Einstein Got It Wrong?

[Fern]

GENEVA — A pillar of physics — that nothing can go faster than the speed of light — appears to be smashed by an oddball subatomic particle that has apparently made a giant end run around Albert Einstein's theories.

Scientists at the world's largest physics lab said Thursday they have clocked neutrinos traveling faster than light. That's something that according to Einstein's 1905 special theory of relativity — the famous E (equals) mc2 equation — just doesn't happen.

Gillies told The Associated Press that the readings have so astounded researchers that they are asking others to independently verify the measurements before claiming an actual discovery.

"They are inviting the broader physics community to look at what they've done and really scrutinize it in great detail, and ideally for someone elsewhere in the world to repeat the measurements," he said Thursday.

Scientists at the competing Fermilab in Chicago have promised to start such work immediately.

Scientists agree if the results are confirmed, that it would force a fundamental rethink of the laws of nature.

Einstein's special relativity theory that says energy equals mass times the speed of light squared underlies "pretty much everything in modern physics," said John Ellis, a theoretical physicist at CERN who was not involved in the experiment. "It has worked perfectly up until now."

CERN says a neutrino beam fired from a particle accelerator near Geneva to a lab 454 miles (730 kilometers) away in Italy traveled 60 nanoseconds faster than the speed of light. Scientists calculated the margin of error at just 10 nanoseconds, making the difference statistically significant. But given the enormous implications of the find, they still spent months checking and rechecking their results to make sure there were no flaws in the experiment.

He cautioned that the neutrino researchers would have to explain why similar results weren't detected before.

"This would be such a sensational discovery if it were true that one has to treat it extremely carefully," said Ellis.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44629271/ns/technology_and_science-science/#.TnuzquzGAoM

IMO, not much cooler than going faster than the speed of light.

I hope Fermilab confirms this. Then I'm curious about the resulting impact on science and what will develop from this.

Fern

 

[Karl Agathon]

Very cool indeed! Now they can start pre-planning for a warp engine.

 

[a777pilot]

Exciting news.

 

[Bowfinger]

Nitpicking, but I don't believe Einstein ever said it was impossible to travel faster than the speed of light. He said it would be impossible to accelerate something with mass to the speed of light (or even more precisely, it would take infinite energy to do so). He left open the possible existence of things already traveling faster than c.

But very cool. It will be interesting to see where this goes.

 

[Nebor]

How do they measure the speed of subatomic particles?

Uppercut to the gooch for whoever says "subatomic radar gun."

 

[Rainsford]

Nitpicking, but I don't believe Einstein ever said it was impossible to travel faster than the speed of light. He said it would be impossible to accelerate something with mass to the speed of light (or even more precisely, it would take infinite energy to do so). He left open the possible existence of things already traveling faster than c.

But very cool. It will be interesting to see where this goes.

That's basically always the explanation I've heard (that acceleration is the key). I'm not a physicist, but that intuitively makes sense given that the limit is always described based on the amount of energy required. If something is already going the speed of light or faster, staying at that speed shouldn't require any energy.

 

[Fern]

Nitpicking, but I don't believe Einstein ever said it was impossible to travel faster than the speed of light. He said it would be impossible to accelerate something with mass to the speed of light (or even more precisely, it would take infinite energy to do so). He left open the possible existence of things already traveling faster than c.

But very cool. It will be interesting to see where this goes.

That's basically always the explanation I've heard (that acceleration is the key). I'm not a physicist, but that intuitively makes sense given that the limit is always described based on the amount of energy required. If something is already going the speed of light or faster, staying at that speed shouldn't require any energy.

A neutrino has mass, quite small but mass nevertheless.

The neutrino was accelerated to faster than light speed by the particle accelerator. I feel pretty safe saying it does NOT have infinite energy.

The theoretical physicist at CERN seems pretty sure it contradicts Einstein's theory.

Fern

 

[jackschmittusa]

Neutrinos have mass. They were accelerated at CERN.

Might be a really interesting development.

 

[Rainsford]

A neutrino has mass, quite small but mass nevertheless.

The neutrino was accelerated to faster than light speed by the particle accelerator. I feel pretty safe saying it does NOT have infinite energy.

The theoretical physicist at CERN seems pretty sure it contradicts Einstein's theory.

Fern

Hmm, that's pretty cool if true. I wonder if it indicates that Einstein is wrong across the board, or if E=MC^2 doesn't quite apply as you approach the speed of light. Wouldn't be the first time that the laws of physics don't quite work the same once you take the scale way up or way down.

 

[Craig234]

This is a very interesting topic. I am highly impressed and I boggle that we can even examine this.

I've long supported strong funding for raw scientific research (not linked to military application).

It'll be great to see if this is confirmed and what it tells us.

 

[Rainsford]

Neutrinos have mass. They were accelerated at CERN.

Might be a really interesting development.

I reread the article that Fern quoted, I didn't see anything about acceleration explicitly mentioned in there. I can assume that "fire a neutrino beam" means they accelerated the neutrinos, but maybe something more complex is going on.

 

[Lemon law]

My jury is out on it, its not yet established the cern measurements are correct, and from what limited things coming out, the measurements only show particles moving only marginally faster than the speed of light. When anything truly significant would require speeds far far far faster than the speed of light and maybe approaching infinite.

 

[Rainsford]

My jury is out on it, its not yet established the cern measurements are correct, and from what limited things coming out, the measurements only show particles moving only marginally faster than the speed of light. When anything truly significant would require speeds far far far faster than the speed of light and maybe approaching infinite.

I don't know about that last bit. If the particles truly were accelerated to faster than the speed of light, that would invalidate a pretty fundamental bit of physics theory...even if the margin was relatively small.

 

[Atomic Playboy]

I wouldn't be surprised if we discovered that the speed of light is not a universal speed limit, but an arbitrary designation as a speed limit because it was the fastest thing we had ever observed. Science is always getting updated in that sort of way. "We've never seen anything go faster than this, therefore nothing can," always struck me as fuzzy logic.

 

[Rainsford]

I wouldn't be surprised if we discovered that the speed of light is not a universal speed limit, but an arbitrary designation as a speed limit because it was the fastest thing we had ever observed. Science is always getting updated in that sort of way. "We've never seen anything go faster than this, therefore nothing can," always struck me as fuzzy logic.

That's a fair point about logic, except the theory was based on a lot more than that. Equations about the relationship between mass and energy had the speed of light playing a pretty fundamental part. So much so that related equations suggested that infinite energy would be required to accelerate anything with mass to the speed of light. It wasn't simply a matter of saying that we don't see anything going faster, therefore it's a speed limit.

 

[Fern]

I reread the article that Fern quoted, I didn't see anything about acceleration explicitly mentioned in there. I can assume that "fire a neutrino beam" means they accelerated the neutrinos, but maybe something more complex is going on.

From the article:

CERN says a neutrino beam fired from a particle accelerator

Fern

 

[Infohawk]

The theoretical physicist at CERN seems pretty sure it contradicts Einstein's theory.

Fern

And he has nothing to do with the experiment because he's a *theoretical* physicist. The people involved are looking for other scientists to reproduce or otherwise explain what the experimental error might be. But this is not going to stop people from jumping to conclusions.

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

I wouldn't be surprised if we discovered that the speed of light is not a universal speed limit, but an arbitrary designation as a speed limit because it was the fastest thing we had ever observed. Science is always getting updated in that sort of way. "We've never seen anything go faster than this, therefore nothing can," always struck me as fuzzy logic.

The equation isn't arbitrary neither is it untested. The equation says that to reach light speed anything which contains mass requires infinite energy to do so. Most likely there is an experimental error not yet caught. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence and I don't see that yet.

 

[woolfe9999]

Interesting, but as with many "amazing" scientific discoveries, further examination may reveal that it turns out to be much ado about nothing.

 

[Kadarin]

Meh. Probably something stupid like the destination was slightly lower in altitude (hence further down the gravity well) where time ran slightly slower. The neutrinos would appear to get there sooner than expected because time itself was off.

 

[Bowfinger]

A neutrino has mass, quite small but mass nevertheless.

The neutrino was accelerated to faster than light speed by the particle accelerator. I feel pretty safe saying it does NOT have infinite energy.

The theoretical physicist at CERN seems pretty sure it contradicts Einstein's theory.

Fern

I was addressing the inaccurate reporting by MSNBC -- "A pillar of physics — that nothing can go faster than the speed of light ..." -- not the experiment or its potential significance.

 

[Nebor]

I've long supported strong funding for raw scientific research (not linked to military application).

Can you not see the potential for faster than light speed munitions? We could effectively eliminate everyone's second strike nuclear capabilities while making our own air defense unconquerable.

 

[Nebor]

Meh. Probably something stupid like the destination was slightly lower in altitude (hence further down the gravity well) where time ran slightly slower. The neutrinos would appear to get there sooner than expected because time itself was off.

 

[Jaskalas]

Can you not see the potential for faster than light speed munitions? We could effectively eliminate everyone's second strike nuclear capabilities while making our own air defense unconquerable.

You go do that... I'll use FTL to get off this forsaken rock.

 

[bfdd]

My jury is out on it, its not yet established the cern measurements are correct, and from what limited things coming out, the measurements only show particles moving only marginally faster than the speed of light. When anything truly significant would require speeds far far far faster than the speed of light and maybe approaching infinite.

Who are you to make a statement? Are you a physicist? Science is settled.