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Faster than light travel achieved?!?!
Topic Started: Sep 23 2011, 06:36 PM (842 Views)
CJ
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A very minor case of serious brain damage

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-15017484

Particle physicists at Cern claim that they have detected neutrinos travelling faster than the speed of light. The neutrinos were travelling 732km, from Cern's base in Geneva to Gran Sasso in Italy, and arrived 60 nanoseconds earlier than they would have done had they been travelling at the speed of light. It's a small error, but it did occur repeatedly: they tried it 16,000 times, and achieved such a high level of statistical significance that it would be classed as a formal scientific discovery. If this is confirmed, then it will effectively destroy one of the foundation stones of modern physics, and require a complete re-writing of our understanding of the subject. It would be the most profound discovery of the past hundred or so years.

The work, however, still needs to be checked for mistakes before it can be confirmed. The researchers couldn't find any, so they're now allowing the rest of their community to check it - and they're treating it with great caution, due to the scale of the implications it would have if it were found to be correct. These scientists are very well aware of the possibility of systematic errors (I suppose one possibility is that some of the equipment used was faulty in some way), so they'd probably have to see the results replicated in another, independent experiments before drawing any conclusions about this.

For now, though, these are very exciting times - for sci-fi geeks as well as particle physicists!
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lamna
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Destroy is a bit of a strong word, it might be correct that you can't travel faster than light, just that these neutrinos and taking a short-cut though different dimensions. Same speed but a shorter distances. I'm sure I've mangled that quite a lot and any physicist who read that would be quite annoyed.

But yes, it is quite exciting. People were always complaining about Cern and how it probably would not produce anything and they go ahead in invent warp drive.
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CJ
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Well, it could be that too - which would be much less of an headache, as it'd preserve most of our understanding of the subject. For all we know, it could even be a similar mechanism to the one behind warp drive. Still, I'm no expert: my understanding of quantum mechanics is limited to what I did in A-level Physics, plus an eight-hour course at university last year.

Hopefully, if this isn't just the result of a simple mistake, there will be some real-world applications. Warp drive spaceships would, of course, still be a long way off, but if this is the first step towards them, that's good enough for me.
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lamna
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Indeed. If only to stop those "mundane science fiction" people feeling so smug about writing dull stuff.
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CJ
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A very minor case of serious brain damage

Well, I'm sure they're already starting to draw up designs based on this :P .
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CJ
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A very minor case of serious brain damage

An update on this:

http://www.smartplanet.com/blog/intelligent-energy/faster-than-light-neutrinos-come-down-to-earth/9210

It looks like there was almost certainly a mistake somewhere along the line. Since the neutrinos were measured at only 60 nanoseconds faster than they would have been had they travelled at the speed of light, it could have been anything. With a difference that small, it could be that the distance was measured inaccurately by a tiny amount; that the difference was caused by the time it takes for electronic signals to pass through all the circuitry; or any of a plethora of other explanations. A bit of a shame, since I'd been hoping for some exciting discovery, but hardly surprising.

What they have discovered, though, is that "the only thing that travels faster than light is a rumour."
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CJ
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And another update: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-17364682

The experiment has been repeated by a different group at the same laboratory, and this time, the neutrinos travelled at the speed of light, as had been expected, and this time, they've posted the results online. Also, the team from the original experiment has conceded that its equipment may have been faulty, as I had suspected back when the news first came out. Similar experiments are also to be carried out in the US and Japan, in the hope of putting this to bed for good.

Well, it was fun while it lasted.
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Hedgehog121
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This ish scary.
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CJ
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A very minor case of serious brain damage

It's a lot less scary when you find that it was probably just faulty equipment all along :P .
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lamna
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"We don’t allow no faster-than-light neutrinos in here,” says the bartender, with a growl. A neutrino walks into a bar.
Edited by lamna, Mar 17 2012, 11:58 PM.
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Temerit
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^^ Haha that reminded me of a good joke.

So, a neutron walks into a bar and ask the bartender, "Hey, how much is a drink?" The bartender replies, "For you? No charge!"

Faulty equipment is never good, but on the other hand recently scientists were able to observe the quasiparticle the orbitron, one of the three quasiparticles that composes an electron.
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CJ
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A very minor case of serious brain damage

Well, faulty equipment is good when it causes you to make an accidental discovery. Not that that happens terribly often :P .
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Michelle
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.

Too bad it was faulty... good Lord, that's just scary if it were true.
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CJ
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Well, it is still firmly within the realm of science fiction....for now, at least.

Apparently, NASA is working on a faster-than-light warp drive, but it might destroy (or at least irradiate) anything at its destination:
http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/11/29/nasa-is-actually-working-on-a-faster-than-light-warp-drive-but-it-might-blow-up-any-planet-it-travels-to/
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Denis Pick
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Dear Leader

North Koreans will beat them to it.
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CJ
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They will, but like your rockets, it won't work.
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