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[Merged] Neutrinos travel faster than light?


SwordMonkey

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Think in terms of quantum physics.we seem to be at the cusp here. The reference to sub atomic particles does not blend with relativity. Remember Einsteins view of spooky action at a distance. Quantum physics has a whole new set of laws than traditional physics. Will this new find if true, upset all we know and change everything... sorry but no. Traditional physics still aplies to the large. But quantum physics still is in its infancy and will constantly be adapting. Einstein knew this and while he could not fully describe how it works he still acknowledged quantum mechanics as working differently or separate from his ideas about the large.

I am curious as I do not know. What are the differences between photons and neutrinos. This might help this conversation move further. And taita glad to see you are a very well rounded contributor again welcome to UM.

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In my understanding, anything traveling faster than the speed of light would be traveling backward in time. I wonder if this phenomenon has been considered.

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I am curious as I do not know. What are the differences between photons and neutrinos. This might help this conversation move further. And taita glad to see you are a very well rounded contributor again welcome to UM.

Someone correct me if I am wrong, but as I understand it, the main difference between a Neutrino and a Photon is that Photons are massless, travel at the speed of light and carry an electromagnetic field so they interact with charged particles. Whereas a Neutrino, before this claim, carried an undefined amount of mass, was not able to travel at the speed of light and does not have an electromagnetic field. So in order for a Neutrino to interact with something, it has to hit another particle head-on whereas a photon can be bent, reflected, etc. So a Neutrino will simply go right through normal matter without any change or contact. It's a real life ghost =D

Edited by SwordMonkey
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Are there possible explanations other than these five?

1. Measurement error.

2. The neutrinos are exceeding light speed.

3. We have the wrong value for the speed of light.

4. Relativistic effects: eg CERN and Rome are travelling at different rotational speed; CERN and Rome are at different altitudes; tidal effects altering distance and/or gravity. These factors have not been properly factored in.

5. Gravity waves: perhaps CERN has inadvertently constructed a gravity wave detector.

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In my understanding, anything traveling faster than the speed of light would be traveling backward in time. I wonder if this phenomenon has been considered.

In relativity it would also violate causality, and require infinite energy.
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This actually has pretty profound implications, indeed. Expect the UFOlogists to jump on this quicker than the speed of light.

I think and there is no research value to what I say, that we will be so far down the line one day that

what is understood now as the norm will be blown out of the water.

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Still very early days for this discovery, despite the three years of checking the experimental set-up and piling up data. If this holds up in independent trials, there is, apparently, at least one loophole in Special Relativity. Such things have been looked for, for a century. Perhaps it shouldn't be too surprising that something was eventually found. One could picture Albert Einstein as a traffic cop, giving mu neutrinos a citation for going over the speed limit. Its not supposed to happen in the orderly scheme of things, but perhaps it did. I suppose the old Newtonians were disturbed when Professor Einstein began chipping away at their venerable edifice, too. If neutrinos actually can exceed the speed of light, they presumably don't need infinite energy to do it. I doubt they violate causality, either, at least in the usual sense. Time travel seems to create logical absurdities.

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Maybe I missed the meaning of the relativity concept. Does it actually apply to neutrinos? By definition a neutrino has no mass or size and on popping out of existence neither slows down nor turns solid/massive. Perhaps they mearly exist outside the scope of what the relativity covers?

While researching this I ran across another article on "teleportation" of subatomic particles. These particles are transported between atoms a good distance apart now, several meters. The interesting thing to me is they appear simultaniously to being transported so exist what seems to be at the same time in two places. This would mean instant travel, not speed of light travel and these particles are solid so deffinitely should be covered by relativity.

Mark

Neutrinos do have mass and feel gravity as well as the weak force.

Einsteins Special Relativity may still stand because although the scientists have eliminated any known problems causing the results with their equipment they havent taken into account what lies between the neutrino emitter and the detector - 700km+ of solid Earth.

We might be about to discover that our planets crust contains some dark matter or electromagnetic effects warping space time or even some new physics altogether.

Edited by Chimpanzee
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Maybe their calculations that led them to a 'definite' speed of light are off by "a few billionths of a second"?

This is a possibility.

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The universe.

What of it?
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Considering that the idea that the speed of light is immutable (in Einsteins own words)means absolutely nothing. Dont fprget Einsteins "Cosmological Constant" - " my greatest error" as he described it. The man, great as he was, was probably less than he is given credit for - most of his work is based on Newton.

No theory is sacred - it is there to be disproven (or not)and FTL particles have been theorised before Einstein, yet to be proven though.

Too true. Newton's isotropic gravity assumption was his biggest mistake, and Einstein copied it without question apparently. An Archimedes screw as a graviton is the only solution which makes sense imo, hence anisotropic gravity.
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Full Article (BBC.co.uk)

If true this will be a big find, I am hoping to hear more about it soon. I looked around but never saw it posted yet, so here we go~

If this proves to pan out and the calculations are indeed correct, this will change the old ball game.

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Considering that the idea that the speed of light is immutable (in Einsteins own words)means absolutely nothing. Dont fprget Einsteins "Cosmological Constant" - " my greatest error" as he described it. The man, great as he was, was probably less than he is given credit for - most of his work is based on Newton.

No theory is sacred - it is there to be disproven (or not)and FTL particles have been theorised before Einstein, yet to be proven though.

Most of his work is not based off Newton. Its based off Lorentz transformations. Relativity is very different than Newtonian gravity

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Did they go faster than the speed of light? It is not a matter of concern for most of us. I am sure that there are a small group of very damp physisists waiting with bated breath for the final report on this event, but for the rest of us...meh.

It simply raises the bar as every scientific discovery has since the first cave man rubbed two sticks together. It allows the dreamers to dream bigger dreams.

We do not know everything about Creation. We have only been here for a tick of the cosmic clock, and for most of that time we were wallowing in the dirt just trying to survive until the next sunrise. (unfortunately far too many of us still are) Humans are so incredibly arrogant. I wonder if that is a universal trait for all "intelligent" species?

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I can't read the attached articles (work computer blocks them...) but, I have a question that

may have been answered inthe text (if so sorry)... If nuetrinos can pass through solid

objects, how do they know the nuetrinos they 'fired' were the ones that arrived at that instant?....

Could other naturally occuring nuetrinos have made the impacts?

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Can particles go faster than the speed of light? I'm pretty sure. Note- The speed of light is ridiculously slow compared to the speed of thought; which is instantaneous.

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Can particles go faster than the speed of light? I'm pretty sure. Note- The speed of light is ridiculously slow compared to the speed of thought; which is instantaneous.

Not even close.

http://www.scienceagogo.com/news/19980428032910data_trunc_sys.shtml

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While researching this I ran across another article on "teleportation" of subatomic particles. These particles are transported between atoms a good distance apart now, several meters. The interesting thing to me is they appear simultaniously to being transported so exist what seems to be at the same time in two places. This would mean instant travel, not speed of light travel and these particles are solid so deffinitely should be covered by relativity.

Interesting, I wouldn't mind reading this article either. Sounds like the particle is moving so fast it arrives at a new location before the light of the old location begins to move away.

Edited by SwordMonkey
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I (with some shame)admit that i have no idea what this really means, as in what this means for a non-brainy person like myself. Will this have any real ramifictions to normal people. Or is this something that will mostly stick to the science community.

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While researching this I ran across another article on "teleportation" of subatomic particles. These particles are transported between atoms a good distance apart now, several meters. The interesting thing to me is they appear simultaniously to being transported so exist what seems to be at the same time in two places. This would mean instant travel, not speed of light travel and these particles are solid so deffinitely should be covered by relativity.

Sounds like a good read! Can you find the link in your History and share it with us?

There's nothing that pleases me more than a scientist being baffled.

And I'm not science-bashing, that's what scientists ought to be, finding out things that baffle them, and not being afraid to admit it and not trying to insist that they know everything and there's nothing new that science can't explain already. In fact, it should be a scientist's ambition to find something that baffles them, as that means that they've found something that's genuinely new.

So true! Each experiment should stretch our mental capacity.

The above was the first draft! Then I edited it for clarity. While doing so the "Edit" timer timed out on me and took away my permission to edit. So I have two entries for the same thing now. Sorry about that. I will ask a monitator to eliminate the first.

Well, from what you guys have taught me, IMHO,...

If gravity can act like acceleration when it comes to relativity, then it seems to me that the experiment should be conducted in such a manner that all gravitational differences along the route are calculated into the expected answer.

Assuming you send that beam from the same exact points of gravitational pull (sea level to sea level, we will say), if the beam is straight, then at the halfway point it would be at a place where the gravitational pull is not the same, since sea level to sea level is a curved surface of the Earth.

Thereby, the beam taking the short cut of a straight line, rather than the curve, would be at varying levels below the Earth's surface. The Earth's surface is the "maximum gravitational point." Anything above or below the Earth's surface is lower in gravitational force. (This variation would be small.) Gravity's effect on the beam would therefore vary slightly, in accordance with the distance the beam is from the surface of the Earth. Gravity effecting the beam inconsistently, because of never being equal in "vertical gravitational distance," could account for a time difference. In this case making the beam travel slower.

Since gravitation acts the same as acceleration, if gravitation is not accounted for, in this case, it would change both:

. the speed (slower)

. and the observer's points of reference

Since the observers points of reference are never the same as the beam's point of reference, i.e. the observer's clock and the beams clock start off the same relative to each other, but the beams clock passes more slowly than the observer's relative to the observer's clock. This means the observers has had microscopically more time pass. Thus, the observers clock recording that the beam not only moved at a slower speed but took more time than anticipated.

HOWEVER, if the sending point were on a mountain and the receiving point were on a mountain, then the beam would arrive earlier than expected, if gravity were not accounted for. This is for the same reasons. The beam would, at some point along the way, end up closer to the "maximal gravitational point" (the surface of the Earth.) The observer's clocks are now in a place where they are no longer on the "maximum gravitational point" but are vertically higher than the surface of the Earth. That means time passes microscopically slower on the observer's clock than on the beam's clock.

Those observer points of reference are never the same as the beam's point of reference, i.e. the observer's clock and the beams clock start off the same relative to each other, but the beams clock passes faster than the observer's relative to the observer's clock. This means the observer's clock has had microscopically less time pass. Thus, the observer's clock records that the beam not only moved at a faster speed than light (relative to the observer's speed of light,) but took less time than anticipated.

Note, however: The beam, if tangent:

. at the beginning and end in the first example

. in the middle in the second example and the beginning and end are at the same height

has the exact same path and exact same forces applied to it. The difference is merely the placement of the clock of the observer and its distance from the "maximal gravitation point."

Note, also: I think, in studying neutrinos we would just now have discovered relativity had there only been applied physics and no theoretical physics.

If a like beam were sent back following the same straight line, we should have the exact same results. That would knock out any concern of the Earth's spin causing this to difference in time to happen. (The small difference of the earth's spin during that travel time could cause a time difference, because the movement of the Earth shortened the total distance to the receiver by the amount the Earth spun in that direction. And the observer moved along that curve as well.

Then we have the potential problem of, "Is the expansion of the universe (red shift) causing a problem." "The spin of the galaxy?" etc.

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I (with some shame)admit that i have no idea what this really means, as in what this means for a non-brainy person like myself. Will this have any real ramifictions to normal people. Or is this something that will mostly stick to the science community.

It's hard to know where this discovery might lead, assuming it continues to pass scientific muster. If the light-speed barrier has holes in it, this might even eventually mean space travel at at well beyond the speed of light. who can say? It could change not only the way scientists look at reality, but have practical implications for an inhabited, and conceivably interconnected galaxy.
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If an observer (or a measuring device) were equidistant from both the starting point and ending point of the neutrino's path, and the neutrino traveled faster than the speed of light, the neutrino would be observed to reach its ending point before it started.

As Rlyeh said this would violate causality and would be equivalent to the neutrino traveling backward in time. An effect occurring before its cause.

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