Particle discovered that is faster than light?

Of course, How do you think the space ships in Star Trek, Star Wars and others went so fast?

 

There is a conjecture, that is supported by research, that the speed of light is subject to entropy (2nd Law of Thermodynamics)
and is actually slowing down. It is possible that the speed of light was perhaps a million or more times faster at the creation.

 

This is Truly a Sad Day for Me...

...I will no longer be able to claim the bragging rights to being the fastest person alive! :smilewinkgrin:

 

If this is verified within acceptable errors in measurement it could open new vistas in our perception of creation. We already know God is faster than light, neutrinos....who knew. Thanks for sharing. I must say though, I am always ambivalent about news from msnbc.

 

The measurement amounts to the neutrinos travelling faster than the speed of light by a fraction of 20 parts per million. Since the speed of light is 299,792,458 metres per second, the neutrinos were evidently travelling at 299,798,454 metres per second.

The result is so unlikely that even the research team is being cautious with its interpretation. Physicists said they would be sceptical of the finding until other laboratories confirmed the result.

Antonio Ereditato, coordinator of the Opera collaboration, told the Guardian: "We are very much astonished by this result, but a result is never a discovery until other people confirm it.

"When you get such a result you want to make sure you made no mistakes, that there are no nasty things going on you didn't think of. We spent months and months doing checks and we have not been able to find any errors.

"If there is a problem, it must be a tough, nasty effect, because trivial things we are clever enough to rule out."

The Opera group said it hoped the physics community would scrutinise the result and help uncover any flaws in the measurement, or verify it with their own experiments.

Subir Sarkar, head of particle theory at Oxford University, said: "If this is proved to be true it would be a massive, massive event. It is something nobody was expecting.

"The constancy of the speed of light essentially underpins our understanding of space and time and causality, which is the fact that cause comes before effect.

"Cause cannot come after effect and that is absolutely fundamental to our construction of the physical universe. If we do not have causality, we are buggered."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2011/sep/22/faster-than-light-particles-neutrinos?newsfeed=true

Keep in mind the source, The Guardian.

 

Actually the OP topic is incorrect. There is a claim that they found such a particle, but no proof.

 

FAL to the Rescue, Again....

....I don't know about the rest of you, but if it were not for FAL, we'd never know our errors, mistakes, and plain old blunders! :applause:

 

Why? The same story was reported in the Telegraph, the Financial Times, the Express, the Mirror, and probably other UK national daily newspapers too. It was also given prominence on the BBC (both TV and radio) and the independent television channels.

 

My apologies David, my conservative political leanings coming to the forefront in my comment regarding The Guardian. I am intelligent enough to know that some stories are devoid of political agendas, as all science should be. Please accept my apologies for the quip.

 

No need for the apology, Quantumfaith, but thanks, anyway. I wasn't criticising what you said about the Guardian; I was just puzzled by it. Thanks again.

 

Actually FAL is wrong. Again.

The neutrino particle is well known. It wasn't 'discovered' recently. The concept that it might travel faster than light is the potential discovery.

 

:thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup:

 

You misunderstood him. If you had really read what he wrote and had correct understanding...:smilewinkgrin::laugh:

 

It appears that possibly the faster than light neutrinos might have been getting the cart before the horse.

http://c450913.r13.cf2.rackcdn.com/snf20111017hrjz.mp3

 

Well maybe I was right several years ago when my chemist husband spent close to an hour trying to explain the Theory of Relativity to me and all I could do when he finished was stare blankly at him and say "It's only a theory!!" :tongue3:

 

I understand the feeling, I can only "comprehend" it at a cursory level. However, there is a substantial bit of time and data collected over almost a century, that backs up that E is equal to mc squared, not simply

E is "approximately" equal to mc squared.