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Geek Culture / The speed of light may have been broken.

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Pincho Paxton
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Posted: 22nd Sep 2011 22:03 Edited at: 22nd Sep 2011 22:04
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Yup. They are pretty sure it has been broken.. 15000 tests say so. But they are being cautious.

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

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heyufool1
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Posted: 22nd Sep 2011 22:08
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Going by South Park we should soon be visited by an alien outlaw

"So hold your head up high and know. It's not the end of the road"
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Pincho Paxton
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Posted: 22nd Sep 2011 22:10
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Or Captain Picard!

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zenassem
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Posted: 23rd Sep 2011 01:33 Edited at: 23rd Sep 2011 02:26
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Hasn't this been claimed before only to reveal...

(Laymans terms.. I will have to research this to get it right but from the best that I can recall)

In testing it seems that certain particles arrive ahead of what the speed of light would dictate.

(And here is where I am sure my memory is going to fail me, so bear with my first post)

As it turned out,, under quantum mechanics,, what the scientist were seeing was akin to a prediction. The particle in those tests does seem to reach the end before it is suppose to. But,, it travels back to itself completing the path(i forget off-hand what this is called). So in other words,, (and yes this is weird quantum stuff) a particle has a starting point, seems to arrive (under tests) at an endpoint faster than light, and the particle travels backwards to it's orign. When adding up that time, it turns out that the particle is indeed traveling at a speed less than the speed of light. It's as if the particle being measured has traveled in time. But it's more like a ghost particle, in that although observed, nothing can be done with particle "physically"/"information" until it's path is complete (the reverse travel to the start) at which point the particle is "physically" at it's endpoint.

Wow I'm sure I messed this expalnation up. But I will correct it, if someone doesn't correct me first.

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Pincho Paxton
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Posted: 23rd Sep 2011 01:38
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Never heard of that one, but CERN aren't likely to forget something in 3 years, and 15000 tests.

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zenassem
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Posted: 23rd Sep 2011 01:46 Edited at: 23rd Sep 2011 02:25
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@Pincho, yeah you would think so, but i wouldn't be suprised if they don't find some "new" flaw in their current experiment. I'll have to dig up the info on my post. I'm trying to recall if it had something to do with a twin particle or optical precursors and pulse fronts or whatever. I know I read it somewhere...

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Slow Programmer
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Posted: 23rd Sep 2011 02:27
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Not enough info about how the experiment is laid out, but I suspect Einstein's theory is in no danger. My personal opinion with the limited info is that they are not measuring the distance accurately. Given plate tectonics, length change due to temperature variations and gravitation tides (they affect land too) due to the moon I suspect they distance travelled is changing enough to allow for the results seen. It would be interesting to know if they have actually sent a beam of light over the exact same pathway and measured the results.

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Pincho Paxton
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Posted: 23rd Sep 2011 02:31
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Even odder though, this wasn't even in a vacuum, this speed was through the Earth.

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Wolf
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Posted: 23rd Sep 2011 03:54
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Quote: "we should soon be visited by an alien outlaw
"


Yes? What do you want from me?

Matter is energy condensed to a slow vibration, we are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively Theres no such thing as death,life is only a dream,and were the imagination of ourselves.
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heyufool1
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Posted: 23rd Sep 2011 04:50 Edited at: 23rd Sep 2011 04:50
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Quote: "What do you want from me?"

600 parsons of space cash

"So hold your head up high and know. It's not the end of the road"
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Vent
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Posted: 23rd Sep 2011 05:02 Edited at: 23rd Sep 2011 05:03
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We are now going to Ludicrous speed



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Neuro Fuzzy
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Posted: 23rd Sep 2011 05:06 Edited at: 23rd Sep 2011 09:44
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Yes, it would be interesting to hear how they measured the distance between the two labs. However, since the speed of light is crazy high, they would only need the distance to be accurate to about 1mm (i figure this because the speed of light is on the order of 10^6 m/s, and the time difference is on the order of "a few billionths of a second"=10^-9 s. 10^6 m/s * 10^-9 s = 10^-3 m, which is on the order of 1mm.)

I would have assumed they would have used neutrinos as a calibration instrument! How do you measure how well your instruments are calibrated?!

[edit]
Just had a convo with my dad. He pointed out that it's easily possible to observe some things moving faster than the speed of light: If you take a laser pointer out at night, and wave it across the moon really fast, the dot you observe on the moon moves faster than the speed of light. Of course there are no particles moving faster than the speed of light here, but what if a neutrino was a projection of a particle through some spacey-wacey higher dimension? Then, as we observe it, it's easy to have neutrinos moving faster than the speed of light!


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Fallout
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Posted: 23rd Sep 2011 10:23
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@Neuro Fuzzy - That is interesting, and it got me thinking, and I think your dad is wrong. We all know Dad's are never wrong, so in this instance, let's assume he was just sleepy. I'm not being pedantic here, it just got me curious and I had to think about it ...

In order for you to see the dot, you need to see the reflection of the light on the moon's surface. The light therefore has to travel from you to the moon and then back. Then you move the pen almost instantly to point other side of the moon. The light travels to the moon and back again, so you can see it.

In a perfect instantly fast scenario, where you can move the pen instantly, to observe the laser dot moving from one side of the moon to the other, light has to travel from you to the moon and back twice. That distance travelled fast exceeds the diameter of the moon, and thus light could travel from one side of the moon to the other far faster than you could observe a dot from a laser pen moving across it surface.

The same goes for any scenario. Light travels faster from A->B than it does from O->A->O->B->O, where O is the position of the observer. Even if you didn't wait to observe the first dot, and you moved the light from A->B instantly, choosing to observe both dots at the same time, the time taken would still be O->A->O (or) O->B->O (which ever is longer) to observe both dots. Where ever you stand at 'O', it will always take longer, unless you stand exactly between A and B, and then it'll take exactly the same time.

Damn, what a waste of 10 minutes that was. Must do work ...

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JLMoondog
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Posted: 23rd Sep 2011 10:29
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Zen: That would be the Picard maneuver.
Quote: "a ship does a in system warp jump to move its position from one point to another. When the ships exits warp, there will temporarily be a mirror image of the ships past position thus making it appear to be two ships."


http://www.jlmoondog.com/
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Plystire
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Posted: 23rd Sep 2011 10:32
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Would everyone hate me if I used the moon for an international laser show? It will, of course, be BYOM (Bring Your Own Music)


~Plystire

A rose is only a rose until it is held and cherished -- then it becomes a treasure.
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Fallout
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Posted: 23rd Sep 2011 10:42
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I'm game. Just don't draw a nob on it, else you'll upset the astronomers.

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Plystire
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Posted: 23rd Sep 2011 10:44
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Why would that upset them? They look at giant balls every day!

(If this went too far for a joke, I'm sorry!)


~Plystire

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Neuro Fuzzy
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Posted: 23rd Sep 2011 13:30
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@Fallout

Maybe you didn't understand what I was saying. I wrote up a java app to help with the visualization:
http://www.neurofuzzydev.com/rotapp.html
if you turn the turning rate high and the particle speed low, the green dots (an "apparent particle") starts to move really really fast. If you were a 1d being living on that line, and all the particles you saw were projected, you would see a green particle moving away from you faster than theoretically possible (if the speed of the red dots is the fastest you can go). Even though a particle in your space (restricted to the line) could only move at this maximum speed limit, a projected "particle" (the green dots) could move as fast as it wanted to!

Of course this has 0 bearing in actual physics, but the general trend seems to be moving towards higher dimensions (relativity->string theory), and projections are something that can break the rule!

If the width of the green line appearing on the circle in my applet was really really small, it would be indistinguishable from a point, and could move faster than the maximum set speed limit.


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Fallout
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Posted: 23rd Sep 2011 14:09
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I get you now Mr Fuzz and I agree. My mistake was I considered you'd have to wait to view the particle collision before you moved the particle gun. If you fired your 'frikkin laser beam' (Austin Powers!) at the moon, waited to see it, then moved your laser pointer to the other side, fired and waited to see it, the apparent movement of the beam could not exceed the speed of light. Now I've de-linked the process of shooting my laser beam and viewing it's result, it makes perfect sense.

Cool app too. It really helps visualise it.

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Pincho Paxton
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Posted: 23rd Sep 2011 14:25 Edited at: 23rd Sep 2011 14:48
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It's not the same particle hitting each place on the moon. Speed is supposed to be based on a single particle. These particles aren't linear either, they have gaps between them.

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Neuro Fuzzy
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Posted: 23rd Sep 2011 14:40
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^Did you see the applet? the curve is just a series of particles, and so its length can change as much as it wants to.
Also, the phrase: "The dot would need to wait for the curve to catch up with it." is incredibly nondescriptive.


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Fallout
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Posted: 23rd Sep 2011 14:48 Edited at: 23rd Sep 2011 14:49
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Pincho is visualising it as the curve having a lateral speed across the surface you're shooting at (like a hose pipe being whipped along). In that instance, he'd be correct, but as you've demonstrated/reminded us, there is no curve at all. There is simply a load of unrelated, non-joined particles that look like a curve.

Also, the dot itself doesn't exist as a single entity. It's a by product of reflection from a series of unrelated particles. So a particle could reflect off a surface from one side of the universe, and a separate particle could reflect from a surface from another side of the universe, and meet back at the observer in the center of the universe at the same time. If you decide those reflections are related (i.e. a moving dot), then that dot has travelled the entire length of the universe instantly.

^That's pretty flippin fast!

Of course, in reality, those reflections are not related at all, and the dot is not an entity, as demonstrated in Fuzzy's app.

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Neuro Fuzzy
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Posted: 23rd Sep 2011 14:51 Edited at: 23rd Sep 2011 14:51
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Aha, couldn't have put it better myself. I made a picture after I posted and I'd hate for it to go to waste now:



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Benjamin
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Posted: 23rd Sep 2011 15:19
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I'm sceptical too, though I don't have a PhD in nuclear physics so I'm hopeful that they know a bit more than me on the subject.



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Teh Stone
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Posted: 24th Sep 2011 02:00
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It got me out of doing any real work in my physics lessons today anyway

Most people thought it would be down to a simple systematic error
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Slow Programmer
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Posted: 24th Sep 2011 03:15
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I read on a physics site something that makes perfect sense. The people that presented this data do not believe any of it. If they believed there was any chance they were correct they would have keep the studies hidden until they wrote and presented a proper paper for publication. If this were correct they would be guaranteed a Nobel Prize in physics. Basically, they have said here is a problem we don't know how to answer please do our work for us and tell us the answer. Some people are actually pretty upset over the way this has been handled. Research scientists are a strange bunch

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Pincho Paxton
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Posted: 24th Sep 2011 14:26
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You think somebody could steal their discovery, and get away with it after all of this publicity? Ok.. I found neutrinos travelling faster than light in my microwave oven before CERN. I know this happened because my chicken soup started to cluck!

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lazerus
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Posted: 24th Sep 2011 15:27
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Quote: "Basically, they have said here is a problem we don't know how to answer please do our work for us and tell us the answer"


Or the fact that they've discovered something greater than themselves and want there work fine tooth combed in case of any errors. The sole purpose of Cern is to advance our subatomic knowledge. It would be fundamentally counter-productive to try and hide something so large as breaking the speed of light barrier.

And if you don't believe in there good nature, by these results, there will be massive investment into developing new technology to find viable uses of this. Shrinking it, deep space exploration, this is the next great step toward the distant stars.

And before you get all hurpa derp Cern is huge and requires ton's of power, the first computer was the size of a room and required the power of several hundred Pc's, I have a watch that is more powerful than that running on a tiny battery.

Hell why not be sensationalistic, theres so much to be benefited from this!


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Insert Name Here
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Posted: 24th Sep 2011 15:54 Edited at: 24th Sep 2011 15:57
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Quote: "Basically, they have said here is a problem we don't know how to answer please do our work for us and tell us the answer. Some people are actually pretty upset over the way this has been handled."

... Well those people are idiots? The whole point of Science is finding out the truth, not rewards or awards or whatever. They don't know the answer and admit it (which is pretty much the definition of a good scientist), and want help from others to see where they've gone wrong... I don't understand how that is poor handling.

Imagine if you had a programming problem, came to this forum to ask for help, and everyone complained you were asking us to do the work for you. Because that's what it would be like.

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AutoBot
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Posted: 24th Sep 2011 16:54 Edited at: 24th Sep 2011 16:58
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But what if the aliens take notice of this new discovery?
Cummon guys, lets make First Contact happen. Lets meet those Vulcans!

Quote: "Imagine if you had a programming problem, came to this forum to ask for help, and everyone complained you were asking us to do the work for you. Because that's what it would be like."

I actually have seen that happen (mostly with people who barely do any work solving the problem themselves and just go making two threads a day with random questions). But in my opinion cern has actually done a bit of work in solving this and are justified in asking for help. In all seriousness this is a very cool discovery!

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Slow Programmer
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Posted: 24th Sep 2011 21:02
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Science is a very competitive field. If they truly believed the results were valid they would do more research and present results in official channels. What they have done is not how research works. Do they want every physicist in the world to drop what they are working on to work on this. They collected the data, they need to figure out what it means and present results properly. If they need help they can get help in the commonly accepted fashion which is not be making sensational news releases. Much like the rest of society these scientists have opted for the publicity pathway. It does not have to be right or wrong as long as they get there 15 minutes of fame. There is nothing wrong with getting help, but there are acceptable and unacceptable ways of doing it.

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Insert Name Here
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Posted: 24th Sep 2011 21:18
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Quote: "If they truly believed the results were valid they would do more research and present results in official channels."

I thought the whole point was that they don't think the results are valid, hence asking people to look to see if their methods are wrong?

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Plystire
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Posted: 24th Sep 2011 23:55
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Quote: "There is nothing wrong with getting help, but there are acceptable and unacceptable ways of doing it."


The scientific outlook here would be:
I needed help, I got help. What does it matter HOW I got that help?

If it worked, stop complaining.


~Plystire

A rose is only a rose until it is held and cherished -- then it becomes a treasure.
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Pincho Paxton
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Posted: 25th Sep 2011 01:59 Edited at: 25th Sep 2011 02:03
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The best possible mistake I have heard so far is that they may have got the GPS measuring system confused with a straight line measurement. GPS works on a Geode system. Somebody posted that the straight line measurement is 22 metres out compared to a geode, and that would fix the results. But then somebody else posted that the straight line is way shorter, 323m shorter. Don't know.

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Diggsey
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Posted: 25th Sep 2011 02:10
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Quote: "The best possible mistake I have heard so far is that they may have got the GPS measuring system confused with a straight line measurement. GPS works on a Geode system."


They'd have to be pretty stupid to get that wrong...

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Neuro Fuzzy
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Posted: 25th Sep 2011 02:24
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This just in: Scientists discover that using the windows load time bar is a bad idea in experiments!


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