Quote:Puzzling results from Cern, home of the LHC, have confounded physicists - because it appears subatomic particles have exceeded the speed of light.

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

Is that an experimental error in calibration?

Should the results be confirmed, what does it mean?

One possibility is to look at the Lorentz transformations equations,

or

we have a problem with causality

or

we've been fooled into thinking all those years that Relativity is the correct theory to describe the universe at large scale.

or

some new physics in the making involved a concept unknown up to now.

Thoughts?

I've been reading about this. I can't wait until they release the full rundown tomorrow. I love a good scientific controversy.

If you're spellbound by this, as I am, there will be a live webcast tomorrow in which CERN will be discussing the findings in the report. You can watch it here:

http://webcast.cern.ch/

Let's see if other labs reproduce the findings.

The bible makes a lot of claims that cannot be verified too. Shitheads the world over thus believe in it!

I hope it's evidence of tachyons, because that would be cool.

My father and I have suspected this for a long time, that there were particles of matter out there that could do faster-than-light travel. Naturally any such discovery which threatens to up-heave a century of physics will receive a lot of hostility from many scientists across the board, and that's putting it mildly.

Its a set-back if proven true but I'd rather throw out a hundred inaccurate science textbooks and write up new ones from scratch, than risk keeping out-of-date information that'll prevent us understanding reality better, wouldn't you?

An update on this:

Apparently the neutrinos were fired a distance of 500 miles, and traveled that distance 60 nanoseconds faster that light would have taken. It's not much, but it's still faster.

I'm taking a physics course, and I'm seriously considering emailing this story to him.

(September 22, 2011 at 7:07 pm)aleialoura Wrote: I've been reading about this. I can't wait until they release the full rundown tomorrow. I love a good scientific controversy.

If you're spellbound by this, as I am, there will be a live webcast tomorrow in which CERN will be discussing the findings in the report. You can watch it here:

http://webcast.cern.ch/

Thanks for the info. Do you know at what time?

---

(September 22, 2011 at 7:49 pm)Tiberius Wrote: An update on this:

Apparently the neutrinos were fired a distance of 500 miles, and traveled that distance 60 nanoseconds faster that light would have taken. It's not much, but it's still faster.

Calibration error should have given no more than 10 nanoseconds. That's why the team is worried and asking other team to verify their findings.

The website says 16:00 CEST.

Well none of this is a problem for quantum mechanics, they may have to devise a whole new branch of science to accommodate faster-than-light particles though.

Can anyone see the potential benefits of using neutrinos as a new form of communication? I mean, were we to fire them through the planet could it revolutionise Internet access?