Speed claim baffles CERN theoryfest

reply to post by Xcathdra

The constant is the speed of light in a vaccum. Everyone always leaves out the "in a vacuum" part...

reply to post by pazcat

For what it's worth, I see the wiki for the speed of light has been updated. The description of events sounds reasonable to me:
en.wikipedia.org...

In late September 2011, physicists working at the OPERA experiment published results that seemed to suggest beams of neutrinos had travelled from CERN (in Geneva, Switzerland) to LNGS (at the Gran Sasso, Italy) faster than the speed of light, arriving (60.7 ± 6.9 (stat.) ± 7.4 (sys.)) nanoseconds early (corresponding to about 18 metres in a total distance of 730 kilometres)[47] These findings have yet to be independently verified.[48] and the OPERA researchers say they are going to "investigate possible still unknown systematic effects that could explain the observed anomaly" and "deliberately do not attempt any theoretical or phenomenological interpretation of the results."[47]

So even though the OPERA team already spent 6 months looking for systematic errors, they still haven't given up looking for such errors yet. Those folks who see this experiment as conclusive should bear that in mind.

reply to post by Arbitrageur


I see according to the History of the page that it has been fairly busy recently, it'd be a nightmare to moderate. I'd say they have it in check for now.
en.wikipedia.org...

reply to post by pazcat


Wow! I didn't notice they had 9 revisions just on October 18th alone! I've never seen that many revisions in one day before, but then I don't look at revision logs all that often. You're right, they've been busy!

I'll take a bit of a detour for a moment, focusing on the issue of relativity and "time."

Time, as we understand it, is only measurable as a function of physical activity in the universe. At the time, when pondering on Relativity, Einstein had no reason to dissociate time, space, energy, and matter. However, as we have learned more about the behavior of subatomic particles, I am not so certain that it is wise to consider time as a real phenomena.

Of course, I also don't subscribe to the idea that gravity is a force in the classical sense (where a particle can be attributed to the phenomena). I'm more of the opinion that gravity affects the structure of 'space' and will influence all particles (which may or may not have mass - but they are still influenced according to the same principles). It's a very under-developed 'theory' (if you want to call it that) - and I lack the discipline in math and physics to really make anything of it. Not beyond my mind, but beyond my discipline, I'm afraid.

Anyway - let's say we were to have some form of instantaneous transmission between two locations - in the ultimate "no-no" of relativity-defying physics - a "star gate." Classic interpretations of relativity hold that placing one end of this portal near a dense field of gravity (such as a neutron star or black hole) would be capable of creating a 'loop' of space-time that allowed one to travel forward/back in time, should you bring the other end of this worm-hole back to more normalized space.

This brings up all kinds of issues, obviously, particularly when it concerns causality.

I contend it's rather silly.

First - the idea of a "worm hole" is a little iffy - as one can only postulate on 'space' between worm-holes (if any exists at all). However, it is not at all necessary for that space to link 'back' in time. Let's send something through this wormhole - something simple, like a radio signal. We send it through the worm-hole at 1 GHz. Things, however, at the other end, are progressing much slower; say, 1/10th the rate compared to where it was sent from.

This is where things get stupidly simple. Rather than receiving a 1 GHz signal - they receive a 10 GHz signal. Photons will still be excited at the same rate as their source, simply propagating at a slower rate. This is consistent with relativity - Light is only a constant speed from a given frame of reference - what the "star gate" allows is for a radically different frame of reference to influence light (and other particles, presumably) within another reference.

Moving the other end of this 'star gate' closer to its source would be just like one of those classic comedy sequences involving interconnected holes in the wall.

Now - this all poses some interesting issues with "star gate" travel. Traveling to regions that progress at rates different from your own could result in all kinds of interesting things. For example - you could simply burst into a shower of particles similar to a scene within the LHC because many of the particles that comprise you exceeded Plank energy for the given space (your gravitational position holds energy that is exchanged for velocity and other energies when you travel via classic motion - this must be released as your mater attempts to normalize with the space around it).

Similarly, you could suddenly condense into something similar to a Bose-Einstein condensate when attempting to travel from a strong gravitational presence to one of less gravitational influence (this is because you lack the energy)... it might be something more like a quark/gluon-condensate - or something we cannot produce through temperature changes, alone.

Thus, some kind of buffer would have to be created for such transportation systems to be practical. The interesting thing is that sending something 'down' (into gravity) would result in energy that needed to be bled by the sent object (and could be harnessed); while sending an object "up" would require energy.

Before anyone gets carried away - it would not be possible to violate the laws of thermodynamics. While you could, in theory, send a whole planet into a 'black hole' - you would never be able to send anything beyond the event horizon (presuming such a thing exists - the singularity has not yet been observed, and is not required for 'black holes' to exist) - thus, you would never be able to use it as a device for infinite energy.

reply to post by Xcathdra


Light still moves at the same speed in water, however, we perceive it moving slower because it reflects by the water particles. It is still moving the same distance over same amount of time.