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Tachyons ?

Relayer1

Relayer1

Admiral
Admiral
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-15017484

"Puzzling results from Cern, home of the LHC, have confounded physicists - because it appears subatomic particles have exceeded the speed of light.
Neutrinos sent through the ground from Cern toward the Gran Sasso laboratory 732km away seemed to show up a tiny fraction of a second early."

Faster than light particles possibly ?
 
Very interesting. Especially since Neutrinos that switch types must have mass and are therefore less likely to reach, let alone exceed, the speed of light.

It's very likely an experimental error, but it will be very interesting if true. The speed of light barrier has been demonstrated to be solid in countless experiments, so if it is true, it's some kind of weird exception, like time's arrow in particle decay. I wonder if there's some cumulative quantum tunneling effect related to the type switching; there could be useful tech applications if this is borne out.
 
tumblr_lfbn86MrhV1qfy2kdo1_500.gif
 
I read this and I was all like "yayyyyyy"

Then I read that they were talking about billionths of a second and I was like, "yay?".

Can such a small deviation be significant?

Perhaps I just don't understand physics.
 
Why is everybody in such a hurry to disprove Einstein these days? :rommie:

[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GrsN8iTwFiw[/yt]
 
Maybe the fundamental speed limit is the speed of neutrinos (or even gravitons, which are even more slippery to detect), and physicists need to ask why photons in vacuo travel slightly slower than that limit.
 
I'm reminded of that Douglas Adams line about comparing the speed of light with the speed of bad news (which obeys its own special laws). :vulcan:
 
within time-wave cycles we can create reality shifts that would cause more then is know to be known as serial partial dimenisonal effects like the observed probability you would understand what I just typed is close to nothing but actual effects of what I type ... is like endlessly scraping residual radiation from the edge of the known universes to see if anything is really worth the importance that is placed on it now.
 
think said:
within time-wave cycles we can create reality shifts that would cause more then is know to be known as serial partial dimenisonal effects like the observed probability you would understand what I just typed is close to nothing but actual effects of what I type ... is like endlessly scraping residual radiation from the edge of the known universes to see if anything is really worth the importance that is placed on it now.
Click to expand...


:cardie: Did you just say Anything?? :vulcan:

The
S H A T I N A T O R

:beer:
 
ok How many people are HIGH tonite? is what I should of asked right much easier question ,, Maybe LOL

woot :p
 
LitmusDragon said:
Can such a small deviation be significant?
Click to expand...
In terms of understanding the Universe, it would be very significant. Any practical applications would likely be in the areas of computing, though, rather than space or time travel.

Asbo Zaprudder said:
Maybe the fundamental speed limit is the speed of neutrinos (or even gravitons, which are even more slippery to detect), and physicists need to ask why photons in vacuo travel slightly slower than that limit.
Click to expand...
I was thinking along those lines when I mentioned quantum tunneling. The speed of photons does actually vary and is usually slower than the actual speed of light because they are constantly being absorbed and re-emitted by virtual particles. Perhaps the neutrinos, in changing state, can avoid that somehow and maintain a higher average speed. Or something. :rommie:
 
The neutrinos are having to travel through a section of the Earth's crust so there must be some tunnelling involved - of the quantum variety - as there is very small cross section for weak force interaction between neutrinos and the matter in their path. I believe some experiments have previously demonstrated that quantum tunnelling is superluminal for photons:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faster...t_.28Casimir_vacuum_and_quantum_tunnelling.29

Sorry, I haven't bothered to find a non-Wikiprdia reference.
 
What could this mean for all of us -

Faster than light travel ?

Time travel ?

A lot of new physics text books ?

:)
 
It appears there's even more at stake now:

"The scientists are right to be extremely cautious about interpreting these findings," said Jim Al-Khalili, a physicist from the University of Surrey, who suggested that a simple error in the measurement is probably the source of all the fuss.

But he has gone further.

"So let me put my money where my mouth is: if the Cern experiment proves to be correct and neutrinos have broken the speed of light, I will eat my boxer shorts on live TV."
Click to expand...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-15034414

Newsnight clip here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/newsnight/9598802.stm
 
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