ATTN LMNO: PLEASE TO EXPLAIN

[Kai]

I'm not up on my particle physics, but unless our understanding of C is off and what that really means, this seems just plain WRONG.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/8782895/CERN-scientists-break-the-speed-of-light.html

It is, of course, science news journalism, but it honestly doesn't make any sense. No quantum travels faster than the speed of light in a vacuum, since the mass would escalate to infinity. At least, thats how I understood it.

[Rumckle]

Apparently Fermi-lab saw the same result a few years ago, but their statistical error was too high to be sure what they got was correct, so they didn't  publish.

As for the speed of the light barrier, well one of the PhD students here put it better than I can:
"Einstein said nothing (massive) can be accelerated to or beyond the speed light, but his theory doesn't exclude the possibility of having something which is already faster than the speed of light once it was created (and hence avoid the necessity of crossing the 'speed of light' barrier). "

Of course that would involve odd things like imaginary or negative mass, I believe.

Anyway, I think they are putting the paper up on ArXiv tomorrow, so I'm waiting for that.

Also:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=particles-found-to-travel

[Triple Zero]

Read it yesterday on BBC, not too sensationally written, mostly they're looking very hard for ways where the F they made a mistake But they can't find any (yet), hence them asking the scientific community for scrutinization.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-15017484

As for the speed of the light barrier, well one of the PhD students here put it better than I can:
"Einstein said nothing (massive) can be accelerated to or beyond the speed light, but his theory doesn't exclude the possibility of having something which is already faster than the speed of light once it was created (and hence avoid the necessity of crossing the 'speed of light' barrier). "

Hey, that's from K-PAX!

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0272152/quotes?qt=qt0318911

I didn't know it was for serious, too.

[Faust]

The speed of light is very closely linked to a photon in terms of smallest fastest particle. Because of the way maxwells equations are set up the photon is assumed not to have mass. If indeed it did have a tiny mass it would make absolute c slightly above what we have now.

[Rumckle]

Can you calculate that from:

(∇² - 1/c² d²/dt²) E = 0

or do you have do start before that? (just out of curiosity, because I don't remember hearing that before)

[Faust]

Can you calculate that from:

(∇² - 1/c² d²/dt²) E = 0

or do you have do start before that? (just out of curiosity, because I don't remember hearing that before)

Ehm, I dunno. My innital guess is no because of the precision you would have to know E

[LMNO]

My go-to physics guru is dead, so my non-authoritative response would be to agree with Faust.  I'll see what else I can dig up.

[Kai]

The speed of light is very closely linked to a photon in terms of smallest fastest particle. Because of the way maxwells equations are set up the photon is assumed not to have mass. If indeed it did have a tiny mass it would make absolute c slightly above what we have now.

This is the closest to what I could come up with. If neutrinos have essentially less mass than photons (which is so close to zero that we don't normally register it in equations), then it's very possible they could exceed light speed since that is based on photon "mass".

[Kai]

Can't we do an "absolute zero" type extrapolation for this, like what is done for Kelvins? Since we've never measured anything at absolute zero temperature either.

[Triple Zero]

I'm assuming they thought of such explanations since they said they checked for systemic errors, hence they ask the scientific community to scrutinize their findings?

[Triple Zero]

So, I think we can't say much about it until there is some follow-up. If anyone hears of a follow-up, please to post!!

[Cain]

The follow-up is: physicists are confused, and not sure what to make of it all.

[Faust]

The speed of light is very closely linked to a photon in terms of smallest fastest particle. Because of the way maxwells equations are set up the photon is assumed not to have mass. If indeed it did have a tiny mass it would make absolute c slightly above what we have now.

This is the closest to what I could come up with. If neutrinos have essentially less mass than photons (which is so close to zero that we don't normally register it in equations), then it's very possible they could exceed light speed since that is based on photon "mass".

Thank you, over at another forum people are now facebook stalking me and denying my qualifications all because I suggested this.

[Kai]

The speed of light is very closely linked to a photon in terms of smallest fastest particle. Because of the way maxwells equations are set up the photon is assumed not to have mass. If indeed it did have a tiny mass it would make absolute c slightly above what we have now.

This is the closest to what I could come up with. If neutrinos have essentially less mass than photons (which is so close to zero that we don't normally register it in equations), then it's very possible they could exceed light speed since that is based on photon "mass".

Thank you, over at another forum people are now facebook stalking me and denying my qualifications all because I suggested this.

This is the way of all science, at all times in history. First, new ideas are denounced, their proponents accosted and harassed, and treated as idiots. Second, the new idea is said to possibly have some value but there isn't enough evidence to treat it seriously. And third, the idea is formally accepted and treated as if it were always true, and people go back and find evidence that so and so philosopher suggested the same thing centuries ago, that it really wasn't original at all. 

[Faust]

The speed of light is very closely linked to a photon in terms of smallest fastest particle. Because of the way maxwells equations are set up the photon is assumed not to have mass. If indeed it did have a tiny mass it would make absolute c slightly above what we have now.

This is the closest to what I could come up with. If neutrinos have essentially less mass than photons (which is so close to zero that we don't normally register it in equations), then it's very possible they could exceed light speed since that is based on photon "mass".

Thank you, over at another forum people are now facebook stalking me and denying my qualifications all because I suggested this.

This is the way of all science, at all times in history. First, new ideas are denounced, their proponents accosted and harassed, and treated as idiots. Second, the new idea is said to possibly have some value but there isn't enough evidence to treat it seriously. And third, the idea is formally accepted and treated as if it were always true, and people go back and find evidence that so and so philosopher suggested the same thing centuries ago, that it really wasn't original at all. 

It's just depressing seeing it in special relativity and quantum mechanics, both of which are areas that the people working in widely admit is unfinished, an incomplete picture of what is happening.