Neutrinos Travel Faster Than Light - ?! wow!

[Overload]

If it's true, it will mark the biggest discovery in physics in the past half-century: Elusive, nearly massless subatomic particles called neutrinos appear to travel just faster than light, a team of physicists in Europe reports. If so, the observation would wreck Einstein's theory of special relativity, which demands that nothing can travel faster than light.

In fact, the result would be so revolutionary that it's sure to be met with skepticism all over the world. "I suspect that the bulk of the scientific community will not take this as a definitive result unless it can be reproduced by at least one and preferably several experiments," says V. Alan Kostelecky, a theorist at Indiana University, Bloomington. He adds, however, "I'd be delighted if it were true."

full article here:
http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceno...-than-lig.html

just wow! now they have something to tinker with hehe ... i wonder if this will help with their maths regarding the universe ?

[BFT3K]

They are passing through you right now. Do you feel them?



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jm2MB14JTSM

[CaptainHowdy]

[newB]

Isn't this old news? I remember the first time I heard about the speed of light not being constant thinking that it meant we had to reevaluate our approximations of where we are relative to other stars.

Here are a few related articles from the past:
ScienceDaily 1999
USATODAY 2001
NewScientist 2004
Wired 2007

I love this quote, though:
"I suspect that the bulk of the scientific community will not take this as a definitive result unless it can be reproduced by at least one and preferably several experiments," says V. Alan Kostelecky, a theorist at Indiana University, Bloomington. He adds, however, "I'd be delighted if it were true."

Replication of the experiment to verify the results is an important step in the scientific method. Skipping that and going straight to the media with your results is reminiscent of Fleischmann and Pon's cold fusion claims from 1989 and more recently Hwang Woo-suk's stem cell claims from 2004-2005.

[SexSearchSuzanne]

Replication of the experiment to verify the results is an important step in the scientific method. Skipping that and going straight to the media with your results is reminiscent of Fleischmann and Pon's cold fusion claims from 1989 and more recently Hwang Woo-suk's stem cell claims from 2004-2005.

Well, it's hard to keep exciting scientific news like that to yourself I'm sure. I'm glad that he points out the scientific method at least and says basically take this news with a grain of salt, although most of the general public probably doesn't understand how science works anyways ... but at least he is trying.

[Bill8]

The speed of light not being constant? Lot's of things can slow light down - it's going faster then the speed of light in a vacuum that is interesting.

Oh, you mean the speed of light changing as the universe ages. yes, that's kinda interesting, but happens on a time scale so large as to be essentially irrelevant to we humans. It does suggest something curioous about the universe we inhabit, tho. Hah - we live in a bubble universe, and space and time are slowly changing as that universe undergoes heat death.

The neutrino thing would be neat, if it gets confirmed. I hope it does. Even a small possibility of breaking out of the light cone would be a thrill, and if anyway to do it happens during our lifetimes - well, pretty much nothing else that happened in that lifetime would be as cool.

[Grapesoda]

If it's true, it will mark the biggest discovery in physics in the past half-century: Elusive, nearly massless subatomic particles called neutrinos appear to travel just faster than light, a team of physicists in Europe reports. If so, the observation would wreck Einstein's theory of special relativity, which demands that nothing can travel faster than light.

In fact, the result would be so revolutionary that it's sure to be met with skepticism all over the world. "I suspect that the bulk of the scientific community will not take this as a definitive result unless it can be reproduced by at least one and preferably several experiments," says V. Alan Kostelecky, a theorist at Indiana University, Bloomington. He adds, however, "I'd be delighted if it were true."

full article here:
http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceno...-than-lig.html

just wow! now they have something to tinker with hehe ... i wonder if this will help with their maths regarding the universe ?

I was wondering if it wasn't some aspect of entaglement myself... jusy sayin...