Oh... My... Goodness..... Breaking: Researchers at CERN break “The Speed of Light” Scientists said on Thursday they recorded particles travelling faster than light - a finding that could overturn one of Einstein's fundamental laws of the universe. Antonio Ereditato, spokesman for the international group of researchers, saidthat measurements taken over three years showedneutrinos pumped from CERN near Geneva to Gran Sasso in Italy had arrived 60 nanoseconds quicker than light would have done. “We have high confidence in our results. We have checked and rechecked for anything that could have distorted our measurements but we found nothing," he said. "We now want colleagues to check them independently.” If confirmed, the discovery would undermine Albert Einstein's 1905 theory of special relativity, which says that the speed of light is a "cosmic constant" and that nothing in the universe can travel faster. That assertion, which has withstood over a century of testing, is one of the key elements of the so-called Standard Model of physics, which attempts to describe the way the universe and everything in it works. The totally unexpected finding emerged from research by a physicists working on an experiment dubbed OPERA run jointly by the CERN particle research centre near Geneva and the Gran Sasso Laboratory in central Italy. A total of 15,000 beams of neutrinos - tiny particles that pervade the cosmos - were fired over a period of three years from CERN towards Gran Sasso 730 (500 miles) km away, where they were picked up by giant detectors. Light would have covered the distance in around 2.4 thousandths of a second, but the neutrinos took 60 nanoseconds - or 60 billionths of a second - less than light beams would have taken. “It is a tiny difference,” said Ereditato, who also works at Berne University in Switzerland, “but conceptually it is incredibly important. The finding is so startling that, for the moment, everybody should be very prudent.” Ereditato declined to speculate on what it might mean if other physicists, who will be officially informed of the discovery at a meeting in CERN on Friday, found that OPERA's measurements were correct. “I just don't want to think of the implications,”he said. “We are scientists and work with what we know.” Much science-fiction literature is based on the idea that, if the light-speed barrier can be overcome, time travel might theoretically become possible. The existence of the neutrino, an elementary sub-atomic particle with a tiny amount of mass created in radioactive decay or in nuclear reactions such as those in the Sun, was first confirmed in 1934, but it still mystifies researchers. It can pass through most matter undetected, even over long distances, and without being affected. Millions pass through the human body every day, scientists say. To reach Gran Sasso, the neutrinos pushed out from a special installation at CERN - also home to the Large Hadron Collider probing the origins of the universe - have to pass through water, air and rock. The underground Italian laboratory, some 120 km (75 miles) to the south of Rome, is the largest of its type in the world for particle physics and cosmic research. Around 750 scientists from 22 different countries work there, attracted by the possibility of staging experiments in its three massive halls, protected from cosmic rays by some 1,400 metres (4,200 feet) of rock overhead. What has happened at CERN? Scientists say they have clocked neutrinos – tiny particles smaller than atoms – travelling at 300,006 kilometres per second, slightly faster than the speed of light. What does that mean? Einstein's theory of special relativity says nothing can travel faster than the speed of light in a vacuum, because photons – light particles – have no mass. Proof that neutrinos, mysterious subatomic particles which have a tiny amount of mass, can travel faster would be inconsistent with Einstein's theory. What are the knock-on effects? Einstein's theory is critical to the Standard Model of physics that helps explain everything we know about how the universe works, from black holes to the big bang. If it is shown to be flawed, virtually everything in modern physics and the fundamental laws of nature would have to be rethought. Have the results been proven? The findings were such a shock that CERN's scientists spent months checking their data before making their announcement. But they have asked American and Japanese teams to confirm the results before they are declared an actual discovery. The data will also be put online overnight so that it can be scrutinised by experts across the world. Does this mean E does not equal MC squared? The theory of special relativity was used to spawn the theory that energy is equal to mass multiplied by the speed of light squared. It is premature to discount the most famous equation of all time, but the latest discovery suggests one key assumption it relies on – that nothing can accelerate faster than light – may not be wholly accurate.
How did they accelerate the neutrinos to that speed. They are not affected by the electro-magnetic forces that they use to accelerate other particles.
That CERN thing is pretty crazy. I remember learning about it in school, it's been around for awhile. I have no idea how it works but I'm pretty sure it's like a giant circle-tube that they run particles through at super high speeds. They smash different particles into each other to achieve different results. They have actually created new elements with it by smashing particles together, but they only exist for like fractions of a second. Pretty sure Einsteinium is one they created there. Even though it only existed for a brief moment it is listed on the periodic table. (I might be completely full of shit, everything I think I remember is based off of 20 year old memories)
The diameter is so big that it runs through France and Switzerland. It is circular and it accelerates particles by using super magnets located all around the ring. They used to make accelerators in a straight line but then they figured out how to accelerate particles in repeated revolutions getting them to go faster and faster. The Stanford accelerator is linear. They started construction on a super cyclotron in Texas but the cost continued to spiral upward until the government canceled the project smelling people taking advantage of the project to make large sums of money. To this day, large portions of the proposed super collider in Texas remain partially built. We do have pretty fair cyclotrons in the U.S. but if you want to do groundbreaking research you get on a CERN project.
There are electrons that come in pairs. One has a +1/2 spin while the other has a - 1/2 spin. If you change the spin on one, it's mate changes it's spin. They did an experiment to see how fast the other electron would change it's spin and found it to be as near instantaneous as they could measure.
We had an oscilloscope at Tektronix that came out in about 1977 that had a CRT sweep rate that was faster than the speed of light. I had one on my bench. I believe it was the 7904, might have been the 7104, just too long ago to recall.
What is sweep rate? It has been a hell of a long time since I used scopes, but a triggered sweep rate is not comparable to a distance over time.
What links? My thread only shows links to the Simpsons. Edit - I just looked it up, the oscilloscope I was referring to was the 7104. One of the 7000 series of scopes. There was also a 5000 series that a college buddy of mine worked on at Tektronix. He was also part of a team that measured the effective mass of a photon which was determined to be approximately 1/3 of what they previously thought. Edit2 - I believe the 7104 was the fastest event scope as long as it was a repetitive event. The scope was a sampling one if memory serves me.
It would be ridiculous that this organization got funds because they wanted to diss Einstein as their primary goal but never told the investors that.
This is truly amazing. I can’t wait to learn if it’s corroborated, and then how that impacts the prevailing theory. Fascinating.
So I asked a couple of coworkers what they though about this, guess that's what I get for not clicking on the links.
