Did CERN just break physics?

lookitsjonno · 23 Sep 2011 at 15:43

wow my head just exploded

BetaNumeric · 23 Sep 2011 at 15:45

Sin_Chase said:
Because you understand the concepts involved, right?

Nobody does, they only theorise them and test them for soundness. Why do you believe you, and the persons you are quoting, are incapable of being wrong about a theory.

Firstly, the people putting forth these hypotheses do understand them, it's their job to understand them. Secondly, a 'theory' in science is an hypothesis which has passed experimental tests. A theory is as high as a concept can go in science. Experiments give you facts, models are hypothesised to explain those facts and the models which best describe the facts are theories.

The whole "It's only a theory" thing is nonsense and wheeled out by people who don't understand how science works. It's a favourite talking point of creationists.

Sin_Chase said:
E=MC2 is a theory, nothing more.

Yes, because 'theory' is the pinnacle of physics. The formula relating mass, energy and momentum (of which E=mc^2 is a special case) is tested every time a test of quantum field theory or general relativity is done, because it follows from special relativity which is part of both. Even if things can move faster than light that doesn't mean the formula is wrong. The formula relates things to their rest mass. If something moves slower than light then m^2 > 0. If something moves at the speed of light m^2 = 0. If something moves faster than light m^2 < 0.

Thus discussing what it means for E=mc^2 is irrelevant.

Tunney said:
Most physicists, including the professor who taught me relativity at university, are doubting the results too.

Personally I expect it to turn out to be a statistical variation and not new physics. However, it does show the community is open to the ideas that even the most fundamental principles it uses might be wrong, contrary to what a lot of hacks on the internet claim.

Elixir · 23 Sep 2011 at 15:46

There is no way you can decide whether or not this is correct/significant yet. However, it is undoubtedly a good thing if it gets more people discussing the topic.

Make it happen again and I'll be interested, CERN.

BetaNumeric said:
Personally I expect it to turn out to be a statistical variation and not new physics. However, it does show the community is open to the ideas that even the most fundamental principles it uses might be wrong, contrary to what a lot of hacks on the internet claim.

My thoughts exactly.

awaybreaktoday · 23 Sep 2011 at 15:48

[UPDATE: The paper is now up on the arxiv preprint server. I took a look, and must say at first glance their reasoning looks solid. They appear to have the baseline distance nailed and the timing as well. However, the devil's in the details, and this isn't my field, so I'll be very curious to see how the pros in this discipline react to the paper.]

cHk4 · 23 Sep 2011 at 15:48

Hello all, my name is John Titor.

SlyReaper · 23 Sep 2011 at 16:09

Overslop said:
Didn't a lab in Germany claim to break light speed some years ago?

The speed of light has been shown to be breakable over tiny distances due to quantum tunnelling. If I remember correctly, it boils down to the particle having indeterminate position in the first place, and it's a random event. But this experiment was firing neutrinos over hundreds of miles, so it can't be tunnelling that's causing this.

In the end, it'll be shown to be some form of experimental error. Even if not, it's not going to break physics, it'll simply add a caveat to the whole "speed of light" thing.

D.P. · 23 Sep 2011 at 16:22

Athanor said:
If history has taught us anything it's that the "scientific absolutes" we cling to are rarely absolute...

I have no doubt that in 200 years time people will look at the theory of general relativity with a condescending nod and wonder how anyone ever believed that was definitive and immutable.

No, not really, they wont.

"scientific absolutes" what utter twaddle.

SlyReaper · 23 Sep 2011 at 16:24

Yeah, the whole point of science is that it doesn't have any absolutes, just "really really really unlikely to be wrongs"

cHk4 · 23 Sep 2011 at 16:36

Science is a form of ignorance.

ProjectVRD · 23 Sep 2011 at 16:42

Docaroo said:
Einstein may have been wrong about some things... but one thing he has never been wrong about is Special Relativity. SR has been proved by every test of it's theories and predictions that have been made, it simply works. E does equal MC2 I'm afrain, there's no "tearing it apart" !!!

Because to accellerate something with mass to the speed of light requires infinite energy... so the power of the whole universe (no matter how small the mass is!).

Further, if you could have mass travelling faster than light speed then under Special Relativity causality is broken. You would be able to send a signal back in time in that case....

Hmmm.... C can change although it is constant. For instance, light through water travels slower than light through air, and light through air travels slower than light through a vacuum. People take the C being constant too literally. There is no real reason why C cannot be faster than vacuum constant and we have already proved many times that light can travel far slower than the vacuum constant.

Also, sending a signal faster than light wouldn't mean sending a signal back in time. What it means is that by current theory the effect would happen before the cause. Another thing take too literally. They are saying the signal would be there before you see it, mimicking time travel. But it isn't time travel at all.

But the E=MC2 hasn't stood up to everything questioned about it, a lot of the questions we simply haven't been able to test but that doesn't mean they shouldn't be asked.

For instance, send a football beyond the speed of light to a destination. When the ball arrives at it's destination and it has stopped you should be able to see the ball stationary at it's new destination, but the light reflecting from the ball is still travelling to get there from where it came. Will we see two balls superimposed over each other when the light finally catches up? We simply do not know but that is something E=MC2 says can only be impossible and at the same time other proven theories say is the only possible outcome.

All we can truly say is that E=MC2 has been 'accurate enough' to help us discover more things and like all things science it is entirely possible that it is entire wrong. Einstein and science in general have been wrong about many things before, there is no reason why this particular situation could prove Special Relativity to be wrong as well.

Docaroo · 23 Sep 2011 at 16:53

gord said:
Interesting snippet about the supernova I didn't know. So if Einstein's theory still stands, how can the neutrinos from that explosion get here 3 hours earlier than the light?

This is because it takes around 3 hours for photons from the Supernova to "escape" the star with all the interactions that happen on the way out.

Neutrinos don't interact with matter and so escape instantly...

ProjectVRD said:
Hmmm.... C can change although it is constant. For instance, light through water travels slower than light through air, and light through air travels slower than light through a vacuum. People take the C being constant too literally. There is no real reason why C cannot be faster than vacuum constant and we have already proved many times that light can travel far slower than the vacuum constant.

Also, sending a signal faster than light wouldn't mean sending a signal back in time. What it means is that by current theory the effect would happen before the cause. Another thing take too literally. They are saying the signal would be there before you see it, mimicking time travel. But it isn't time travel at all.

I think you are a bit confused... C (the speed of light in a vacuum) is constant!! It's THE universal constant! Yes, light can travel slower than C is different mediums, but that isn't the speed of light lowering - it's the absorption and re-emission of photon speed that lowers... light speed is still light speed. The speed of light in a vacuum is a constant and does not waver - the example you cite is incorrect.

Now the second point, I said that if you can send information Faster than Light then you break Causality. This means, that if you could send a signal (or matter, anything with "information") faster than light, via Lorentz transformations and other mathematics the signal you send could arrive back to you BEFORE you send the signal out!

Imagine the signal says "Don't send this signal". You never send it, and it never returns telling you to not send it... so you send it. This is causality. Breaking causality will ruin physics as we know it, and it should be unbreakable. How can the effect occurr before the cause?

This is why FTL information travel is impossible. Either FTL is impossible, Causality is wrong or Special Relativity has everything wrong.

Choose!

Oh... and read this:

http://johncostella.webs.com/neutrino-blunder.pdf

Looks like the statistics and maths need another examination

ProjectVRD · 23 Sep 2011 at 17:01

Docaroo said:
This is because it takes around 3 hours for photons from the Supernova to "escape" the star with all the interactions that happen on the way out.

Neutrinos don't interact with matter and so escape instantly...

I think you are a bit confused... C (the speed of light in a vacuum) is constant!! It's THE universal constant! Yes, light can travel slower than C is different mediums, but that isn't the speed of light lowering - it's the absorption and re-emission of photon speed that lowers... light speed is still light speed. The speed of light in a vacuum is a constant and does not waver - the example you cite is incorrect.

Now the second point, I said that if you can send information Faster than Light then you break Causality. This means, that if you could send a signal (or matter, anything with "information") faster than light, via Lorentz transformations and other mathematics the signal you send could arrive back to you BEFORE you send the signal out!

Imagine the signal says "Don't send this signal". You never send it, and it never returns telling you to not send it... so you send it. This is causality. Breaking causality will ruin physics as we know it, and it should be unbreakable. How can the effect occurr before the cause?

This is why FTL information travel is impossible. Either FTL is impossible, Causality is wrong or Special Relativity has everything wrong.

Choose!

Oh... and read this:

http://johncostella.webs.com/neutrino-blunder.pdf

Looks like the statistics and maths need another examination

Yes it is constant. I said it was constant. But that is only accounting for light in a vacuum. It doesn't account for light in other substances or other non-substances that we haven't discovered yet to test it in.

Elixir · 23 Sep 2011 at 17:01

Docaroo said:
Oh... and read this:

http://johncostella.webs.com/neutrino-blunder.pdf

Looks like the statistics and maths need another examination

Indeed, will be interesting to see those explanations. I was just watching the webcast explaining the results and those particular plots got scrutinized very carefully a number of times.

ProjectVRD said:
Yes it is constant. I said it was constant. But that is only accounting for light in a vacuum. It doesn't account for light in other substances or other non-substances that we haven't discovered yet to test it in.

This experiment is taking place in a vacuum, no? So I am not sure on the relevance of your point. Are you saying the tunnel could contain a substance unknown to man? :confused:

DAnDan · 23 Sep 2011 at 17:10

ProjectVRD said:
Yes it is constant. I said it was constant. But that is only accounting for light in a vacuum. It doesn't account for light in other substances or other non-substances that we haven't discovered yet to test it in.

The point he's making is that C ONLY refers to light in a vacuum, so is ALWAYS constant. If it's not travelling in a vacuum, then it's not C.

Light is slower in water, so therefore it's not travelling at C. C never changes.

RomanNose · 23 Sep 2011 at 17:13

So many armchair physicists in this thread.

Alex_6n2 · 23 Sep 2011 at 18:27

ProjectVRD said:
Yes it is constant. I said it was constant. But that is only accounting for light in a vacuum. It doesn't account for light in other substances or other non-substances that we haven't discovered yet to test it in.

The fact that light travels slower in other mediums is a non story. Why are you focusing on this?

Light travels fastest in a vacuum and thus the speed at which it travels without a medium is hence the overall maximum speed anything can travel at "C".

Light travelling through a medium, no matter what it is, is never going to speed up.

This entire thing will probably turn out to be that someone put a 0 where there shouldn't be one. Or missed a minus sign.

SpeedFreak · 23 Sep 2011 at 18:32

Alex_6n2 said:
The fact that light travels slower in other mediums is a non story. Why are you focusing on this?

Light travels fastest in a vacuum and thus the speed at which it travels without a medium is hence the overall maximum speed anything can travel at "C".

Light travelling through a medium, no matter what it is, is never going to speed up.

This entire thing will probably turn out to be that someone put a 0 where there shouldn't be one. Or missed a minus sign.

Technically photons are absorbed and re-emmitted in a medium hence the slower speed (armchair Physicist here

)

DAnDan · 23 Sep 2011 at 18:33

Alex_6n2 said:
This entire thing will probably turn out to be that someone put a 0 where there shouldn't be one. Or missed a minus sign.

Trust me, it will have been checked, double checked, and then checked 100 more times by everyone with access to it before they would go public with something like this.

mattyg · 23 Sep 2011 at 18:48

DAnDan said:
Trust me, it will have been checked, double checked, and then checked 100 more times by everyone with access to it before they would go public with something like this.

Then they let the rest of scientific community back them up. So they can get on with more experiments instead of wasting time proving themselves correct.

IF they are correct.

IronWarrior · 23 Sep 2011 at 18:49

Elixir said:
This experiment is taking place in a vacuum, no? So I am not sure on the relevance of your point. Are you saying the tunnel could contain a substance unknown to man?

/facepalm

Do you think man knows everything out there or that we can detect and see and test for everything.