 

a second is defined as "the duration of 9,192,631,770 periods of the radiation corresponding to the transition between the two hyperfine levels of the ground state of the caesium-133 atom." - is that dependent on the speed of light at some level?


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## Benetanegia (Sep 24, 2011)

W1zzard said:


> the accepted explanation for that is that the neutrinos are generated in a process leading to the supernova, so they are generated before the actual supernova event while the star still exists.



In the light of the recent discovery I choose not to buy that explanation. It could have been "fabricated" because neutrinos arrived first and no other theory was consistent with relativity. Since we are discussing the very accuracy of how relativity is being applied, I just can't accept it as fact.



> technically the length of a meter would need to change because it is derived from the speed of light in vacuum.



Not really. It is based on the measured speed of light, which may not be the true speed of light in vacuum.


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## W1zzard (Sep 24, 2011)

Benetanegia said:


> In the light of the recent discovery I choose not to buy that explanation. It could have been "fabricated" because neutrinos arrived first and no other theory was consistent with relativity. Since we are discussing the very accuracy of how relativity is being applied, I just can't accept it as fact.



distance: 168,000 light years = 1,471,680,000 light hours
neutrinos: 3 hours earlier => vNeutrino = 1.000000002038487 c

cern experiment: 730 km
time difference 60 ns -> 18.2 m => vNeutrino = 1.000024931506849 c

HUGE difference



Benetanegia said:


> Not really. It is based on the measured speed of light, which may not be the true speed of light in vacuum



the meter is defined as:

The metre is the length of the path travelled by light in vacuum during a time interval of 1⁄299 792 458 of a second.

so actually whatever the outcome of this experiment, the meter won't change unless they change the definition to something else


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## Benetanegia (Sep 24, 2011)

W1zzard said:


> distance: 168,000 light years = 1,471,680,000 light hours
> neutrinos: 3 hours earlier => vNeutrino = 1.000000002038487 c
> 
> cern experiment: 730 km
> ...



Did you really read my post #77? If vacuum or interstellar/inter-particle space is not so empty as we think and it's instead an homogeneous medium, there's a plethora of reasons for that discrepancy. My example in post #77 is only a posible one.


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## W1zzard (Sep 24, 2011)

Benetanegia said:


> Did you really read my post #77? If vacuum or interstellar/inter-particle space is not so empty as we think and it's instead an homogeneous medium, there's a plethora of reasons for that discrepancy. My example in post #77 is only a posible one.



how are the neutrinos slower in empty space, even when including your interactions, 
and faster in earth's crust?


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## Benetanegia (Sep 24, 2011)

W1zzard said:


> how are the neutrinos slower in empty space, even when including your interactions,
> and faster in earth's crust?



Neutrinos are not faster. Light is. 

Since neutrinos are not affected by most forces, only the weak sub-atomic-one and gravity, the likelihood of being affected by a medium (vacuum) with no "conventional mass" or a very small amount of mass interaction that the darkmatter would account for, is a lot smaller than the likelyhood of photons being affected.

You just have to imagine that vacuum is not vacuum, the emptiness of space is akin to water, while real vacuum is the nothingness. Light travels slower through water than real vacuum. We only have measured speed of light in water, because for us everything there is even between our most fundamental known particles is water, although we mistakenly call it vacuum.

EDIT: Our science still makes sense, because our "speed of light thorugh water" is a constant, it's only a constant and is consistent in the whole universe because our universe is flooded in water. Whenever you find light, you find light travelling through water.


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## W1zzard (Sep 24, 2011)

i know all that, but look at my calculations above.

speed of neutrinos from 1987a vs. actual light from 1987a (in a vacuum):  1.000000002038487 * c
speed of neutrinos from cern (in earth's crust) vs. light in vacuum:  1.000024931506849 * c

-> neutrinos from cern through matter are faster than neutrinos in vacuum which makes no sense, no matter how you explain it.


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## Benetanegia (Sep 24, 2011)

W1zzard said:


> i know all that, but look at my calculations above.
> 
> speed of neutrinos from 1987a vs. actual light from 1987a (in a vacuum):  1.000000002038487 * c
> speed of neutrinos from cern (in earth's crust) vs. light in vacuum:  1.000024931506849 * c
> ...



Ok I didn't get that. But those measurements do not warrant that neutrinos are faster through matter than in vacuum. It only demostrates that neutrinos that came from that supernova were slower. It's just one case. We don't know what happened to those neutrinos in their travel to Earth.

EDIT: And wait a minute, I have to admit I'm not in my best mental condition in this very moment, so I cannot be 100% sure of my memory, but is the speed of massive subatomic particles supposed to be constant? afaik they aren't, but like I said, I'm having a wtf moment with that. Only non-massive particles are suposed to have a constant speed through the medium isn't it? Neutrino speed being different is non-consequential. The weird thing is them traveling faster than light, not whatever was their particular speed in each case.


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## Steevo (Sep 24, 2011)

I still stand by my theory that they have failed to take into account the fact that earth is in motion and while the neutrinos were not traveling faster than light, the receiving sensors and apparatus were in motion towards the oncoming stream, and while they are traveling that fast they are unaffected by earths minor gravity.


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