Thread: Particles measured faster than the speed of light

Einstein wasn't "rong" after all.

They had the same problem that occured with the first GPS navigation systems. They shouldn't have been so pompous about it before checking everything. Einstein's revenge that was.

Originally Posted by Igzz

They had the same problem that occured with the first GPS navigation systems. They shouldn't have been so pompous about it before checking everything. Einstein's revenge that was.

Who was pompous? o_o

The scientists who did the experiment were hoping that someone would prove their experiment incorrect so that the laws of relativity wouldn't have to change. It was such a small detail that I'm sure no one really thinks about but made all the difference.

Originally Posted by Jeff

Einstein wasn't "rong" after all.

+1 for reference, if that's a reference to what I think it is.


Seems odd that they would forget about such a thing, but it's not like I blame them for making everything perfect and thinking of everything.

Well..This thread gets my hopes up...I know you can go faster then light because of common sense laws states that if tempurature can go up infinty so can energy output because as a "waste" for energy is tempurature but....but I do know not to get my hopes up yet about a future for our race yet...Good luck,to who ever did this,if this is true and correct,you could change the outcome of our race....Beleave me,That GOOD for all of us!

@H-con, oh, it is :P

Originally Posted by MegamanDX

Well..This thread gets my hopes up...I know you can go faster then light because of common sense laws states that if tempurature can go up infinty so can energy output because as a "waste" for energy is tempurature

Energy can theoretically approach infinity, but even then it's still impossible to break the light barrier under special relativity. The more mass an object has, the more inertia it has, so a more massive object takes more energy to accelerate by a certain amount than a less massive object. The thing is, since special relativity says that mass and energy are equivalent (E=mc²), energy also adds to an object's inertia. So that less massive object might be easy to accelerate at first, but once it gets going fast enough, it'll take a lot more energy to accelerate it by the same amount. The faster it goes, the more energy it takes. As the numbers work out, any object, with any amount of mass actually takes an infinite amount of energy to get up to the speed of light, thus, it's impossible.

Originally Posted by Jeff

Energy can theoretically approach infinity, but even then it's still impossible to break the light barrier under special relativity. The more mass an object has, the more inertia it has, so a more massive object takes more energy to accelerate by a certain amount than a less massive object. The thing is, since special relativity says that mass and energy are equivalent (E=mc²), energy also adds to an object's inertia. So that less massive object might be easy to accelerate at first, but once it gets going fast enough, it'll take a lot more energy to accelerate it by the same amount. The faster it goes, the more energy it takes. As the numbers work out, any object, with any amount of mass actually takes an infinite amount of energy to get up to the speed of light, thus, it's impossible.

That's all just a theory, though.

Of course. I meant that it's impossible under the framework of special relativity. General relativity provides some possible ways around the light barrier, and there very well could be a way to break it using physics that we don't yet understand.

heise online - Wirbel um Fehler bei den überschnellen Neutrinos

Seems like the mystery is not solved yet. The source is German, but from other translations, it seems that the debunking itself has an error...

We're back to square one...?

Originally Posted by SmearglePaints

That's all just a theory, though.

You say it like its a bad thing; theory is the highest level of certainty in science.

Originally Posted by Green Zubat

You say it like its a bad thing; theory is the highest level of certainty in science.

It is a bad thing. It's remarkably arrogant to assume something is the "highest level of certainty" after only barely a hundred years of consideration and thousands of years more of human existence. I'll believe that light speed is "top speed" in a few million years, thanks.

Originally Posted by SmearglePaints

It is a bad thing. It's remarkably arrogant to assume something is the "highest level of certainty" after only barely a hundred years of consideration and thousands of years more of human existence. I'll believe that light speed is "top speed" in a few million years, thanks.

Science is founded on assumption. You can't definitively prove anything, only ponder what happened make an appropriate hyposthesis and then find as much evidence to support it as possible. If, at the end of the day, no one can find anything to refute your hypothesis then it can be accepted as theory - not the gospel truth, but theory - because there's always the possibility that something may eventually come to light that knocks your theory right out of the sky, in which case you need to find a new theory. Theories are the best you can hope to get in science. They can never be proved, only disproved - that is the scientific method.

Take gravity, for instance. We all believe in it, use it to explain all sorts of things, from falling to planetary motions. However, there can never be any definitive proof that its there, that its real. There could always be something else going on. All we have is the evidence we can gather to support its existence (which, in gravity's case, is a lot). Even the most basic theories we accept as fact (even our own existences) have a tiny chance of being disproved later on. Nothing is 100% certain. Nevertheless, you can get damn close, and that's the point of theories; you might not be able to achieve 100% certainty, but 99.9% isn't bad either.

A user on another forum I encountered put it best here:

Originally Posted by Haelfix, physicsforum.com

I don't think any theory is ever 'a fact'. There is always some (perhaps infinitisemally small) chance in principle that an experiment will disprove it. The apple might fly upward one day, who is to say it can't.

For instance, perhaps nature has setup a timescale, such that after 13.8777777777 billion years, the laws of physics change.

Still, I think most people will say, well there is something objective and 'factual' at the heart of it.. Its just that we can never identically know for sure if it is b/c of human ignorance.

Newtonian physics, and other semi classical theories (like special and general relativity) have passed hundreds of thousands of experimental data points. We are nearly, but not quite, sure that they are indeed factual.

GR [General Relativity] for instance, is probably correct at most scales, but even today, amongst active scientists there is some fiddling room at large extra galactic scales for some modifications. But if I was a betting man, I would put my money on the tried and true.

So, to say something's a theory is quite the testament, to be honest. Saying something's "just a theory" demonstrates a lack of fundamental scientific knowledge.

Originally Posted by Green Zubat

So, to say something's a theory is quite the testament, to be honest. Saying something's "just a theory" demonstrates a lack of fundamental scientific knowledge.

I understand scientific principles perfectly. In fact, my entire doubt of theories is based on what you just said: that theories have a chance of being proven wrong.

If this were the case, FTL travel would be theoretically possible. Not to mention it would break much of quantum physics as we know it.

Originally Posted by SmearglePaints

Not too much of a big deal.

It's an incredibly big deal, since it proves that travel beyond the speed of light is possible.