It looks like you're using an Ad Blocker.

Please white-list or disable AboveTopSecret.com in your ad-blocking tool.

Thank you.

 

Some features of ATS will be disabled while you continue to use an ad-blocker.

 

Particles found to break speed of light

page: 1
3

log in

join
share:

posted on Sep, 22 2011 @ 04:20 PM
link   
Particles found to break speed of light


GENEVA, Sept 22 (Reuters) - An international team of scientists said on Thursday they had recorded sub-atomic particles travelling faster than light -- a finding that could overturn one of Einstein's long-accepted fundamental laws of the universe.

Antonio Ereditato, spokesman for the researchers, told Reuters that measurements taken over three years showed neutrinos pumped from CERN near Geneva to Gran Sasso in Italy had arrived 60 nanoseconds quicker than light would have done.

"We have high confidence in our results. We have checked and rechecked for anything that could have distorted our measurements but we found nothing," he said. "We now want colleagues to check them independently."

If confirmed, the discovery would undermine Albert Einstein's 1905 theory of special relativity, which says that the speed of light is a "cosmic constant" and that nothing in the universe can travel faster.

That assertion, which has withstood over a century of testing, is one of the key elements of the so-called Standard Model of physics, which attempts to describe the way the universe and everything in it works.

The totally unexpected finding emerged from research by a physicists working on an experiment dubbed OPERA run jointly by the CERN particle research centre near Geneva and the Gran Sasso Laboratory in central Italy.


Crux of the article -

A total of 15,000 beams of neutrinos -- tiny particles that pervade the cosmos -- were fired over a period of 3 years from CERN towards Gran Sasso 730 (500 miles) km away, where they were picked up by giant detectors.

Light would have covered the distance in around 2.4 thousandths of a second, but the neutrinos took 60 nanoseconds -- or 60 billionths of a second -- less than light beams would have taken.

edit on 22-9-2011 by Xcathdra because: (no reason given)



posted on Sep, 22 2011 @ 04:21 PM
link   
Looks like an anomoly has been found with regards to Einsteins law that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light.

I am curious what others doors this may open.


Space travel... TFL communications, etc etc etc.

The world is just awesome...



posted on Sep, 22 2011 @ 04:27 PM
link   
The gain in time is infinitesimal, and they may have to account for some kind of malfunction yet....I doubt this is really as earth shaking as we may think.
If they had halved the time maybeid be more excited..................s&f fer ya anyways



posted on Sep, 22 2011 @ 04:35 PM
link   
This is fantastic - I really hope that they can ratify these results as soon as possible



posted on Sep, 22 2011 @ 04:39 PM
link   
Did you check the front page?

This is covered.

Sorry to poop on your thread.



posted on Sep, 22 2011 @ 06:42 PM
link   

Originally posted by WickettheRabbit
Did you check the front page?

This is covered.

Sorry to poop on your thread.


Its within the T and C's to have a duplicate topic when one of those is in the breaking news forums. So its all good.

Observation aside, and thoughts on the discovery?



new topics

top topics
 
3

log in

join