Roll over Einstein: Pillar of physics challenged

reply to post by DragonFire1024


from my understanding there has always been movement faster than the speed of light outside of a vacuum...in fact i want to say i read that some parts of the universe are expanding at faster than the speed of light to the point where we could never reach them....thought i just read that the other day in popular science...idk maybe im wrong

reply to post by cosmicexplorer


There's a difference between metric expansion and proper velocity. The "motion" we interpret from universal expansion isn't true motion...it's just inferred from redshift. In fact, this redshift only indicates how much space has "stretched" in the time since the light left its source. Expansion is not causing objects to move...it is increasing the distance between two objects. So, there's no superluminal velocity involved.

Sadly, this thread has little substance if any.

Before anyone starts (figuratively) patting Einstein on the shoulder in a condescending manner, and/or calls to break out champagne and usher in some new era in physics, it would be a good idea to take a look at the details of this measurement.

With a difference of a few dozen nanoseconds, there is just plenty of stuff that could have been measured wrong. It took a long time for teams operating LEP (an older machine at CERN, which occupied the tunnel now used by the LHC) to figure out daily, weekly and monthly fluctuations of the beam energy in the ring. It turns out local trains were producing enough electrical current in the ground to create just enough magnetic field to cause a very small difference. Further, after heavy rain the limestone in which the ring was laid could change mechanical properties and swell, leading to a miniscule bu measurable change in the ring circumference. Tidal effects of the Moon were probably the most trivial of all but of course they did exist.

With small timing deviations like those reported, anything form seismic activity to rain to God knows what could have been the culprit. Just saying.

First thing I thought of was SPACE TRAVEL!! Haha.

This could be probably the greatest scientific discovery of our lifetime.

Originally posted by CLPrime
reply to post by cosmicexplorer

 

There's a difference between metric expansion and proper velocity. The "motion" we interpret from universal expansion isn't true motion...it's just inferred from redshift. In fact, this redshift only indicates how much space has "stretched" in the time since the light left its source. Expansion is not causing objects to move...it is increasing the distance between two objects. So, there's no superluminal velocity involved.

mabey superluminal velocity is acually super luminal,
and i understand it has been explained within SR but.......


xploder

Originally posted by tomten

Originally posted by chrismir
Ok, here goes nothing. I'm in no way educated in science, so I might just be blattering here.

What if... our calculation of the maximum possible speed was always just a bit off.

The conditions in the LHC are quite different then a light-beam that can be measured. Light, once left the source, is an autonomous force naked to other forces and energies such as gravity. But the speed of the particles at CERN is maintained by the LHC and conditions might be more balanced then any setup for measuring the speed of light.

There is a extreamly tiny chance that the Neutrino passed by a micro-black hole.

And the micro black hole contracted the spacetime around it, effectively shortening the path of the beam.

So Titor was right then. CERN will discover time travel, since what essentially happened there was time travel.

Originally posted by CeeRZ
So we get Speed of Neutrino? Not catchy. I mean, we already have "faster than the speed of light"... but that takes too long to say and is incredibly broad in case they find multiple things with speeds that are faster than light. So what should we call this new speed? How about the speed of energy? Or is that already calculated?

FTL speed. Faster than light speed. Not very hard to say, and FTL rolls off the tongue quite nicely. I don't see this being replaced.

speed of light is relative to the observer. Light travels at the same speed but not always in a straight line, so between two points it can look faster (shorter distance traveled) or slower (longer distance traveled) or "normal" (traveled in a straight line).

Originally posted by FOXMULDER147
Yeah but a faster-than-light object had to break the light speed limit at some point, didn't it? Or did it just 'pop' into existence at that speed?

I understood time stands still at light speed. Time is a dimension. So in what dimension are these faster-than-light objects moving in?

It's my understanding that the whole "speed of light limit" thing was predicated on one of Einstein's famous thought experiments. Imagine you are looking at a clock. You are stationary and the clock is as well, so that you can see the second hand sweeping. You are not moving, but the photons are, at the speed of light relative to you. Now you begin to move away from the clock at an ever increasing pace. When you are moving at half the speed of light, the light doesn't arrive at your position as quickly, so you are seeing "older" photons from the clock, making it appear to move more slowly. If you are moving AT the speed of light, then you are traveling at the same speed as the photons, and you see no change, making the clock appear to be standing still - you are seeing the same photons (NOT the ones coming off the clock at that instant), since you are traveling at the same speed as they are relative to them.

Some one, somewhere, made the bright leap that "time" was linked to YOUR speed relative to the speed of light, and that you are seeing TIME slow down, rather than realizing that it's actually just the photons not catching up (using more time to catch you) to your relative position as you move.

Because of that thought experiment, I don't see an actual linkage of actual time as much as the appearance that time has slowed down. The same experiment, run backwards, would have you slamming into the photons faster and faster, making time appear to be accelerating as you race back towards the clock.

If you had a clock at each end of the journey, one would appear to be slowing down, and the other would appear to be speeding up, depending on which one you were going towards. This is the same principle as the red shift - moving towards and object (or it moving towards you) causes you to meet the peaks of the light waves at a faster rate, making them appear to be shorter (higher frequency), shifting towards the blue.

I personally believe time is a more absolute dimension, appearances notwithstanding. Appearances can be deceiving, relatively speaking. What you see is relative to where you are, rather than what is going on where you are looking.

I read about this this afternoon on physorg.com. I strongly recommend the website to any science-minded people who like reading about new discoveries and break-throughs.

Certainly an amazing discovery if it can be reproduced independently. It will definitely turn the world of physics and science in general on its' head. Textbooks will need to be re-written, new models developed, and the laws of nature reviewed.

interesting...im out of my league here haha...but thx to the ones that tried to explain it to me.....huge physics fan here...but i got nothing past the 101 classes .....

really? how does it behave in space-time?
reply to post by CasiusIgnoranze


that's voodoo physics

Originally posted by buddhasystem
long rant

I am little dubious of the results myself. Such a small difference could be the result of an error in the measurement. However, I've never believed the speed of light was the limit...and I am excited to see what comes of this.

How could einstein know anything about sub-atomic particles during his era? When he said nothing can travel faster than the speed of light he probably meant *atomic particles only*.

And what vacuum are we talking about since a perfect vacuum implies absolutely no matter? Maybe a relative vacuum could be used to describe this non-planetary attribute. The greater the density of an object light has to travel through, the greater the resistance it will encounter through friction, thus the lower its speed will be.

In space you would have to annihilate matter to bring objects closer to you, thus indirectly traveling. Its like a black hole that traps everything in its path through its own gravity? I am not sure I understand this concept but it doesn't sound like chineese to me either.

Odds are it was a measurement error. We're still figuring out neutrinos.

Why is it so close to being at the limit? And, if true, what did Einstein, specifically, get wrong? And, there's more than one type of neutrino. Do they all have mass?

Did this particular neutrino that they shot from Cern to Gran Sasso have any mass?

reply to post by DragonFire1024


Science as we know it is so flimsey....No more accurate than taking someones blood pressure.
size of cuff
who is administering the BP test
what time of day
what food has been consumed
who manufactures the bp device
is the patient nervous
is the one administering the test nervous?


Hand out those BP medications...cha ching $$$$$


As far as CERN and other things like HAARP. That poor New World Order is burned up they cant find the device they are looking for in the middle east. Its almost entertaining to watch

Originally posted by tomten

Originally posted by chrismir
Ok, here goes nothing. I'm in no way educated in science, so I might just be blattering here.

What if... our calculation of the maximum possible speed was always just a bit off.

The conditions in the LHC are quite different then a light-beam that can be measured. Light, once left the source, is an autonomous force naked to other forces and energies such as gravity. But the speed of the particles at CERN is maintained by the LHC and conditions might be more balanced then any setup for measuring the speed of light.

There is a extreamly tiny chance that the Neutrino passed by a micro-black hole.

CERN...

"micro black holes"...

You've been reading John Titor again, haven't you?

this could possibly be due to the gravitational changes occurring throughout the earth either from a celestial body or due to changes inside the earth. Space Time is Malleable and easily influenced through such changes. Or it could just be equipment error.

Originally posted by Smugallo
reply to post by DragonFire1024

 

It's about time someone started a new era in physics! Interested to hear more about this, I read it from reuters news earlier!

Isn't this cool? I mean, the theory of relativity as acted as a foundation for Quantum Mechanics, String theory, M-theory, and pretty much all of Hawkings work.

To me, the possibility of something being able to break the speed of light ( Light barrier? ) is just amazing.

The idea in the theory of relativity is that nothing can go faster than the speed of light because as any object accelerates, it gains mass. So the faster it goes, the bigger it gets, and the bigger it gets, the more energy is required for it to continue accelerating...

So what does this say? That not everything gains mass as it speeds up? Perhaps that there is a way around this rule? So many cool questions.

I know what I am going to be reading up on tonight

reply to post by nenothtu


If what you say is true, then it would be impossible for a clock on the space shuttle to reflect a "slow down" when measured against the same clock on earth *after a round trip journey*

So your interpretation does not seem to agree with experimental evidence.

-rrr