Roll over Einstein: Pillar of physics challenged

reply to post by LilDudeissocool


I don't quite understand what you're asking. Regardless, of course Maxwell's equations are necessary. They define the nature of EM radiation. To avoid me having to write this all out again, here's a post of mine on another thread: link. It explains why the speed of light must always be constant... otherwise, its waveform would collapse.

Originally posted by LilDudeissocool

Okay like taking minutes of swells on the ocean, and the other is like measuring surface current? Okay, got it, I think.

Yep...pretty much exactly like that.



reply to post by jonco6


Speaking of math... see my post above.

Originally posted by whosWatchingyou
looks like more and more each day the world of star trek-like technology seems to be creeping out.

Not really. First, this claim of FTL probably isn't even true. Even the researchers who discovered it are skeptical.

But even if it is true, a neutrino traveling at a tiny fraction of a percent faster than the speed of light hardly seems like star trek technology to me.

my worry comes from the voltages they are proposing to use.ive read reports of trillions of volts.this is fine unless something goes wrong.volts times amps eguals watts in one second.10 to the 12th power times anything in the .001 amps region is highly dangerous.at that level we are looking at a billion watts of power unleashed in one second.divided by 746 watts per horsepower.one hell of an explosion if something goes wrong.think of the damage a million horses can do in one second.

reply to post by CLPrime


I never seen, or at least remember seeing the equation before. Now I understand why a PDE equation is necessary. I appreciate the link to your other post. I sort at this point understand that the velocity of light creates an equilibrium of sorts of wave spacing, and without its exact spacing it could not function, or in other words it could and would not exist. It would be impossible for it to exist. I'm not sure if I am wording what I am trying to say properly. I hope you can decipher what I think is an understanding of what you are teaching here.

Originally posted by CLPrime

Originally posted by LilDudeissocool

Okay like taking minutes of swells on the ocean, and the other is like measuring surface current? Okay, got it, I think.

Yep...pretty much exactly like that.



reply to post by jonco6

 

Speaking of math... see my post above.

I think I need to brush up in this subject area. I'll be around again to pick your brain if that's alright with you?

maybe they have finally discovered taychons

Originally posted by LilDudeissocool
Okay like taking minutes of swells on the ocean, and the other is like measuring surface current? Okay, got it, I think.

I'm going to have to follow your posts from now on. You explain things very well... comprehensively that is. A rare breed in deed these days.

I agree CLprime explains things well.

Wikipedia has a good illustration of this distinction:
en.wikipedia.org...

Frequency dispersion in groups of gravity waves on the surface of deep water. The red dot moves with the phase velocity, and the green dots propagate with the group velocity. In this deep-water case, the phase velocity is twice the group velocity. The red dot overtakes two green dots, when moving from the left to the right of the figure.

Every time you see an article about FTL light, it's usually confusion over this difference as CLprime says.
The image is larger than the new 500kb limit so I can't show it here, you have to go to the Wiki link to see it.

reply to post by LilDudeissocool


Go right ahead...my brain is open for the picking

reply to post by CLPrime


Nice I know the math. I understand why its concidered a constant. Nice reference post btw I was just saying that every thing we(think we) know today could be turned upside down tomorrow so never put to much faith in the pot of potential fail just sayin. That and I was bored so .

Originally posted by BrnBdry
This news is completly irrelevant to us. We will never use it. This is more news to my childs childs childs childs childs childs childs childs childs childs child child over 1000 years from now when maybe they can use it.

Unless Hindus and Buddhists are right and we are getting reincarnated, after death

But anyway, I have read that if this discovery is true, then even time travel would be a possibility, on paper for now.

Mind blowing....

reply to post by jonco6


Boredom will do that to you.
I spent 8 years trying to work out an alternative to Relativity. Then, I learned just how powerful Relativity is, and how consistent with observation its mathematical foundation truly is. Once I realized this, I stopped questioning it. I work under the assumption that Relativity is at least a working superficial model, and I will do so until that model is shown to be wrong in some way...if that ever happens.

reply to post by CLPrime


I came to the same conclusion but it's fun to pick at it every now and then.

Originally posted by ctdannyd
Sounds pretty cool. Light up those warp engines Scotty!!

I guess my only question about the entire issue, is how does one measure something that travels faster than light? Or even better determine just how much faster.....

Odd to say the least!

Easy, the subatomic particles arrived before they left.

reply to post by CLPrime


I like your answer. It's not the simple "hey, i thought about relativity and its STOOOOPID! I got a better way!" - no, you went the hard way.

Relativity is as a scientifically proven theory correct till proven incorrect.
Therefore, even if they are *quite* sure to measure travelling times for neutrinos exact for up to 10 ns, I really doubt that. Neutrinos are hellish difficult to measure..

I thought it was widely known for years, that only particles that contain information can't travel faster than the speed of light? So this new find is kind of a proof that other particles can travel faster, but since they are operating with tiny particles, at subatomic levels, it really doesn't help us out much practically. At this point I wouldn't even dream of warping normal objects, or anything of that kind .

To all the scientists that I argued with for hours that said this was impossible. They were hard headed and refused to believe Einstein could be wrong. I knew in my heart this was possible. To all of them.....

Hahahahahaahaha


This will revolutionize the way we look at physics.

As a professional physicist I'd say this is interesting and the experiment needs to be repeated several times before any conclusions are made. My money is on an experimental artefact. In other words, I don't believe that the particles are superluminar in the sense that the convey information faster than light and that there is a flaw in the experiment. We have already seen superluminar behavior before. The catch is that we cannot transfer information with it (and yes, this includes quantum entanglement). In other words, it is useless as far as applications are concerned.

As far as the reputation of Einstein goes, this will do nothing to it. Einstein's work was, is and remains a landmark achievement in the history of human race. If this result is confirmed, it only shows that science works as it is supposed to. We observe, make a hypothesis, test its predictions against observations and as long as the observations are in agreement with the it, the hypothesis turns into a theory which means that it is our best idea of how the nature works. Once we observe something that doesn't fit the theory, we repeat the cycle and try to come up with a better explanation that reconciles both the new and old theory into the same framework. General relativity did nothing to the reputation of Isaac Newton -- it didn't mean that his science was wrong. It merely showed that classical mechanics is a useful low-energy approximation for particles in motion.

Science doesn't claim truths - we simply say that "this is our best understanding of the nature". Furthermore, as a scientist I'd say that there are no ultimate truths, rights or wrongs in nature. Personally, I believe that the nature is fractal in the sense that we will never be able to fully describe it in a unified theory. Unlike in a teleological belief system masquerading as science (creationism, intelligent design), a physical theory that fails an experimental test does not mean that it is wrong in the sense that it needs to be thrown away and replaced with something completely new. It simply needs to be revised and extended. In contrast, teleological systems can't survive failed predictions. In science we welcome failing theories. We celebrate failing theories. For a physicist there is nothing more exciting than an experimental discovery that shows that our current understanding is flawed. It is the way how we make progress.

reply to post by DragonFire1024


Now now.

We still don't know. To assume this from one anomaly is not science.

For all we know, we just bent space time. Which is great. Cause it means we can make space ships that have ftl drives.

This is so exciting...if true, a new realm of physics shall have to emerge. We assumed there's a light barrier...and all our equations and laws assume that...

We live in exciting times!