One of the most staggering results in physics – that neutrinos may go faster than light – has not gone away with two further weeks of observations. The researchers behind the jaw-dropping finding are now confident enough in the result that they are submitting it to a peer-reviewed journal.
"The measurement seems robust," says Luca Stanco of the National Institute of Nuclear Physics in Padua, Italy. "We have received many criticisms, and most of them have been washed out"...
Theorists have been struggling to reconcile the September result with the laws of physics. Einstein's theory of special relativity posits that nothing can travel faster than light, and many physicists believe the result could disappear in a puff of particles.
One of my favorite quotes is, "When the facts contradict your expectations, believe the facts." If this result holds up, we go back to the drawing board.
6 comments:
Oh, it is wrong. We just don't know how it's wrong. Yet.
It's not a matter of "right" or "wrong" but "righter" or "wronger". Einstein's righter then Newton and someone, yet to be named, will be righter then Einstein.
That's why "established science", and "established law", are propagandistic phrases invented by those who have some emotional investment in and a need to protect a certain point of view. Neither science or law is ever settled since both are the result of continously evolving, underlying forces.
With that out of the way, Einstein's insights have stood the test of time remarkably well which puts challenges in the category of extraordinary claims. Extraordinary claims, to quote Carl Sagan, require extraordinary proof. Expect a lot of further exploration of those FTL neutrinos. Expect specious dismissals of them on the basis of the very compelling fact that they can't - they just can't! - exist.
And more then likely expect them to be revealed as an experimental error but a pretty good one. The folks who built and ran the experiment were, after all, very good at what they do. Their error's unlikely to be the sort of stupid mistake that nearly destroyed the value of the Hubble space telescope.
"Oh, it is wrong. We just don't know how it's wrong. Yet."
Actually, we kinda do know *how* it is wrong. Or maybe *where* it is wrong. General Relativity does not play nice with Quantum Mechanics. Gluing these together is where a lot of modern theoretical physics (e.g. string theory) work is being done.
So ... we know where relativity is "wrong", we just don't know how to fix it.
A good example of an earlier "known" problem is that Mercury's orbit did not quite do what it was supposed to do under Newtonian mechanics. Until Einstein, however, physicists know about the problem, but not how to "fix" it.
QM and GR are in the same position, today. We know that things don't quite fit, but don't know how to fix them.
-Mark Roulo
"Einstein's theory of special relativity posits that nothing can travel faster than light, and many physicists believe the result could disappear in a puff of particles."
Actually, if one looks at the equations, the result is that nothing with rest mass can travel *AT* the speed of light (because you wind up dividing by zero). *Faster* than the speed of light is okay, as long as you are okay with complex (rather than real) values. What this *means* is an open question because we haven't seen anything traveling this fast (yet. Unless this is it!). But the math does work, even though we don't know how to interpret it.
-Mark Roulo
We know that something is wrong, not how it's wrong or we'd have a theory that explains the wrongness. We don't.
Oh, and the equations indicate nothing can achieve the speed of light. Mass goes up exponentially as the speed of light is approached and becomes infinite at the speed of light.
I wonder if there's matter that can exist at speeds above c, but couldn't exist below c--the opposite of "our kind" of matter. In that case c would be a lower speed limit, not an upper.
Darren: "I wonder if there's matter that can exist at speeds above c, but couldn't exist below c--the opposite of "our kind" of matter. In that case c would be a lower speed limit, not an upper."
There are hypothetical particles with just this property: Tachyons
-Mark Roulo
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