CERN breaks light speed barrier?

[ECGadget]

Mr. Riker, set a course for Alpha Centuri...
*sits back* Warp 4... Engage!

Seriously though, this is now going to change the meaning of shows like Star Trek... We have deuterium, dilithium can be made, and they've (possibly) cracked the speed of light...

As for relativity, E=mc^2 will hold til light speed; getting past it will be explained in a new law...

 

[Smallhorses]

I'm just wondering how long it'll be before:

A) someone credits an unproven god with this achievement,
& B) someone starts spreading terrorist conspiracy theories about how this will create black-holes and lead to the end of the world in the near future.

 

[Touring Mars]

I'm more surprised that something actually turned up early in Italy...

 

[Smallhorses]

I'm more surprised that something actually turned up early in Italy...

 

[Grayfox]

Pagasus Galaxy here i come.

Those wraith better watch out.

 

[Famine]

That is awesome. If it's true, the smartheads need to rethink everything.
Famine, where are you.

There's a couple of issues with how this has been reported - mainly technical issues (you can go faster than light easily by slowing the light down; things can be observed to break c, the speed of light in a vacuum [the speed limit of the universe, to date] without actually doing so according to General Relativity) - but we should assume that the papers are reporting it in lies-to-public ("popular science") to make it easier to grasp and that the scientists know what they're talking about. That neutrinos sent a mere 700km through the planet can exceed c along their path.


That aside, how in holy hell are they firing neutrinos at the speeds required to make this an issue? That's scary.

 

[W3H5]

I thought they spotted a faster-than-light object in space a couple of months ago? Anyway, very cool stuff, if true.

How would something travelling faster than light be spotted? Ever seen a bullet while its going through the air? A bullet's speed isn't even close to light speed.

 

[Touring Mars]

Assuming it were possible to travel faster than light, it would be possible to see such an object. You can easily 'see' a bullet travelling through air by filming it, provided you collect enough frames per second. In principle anyway, there's nothing to stop you from doing the same for a much faster object.

 

[W3H5]

I assumed that 'spotted' meant as in seeing it in the sky. I didn't think that it could have been recorded. I'm feeling a little brain dead today. I'll carry on browsing and leave the posting for today.

 

[ProjectVRD]

I am pretty you cannot see something that is travelling beyond light speed. You can see where it was a moment before, but not where it currently is, because the light photons have yet to catch up.

 

[Ibonibo]

Well speed travelling aside, this will probably open space for a whole bunch of new inventions, just as the studies of the black whole lead to microwaves and everything following (gsm (cellphone), wi-fi,...).

On the ^^ about observing, first you would need a super eye to even see a neutrino and what projectVRD said.

So i might conclude with : Good news everyone

 

[cjmpe]

That aside, how in holy hell are they firing neutrinos at the speeds required to make this an issue? That's scary.

Firing neutrinos at near the speed of light isn't actually all that difficult if you are a Large Head working at somewhere like CERN. The original theories said that they had 0 mass, so would move at the speed of light, end of story. More recent research suggests that they have a small mass (something like 500 000 or 1 000 000 times lighter than an electron). At this small a mass the accelerators at CERN have the energy required to create neutrinos that can move at close to the speed of light.

 

[ProjectVRD]

One potential application.... we already know neutrino's can carry information. They are not like some of the other mysterious particles which are information bare. So if this really is happening and not some form of glitch then perhaps they could learn more about neutrino's to the point they can instill information into them that we want them to carry and that could improve communication speed with far away objects like the probes we send to other planets.

For instance, it would be extremely beneficial to get the information quicker from probes between Earth and the Sun as that would give us a better warning of incoming Solar Storms and companies have more time to power down satalites orbiting our planet to combat the effects those storms have with electrical equipment

So for information relay this could have massive implications for the good.

 

[Famine]

Firing neutrinos at near the speed of light isn't actually all that difficult if you are a Large Head working at somewhere like CERN. The original theories said that they had 0 mass, so would move at the speed of light, end of story. More recent research suggests that they have a small mass (something like 500 000 or 1 000 000 times lighter than an electron). At this small a mass the accelerators at CERN have the energy required to create neutrinos that can move at close to the speed of light.

Except they aren't doing that - they're firing them at and beyond the speed of light. That requires a crapload more energy - orders of magnitude - more than moving them at 99.999% of it.

In other news:

 

[W3H5]

Famine, your wit amuses me no end.

I am pretty you cannot see something that is travelling beyond light speed. You can see where it was a moment before, but not where it currently is, because the light photons have yet to catch up.

Nothing is actually 'currently' where it is once one observes it. Through the act of observing it one causes the position of a particle to not be where it's observed. Confusing, I know, it boggled my mind for days when I first read about it.

See > Uncertainty Principle.
Also for extra boggling > Schroedingers Cat Thought Experiment.

 

[ProjectVRD]

Famine, your wit amuses me no end.



Nothing is actually 'currently' where it is once one observes it. Through the act of observing it one causes the position of a particle to not be where it's observed. Confusing, I know, it boggled my mind for days when I first read about it.

See > Uncertainty Principle.
Also for extra boggling > Schroedingers Cat Thought Experiment.

Darn you for trying to confuse us with your petty Quantum Mechanical and Entanglement drivel!

 

[Ibonibo]

" I heard enough about Schroedingers cat"

 

[wfooshee]

Are they the same neutrinos???? Did they tag them, paint them purple, or what?

Somebody pours a bucket of water into the lake, just as I'm filling my glass at my faucet. Damn, that water got there fast!!!!!

Not seriously proposing anything, just having a little fun . . . .

 

[PeterJB]

Ok, lets do the maths

Geneva to Gran Sasso is roughly 450 miles. So light takes 2.419339656e-3 seconds to travel this distance.

These neutrinos travelled that distance in 2.419279656e-3 seconds. The speed of light is 299,792,458 m/s, and these neutrinos travelled at 299,799,983.1 m/s. Thats 9.460967947e+15 metres in one year, or 5.913104967e+12 miles.

One light year is 5.878625373e+12 miles. So in one year, these neutrinos would travel 3.4479594e+10 miles further than light (or about 34 billion miles, 10 times Pluto's distance from the Sun)

 

[ProjectVRD]

Ok, lets do the maths

Geneva to Gran Sasso is roughly 450 miles. So light takes 2.419339656e-3 seconds to travel this distance.

These neutrinos travelled that distance in 2.419279656e-3 seconds. The speed of light is 299,792,458 m/s, and these neutrinos travelled at 299,799,983.1 m/s. Thats 9.460967947e+15 metres in one year, or 5.913104967e+12 miles.

One light year is 5.878625373e+12 miles. So in one year, these neutrinos would travel 3.4479594e+10 miles further than light (or about 34 billion miles, 10 times Pluto's distance from the Sun)

3 days?

 

[PeterJB]

About 5.

 

[cjmpe]

Except they aren't doing that - they're firing them at and beyond the speed of light. That requires a crapload more energy - orders of magnitude - more than moving them at 99.999% of it.

You are using the classic model of Relativity in making the assumption that orders of magnitude more energy is required, and indeed would be required if we were talking about a space ship, or even something as small as an electron. I believe that was the point to the whole report and why, if it is true, that it is so interesting. The physicists did their standard thing in creating Neutrinos and setting them off in the direction of the detector. The neutrinos reportedly had an energy of 17 GeV. Out of interest I did a quick check and the Large Hadron Collider at CERN can run at 3.5 TeV, though I suspect they weren't using the LHC for this test. The theory said that at the energy used, the neutrinos should have made the trip at or just below the speed of light. Now the thinkers out there need to figure out how it is possible to exceed the speed of light at that energy level

 

[ProjectVRD]

About 5.

So we still ain't going anywhere then lol...

 

[Small_Fryz]

Except they aren't doing that - they're firing them at and beyond the speed of light. That requires a crapload more energy - orders of magnitude - more than moving them at 99.999% of it.

1.21 Gigawatts?

 

[Grayfox]

1.21 Gigawatts?

1.12Gigawtts?

Great Scott!

 

[Famine]

You are using the classic model of Relativity in making the assumption that orders of magnitude more energy is required, and indeed would be required if we were talking about a space ship, or even something as small as an electron. I believe that was the point to the whole report and why, if it is true, that it is so interesting. The physicists did their standard thing in creating Neutrinos and setting them off in the direction of the detector. The neutrinos reportedly had an energy of 17 GeV. Out of interest I did a quick check and the Large Hadron Collider at CERN can run at 3.5 TeV, though I suspect they weren't using the LHC for this test. The theory said that at the energy used, the neutrinos should have made the trip at or just below the speed of light. Now the thinkers out there need to figure out how it is possible to exceed the speed of light at that energy level

Reading into it, neutrinos cannot be accelerated with a synchrotron like the LHC, because they're chargeless. Synchrotrons use magnetic fields to curve the path of particles and electric fields to accelerate them.

Instead neutrinos are made by proton-proton beam collisions in a particle accelerator, with the collision products magnetically channelled into long, straight tunnels where they decay into neutrinos - in this case muon neutrinos. The proton-proton collision would have been generated at SPS at CERN (not the LHC - which runs at half energy right now of 7TeV, 3.5TeV per beam) and the products aimed down a 1km tunnel - in which they decay to other things - at a graphite target which absorbs everything apart from the neutrinos. They then footle along 732km to Gran Sasso.

The purpose of the study wasn't actually neutrino speed - we thought we had that fixed from supernova observation - but neutrino oscillation, where they change from one flavour to another, to determine their mass.

 

[Kent]

Before anyone tries to figure out why they could it needs to be confirmed that it happened and then reproduced. After that we can worry about why.
I still highly doubt this actually happened, Im betting on the errors being at fault (or funding is running out!).
Btw famine is right and I wouldnt be surprised if a test to measure nuetrino speed resulted in more accurate measurements that showed speeds near, but not faster than the speed of light.

 

[Sam48]

Wasn't there a story here in the Opinion and Current Events Forum not to long ago about someone excellerating radio wave particles past the speed of light? Maybe my memory's failing me. That or the details of that story do not pertain to this one in regards to breaking the speed of light.

 

[Famine]

Before anyone tries to figure out why they could it needs to be confirmed that it happened and then reproduced.

They repeated the experiment 15,000 times in 3 years.

 

[Kent]

They repeated the experiment 15,000 times in 3 years.

So they reproduced these results that many times?
Then nevermind, its confirmed in my book.

Note:
Repeated and reproduced are not the same.