CERN scientists 'break the speed of light'

[GodFearinGunTotin]

CERN scientists 'break the speed of light' - Telegraph

Amazing stuff. How they detect and measure these particles amaze me.

 

[hoosierdoc]

Right, It amazes me too because these are the same doofuses that can do this but can't seem to figure out the sun causes earth's temperatures as they lather on SPF 100 to protect their acne covered tanless faces

 

[Mr Evilwrench]

Nah, those are different doofuses. The CERN guys just absorb money to keep upgrading their machine, they don't propose to make us give all our money to third world dictators and live like cavemen.

 

[Woobie]

Congrats to these physicists. This is very cool. Science is awesome stuff when you don't attach a political agenda to it by dangling grant money out there as a reward for properly cooked data. If this is independently confirmed, it will change a bunch of notions.

 

[KLB]

Looks like it was a mistake. Bad fiber connection threw off their timing.
The Faster-Than-Light Neutrinos That Weren't: The Data That Threatened to Break Physics

 

[T.Lex]

haha

I was just getting ready to post that a 60 ns difference makes me question the accuracy of the measurements.

Interesting stuff, nonetheless.

Except the original article was from 2011? Time travel?

 

[HoughMade]

See, when you accelerate at maximum warp and slingshot around the sun.....

 

[Scout]

Just supposing we could travel at 50% of light speed. And just suppose we shined a flashlight out the front window. Does the light from that flashlight now travel at 150% light speed? If not, what would cause it to slow?

If approaching light speed causes time to slow, is that because time actually does slow, or because we percieve it to slow? If traveling at 50% light speed and you look forward, would you see things happen twice as fast? If you turn around and look behind would you see things happen at half speed? If you look to the left or right would things appear to happen at normal speed?

 

[patience0830]

Just supposing we could travel at 50% of light speed. And just suppose we shined a flashlight out the front window. Does the light from that flashlight now travel at 150% light speed? If not, what would cause it to slow?

If approaching light speed causes time to slow, is that because time actually does slow, or because we percieve it to slow? If traveling at 50% light speed and you look forward, would you see things happen twice as fast? If you turn around and look behind would you see things happen at half speed? If you look to the left or right would things appear to happen at normal speed?

Moot point because you'd be so busy dodging stuff coming at you at 1/2 of light speed, you'd have no time to look.

 

[SnoopLoggyDog]

 

[IndyDave1776]

See, when you accelerate at maximum warp and slingshot around the sun.....

...you screw up your ship's dilithium crystals and have to steal nuclear energy from an aircraft carrier to weld the fractured crystals back together so you can get home to your correct time, even if Spock does have to 'guess' on account of the variables introduced with the fractured crystals.

 

[mbills2223]

Well then... They better fix it

 

[HoughMade]

...you screw up your ship's dilithium crystals and have to steal nuclear energy from an aircraft carrier to weld the fractured crystals back together so you can get home to your correct time, even if Spock does have to 'guess' on account of the variables introduced with the fractured crystals.

Only with inferior Klingon ships. The Enterprise did it with much less drama at least 2 times.

 

[DRob]

Sheldon Cooper will figure it out!

 

[Mr Evilwrench]

Just supposing we could travel at 50% of light speed. And just suppose we shined a flashlight out the front window. Does the light from that flashlight now travel at 150% light speed? If not, what would cause it to slow?

If approaching light speed causes time to slow, is that because time actually does slow, or because we percieve it to slow? If traveling at 50% light speed and you look forward, would you see things happen twice as fast? If you turn around and look behind would you see things happen at half speed? If you look to the left or right would things appear to happen at normal speed?

That's the stuff that relativity is about. The speed of light is (sort of) an absolute; you observe the same speed of light as everyone else no matter how fast you're going. At your example of half light speed, if you shine a flashlight forward, to someone stationary it's still coming off you at the speed of light. What happens is the waves compress, and the light shifts blue. If you shine it backward, you're going away from it at half light speed, but same thing, it's coming off you at the speed of light, but since you're pulling away, the waves are stretched and the light shifts red. That's the doppler shift applied to light just as it applies to sound.

Since time is a factor in velocity, as your velocity increases, your measurement of time becomes different (slower) than that of someone stationary. When you come back and stop, more time will have passed at home than did for you. It does slow for you, but you don't perceive it because you still observe the speed of light the same as you did. Another effect is that the faster you go, the shorter your spaceship gets as it would be perceived by a stationary observer. At the speed of light, it would no longer have length.

As you look out the window, forward the light would shift blue all the way past ultraviolet and be invisible, rearward it would become invisible into the infrared. Sideways, you would see the stars around you in a ring colored like a rainbow, the faster you go, the narrower the ring.

/denny

 

[jason867]

Just supposing we could travel at 50% of light speed. And just suppose we shined a flashlight out the front window. Does the light from that flashlight now travel at 150% light speed? If not, what would cause it to slow?

If approaching light speed causes time to slow, is that because time actually does slow, or because we percieve it to slow? If traveling at 50% light speed and you look forward, would you see things happen twice as fast? If you turn around and look behind would you see things happen at half speed? If you look to the left or right would things appear to happen at normal speed?

I don't have an answer for the second part, but I think I can address the first part somewhat.

Light from a flashlight cannot travel faster than the speed of light for the same reason that the sound waves from aircraft traveling faster than the speed of sound cannot travel faster than the speed of sound. That's how you end up with a sonic boom, & I believe something similar in concept would happen with light.

I specifically remember my physics teacher in high school stating that an object traveling faster than the speed of light would gain infinite mass. I believe that's what might happen similar to a sonic boom.

If I'm not mistaken, objects with a lot of mass affect the fabric of space-time, which creates gravity, which in high doses can affect time. This is how black holes work in part.

This is only my very limited, possibly incorrect, probably outdated, understanding of the physics.

 

[HoughMade]

Doppler effect. Speed does not exceed the speed of light, but the waves are compressed.

 

[SnoopLoggyDog]

 

[SnoopLoggyDog]

I did not know this about Galileo,

 

[searpinski]

We've been able to accelerate particles in excess of light speed for years. When anyone talks about "light speed," they are referring to light speed in a vacuum. If you are accelerating particles through a medium such as mineral oil, you can exceed light speed for that medium. However, this article is interesting. I'm betting it will be debunked...