Speed Of Light Discussion Thread For Beginners

With the recent breaking news of Scientists in Europe claiming Neutrinos have ben measured travelling faster than the speed of light, it made me aware how little I knew about this subject.
Below is an excellent link to educate anyone who is ignorant on such things.

en.wikipedia.org...

And another relating to the Neutrinos.
en.wikipedia.org...

With a bit of time and effort even rusty thinkers like me may understand this incredible science and reality.

First question from me now Iam an expert



How does something that has mass travel through solid objects faster than light that has no mass travels through a vaccum?

Could it be light does have mass?
Or that neutrinos slow down light waves when nearby?
I hope other beginning thinkers on this subject find the links informative.
Thumbs up for Wiki

I need a better definition of "light" before further visiting this subject...

Originally posted by Dr Expired

How does something that has mass travel through solid objects faster than light that has no mass travels through a vaccum?

Could it be light does have mass?
Or that neutrinos slow down light waves when nearby?

Photons have no rest mass, but, when they travel at the speed of light (which is always), they gain relativistic mass. This mass, though, is less important than a related thing they gain - momentum. It's actually momentum which is imparted to these massless photons when they travel at the speed of light, and mass is a result of this momentum.

However, that doesn't answer your actual question. The reason neutrinos pass easily through solid objects is that they are weakly interacting. They have no electric charge and they have negligible mass, so there is very little for them to use to interact with other things.

reply to post by Dr Expired


I wonder if this might be a worthy definition ?

Light - That which was created to separate the night from the day ?


SnF

reply to post by Dr Expired


It's pretty much what many people have been trying to tell scientists for a long time. Current science is only based on what they can observe and they deny things which they cannot see. Now finally science sees something and they have "discovered" something great. Pretty funny...

Appreciate the thread. I am beyond rusty, I don't even think I'm metal! Would love to have some more discussion that will hopefully bring us noobs up to speed. See what I did there?! Good thread!

Originally posted by Dr Expired
With the recent breaking news of Scientists in Europe claiming Neutrinos have ben measured travelling faster than the speed of light, it made me aware how little I knew about this subject.
Below is an excellent link to educate anyone who is ignorant on such things.

en.wikipedia.org...

And another relating to the Neutrinos.
en.wikipedia.org...

With a bit of time and effort even rusty thinkers like me may understand this incredible science and reality.

First question from me now Iam an expert

How does something that has mass travel through solid objects faster than light that has no mass travels through a vaccum?

Could it be light does have mass?
Or that neutrinos slow down light waves when nearby?
I hope other beginning thinkers on this subject find the links informative.
Thumbs up for Wiki

edit on 24-9-2011 by Dr Expired because: spellingg

first off there is no such thing as an absolute vacuum.this nulls all equations that use it as a formula.
outer space is hydrogen and radiation.
imagine a balloon in a vacuum.this balloon can expand to infinity.that is what hydrogen is.otherwise outer space would just be free quantum particles.no matter how hard a vacuum you pull on a space ,there will always be at least one gas atom in that space.
the energy is traveling along the foundation of this mass.
the mass of a neutron comes from the kinetic energy.energy=mass.once the wave stops,mass becomes zero.since the universe is always moving,no neutron ever completely stops.so a neutron always has mass

reply to post by Dr Expired

What interested me about the Speed of Light article is that it mentions the subject of information.

Now, information is normally thought of as something that is only important to an information consumer, like you or me, a conscious being. And that adds the phenomenon of consciousness into the subject of quantum physics.

Traditionally, physics is the study of the behavior of mass and energy (now linked by Einstein's equivalence formula). And now they are saying that in quantum physics, consciousness enters into the situation. In other words, the quantum laws are also supposed to apply to information.

Electrons and Photons

I've studied electronics, so I know a little about electrons and photons in a practical sense. I know, for example, that you can take a little tiny bit of specially-prepared matter, and push some of its electrons (using a voltage) up to a higher energy state. And when those electrons fall back to a lower energy state, photons come out of them. Those photons travel at the "speed of light" in a vacuum and less fast if there are things there for them to run into.

Then those photons can hit another specially-prepared little piece of matter, and the result will be that some of the electrons will move up to a higher energy level, which will manifest as a voltage (or signal) in the target material.

In information terms, the excited material gave off information in the form of photons, which propagated at the speed of light to the target material, which then received that information, producing a reaction (or signal) in that material similar to the action (or signal) that was used on the excited material.

You see, then, that we have a communication going on here; a transmission of information. Similar to the broadcast signal of a radio station (very similar, actually).

And the only way we can tell that any of this is happening is that we have figured out a way to measure voltages (signals) across specially-prepared pieces of matter.

Using these fundamentals, all this theory about sub-atomic particles, etc., has been built up in the laboratory.

How this theory is limited

All this theory is saying, then, is that when a communication (or signal) leaves one point, it can't reach any other point any faster than the speed of light.

Thus, faster-than-light effects are allowed, as long as they don't result in any information moving from one place to another. The article argues that other "faster than light" effects that have been observed did not actually involve a transfer of information, and they are therefore possible without violating the theory.

The theory does not cover any other possible ways that information could be gained by consciousness. Some theories of consciousness suggest that it is a totally non-physical phenomenon. Therefore, consciousness, acting alone and without the use of physical communication, might be able to acquire information instantaneously. All it would have to do, theoretically, would be to consider that it knew the information.

Neutrinos

I don't know much about these things, but they have been described as "uncharged electrons." I don't know how neutrinos exchange information. But there is some anecdotal evidence that they are used by consciousness as an information storage medium. If this is so, it might be part of how neutrinos could seem to "travel" faster than light. There could be a consciousness present assisting the process.

something to think about - signal propagation

It is thought that you will not be able to detect the information in a photon emitted by a source until that photon arrives at your detector. In other words, there is no mechanism which allows photons to pass their data forward via other photons or some other particle.

A sound signal works entirely differently, though. Whereas photons travel fastest in a vacuum, where there is nothing in their way, sound travels fastest through a stiff, solid medium. Sound travels much faster through steel than through air. The signal could be seen as a deformation in the area of where the sound is produced. That deformation will spread out through the transmitting medium at a rate that depends primarily on how stiff that medium is.

It has been postulated that such a propagation mechanism for electromagnetic information may also exist. Modern physics seems to rule out this possibility, but some still cling to it. Without a doubt, there is a lot of "stuff" out there where once we thought only empty space (vacuum) existed. Even a vacuum will contain "something" if photons are propagating through it.

This is harder than i thought, specially if you're sleepy.
I'll read this tomorrow though,as it is extremely interesting to me

I may sound like a caveman on this one but science seems to hold us back in many ways. My common sense tells me that speed is infinite...i could be wrong but if something is moving x amount of speed then the possibility of another should have the ability to move twice as fast...and th&t thing moving twice a fast should have something that moves twice as fast...and so on....not to say that there are elements that can sustain itself at that rate of speed but I just dont see how there can be a cap on something like that...it may sound rediculous to many as we have been tought to think otherwise but I must say...this is definity a strike against their logic and a plus for mines

Originally posted by patternchek
I may sound like a caveman on this one but science seems to hold us back in many ways. My common sense tells me that speed is infinite...i could be wrong but if something is moving x amount of speed then the possibility of another should have the ability to move twice as fast...and th&t thing moving twice a fast should have something that moves twice as fast...and so on....not to say that there are elements that can sustain itself at that rate of speed but I just dont see how there can be a cap on something like that...it may sound rediculous to many as we have been tought to think otherwise but I must say...this is definity a strike against their logic and a plus for mines

Hi!
The thing to understand, I believe, is the meaning and "influence" of mass
The main "hardship" is that we usually see concepts as "mass" in practical terms, relating them to things we experience in our daily life. And that works for a while, but modern physics blew that relation to smithereens.

(this is a very crude example)Take, for instance , just one gram of, say, iron. You know it has mass. Then, when you "accelerate" that piece of stuff, as you increase velocity, mass begins to increase, and as you reach near c velocities (c=speed of light), mass nears infinite.

I know it's hard to grasp. It's not easy for me either
Hopefuly a more physics-abled member will give a more precise answer.

Peace
Drakus