






I. The Erosion of Relativity?




CERN has published 

Robert Plunkett of the 



II. Physics Gets More Complicated







III. Just How Weird is Physics?








Comments     Threshold


RE: how about...
By amarcord on 9/26/2011 10:58:15 AM , Rating: 5
1) Neutrinos have a mass > 0, even though really small (< 10e-68 g)

Even if they hadn't any mass, they could let you send information through time

2) The difference in speed is greater than the statistical error


RE: how about...
By amarcord on 9/26/2011 11:02:57 AM , Rating: 2
Anyhow the article contains a mistake:

A majorana particle is a fermion which coincides with its own antiparticle.

Non fermion example are very common in the nature, like photons.

RE: how about...
By joex444 on 9/27/2011 5:19:29 AM , Rating: 2
I'd like to add we've never observed a Majorana fermion. (And it capitalized, as it was a person's name.)

RE: how about...
By Nelson Lam on 9/26/2011 11:31:47 AM , Rating: 1
How can the CERN scientists prove that the one particle created on one side was the one detected later on the other side? Just like if I throw a ball to a distant target and you caculate the speed of ball by measuring the distance in between me and the target, and measuring the time between the ball left my hand and the target was hit by a ball without assuring the ball hitting the target was exactly the one I threw out, then it could be wrongly concluded that I could throw out a ball with a speed faster than speed of light.

RE: how about...
By MozeeToby on 9/26/2011 11:51:37 AM , Rating: 5
They aren't dealing with individual particles, rather a beam of particles. Imagine you have a fire hose and you want to find out how fast the water from the hose travels across a room. You turn on the water for 1 second, and time how long it takes the water to get there. It doesn't matter that the first drop of water isn't the first one that left the hose.

You could even do it in the middle of a rainstorm (which is equivalent to what they did since we are always getting bombarded with neutrinos from the sun). Graph how much water is hitting the far wall, then apply some statistics to figure out when the water from the hose started getting there.

It won't be perfect but if you repeat the experiment a few thousand time (Remember, they had 3 years worth of data), you'll eventually be able to say with certainty the speed of the water, or at the very least put lower bound on the speed which is what we really care about in this case. The lower bound that the found was ever so slightly faster than c.

RE: how about...
By GulWestfale on 9/26/2011 5:29:22 PM , Rating: 5
this is the second time this year that CERN has violated the principles of causality. the first time will happen in november.

"i'm sorry, we don't serve neutrinos who are faster than light here," says the barkeeper. a neutrino walks into a bar.

now stop it with the lame neutrino jokes! i already heard them next week.

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the primary neutrinos to wherever the secondary ones should appear.

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By ekv on 9/27/2011 2:58:09 AM , Rating: 3
Still leaves some room for doubt. Interesting nonetheless.

If the "beam of particles" were modulated or perhaps even pulsed that would lend more certainty that indeed those are the correct particles to be timed. Though with a beam then I have questions about wave-fronts and so on.

Are all neutrinos faster than light? or perhaps only these CERN neutrinos? What makes them go faster/slower?

RE: how about...
By montanagf on 9/27/2011 12:32:49 PM , Rating: 2
n the question of certainty that the particles that hit the target are the ones tranamitted. i'm not aphysicist, but as iunderstand quantum physics, there can be causality at a distance, as opposed to the pool ball causality of newetonian physics. Would that complicate the question?

RE: how about...
By montanagf on 9/27/2011 1:00:18 PM , Rating: 3
would make the calculations moot.
possible that the neutrinos measured as going through the earth, never left the sun?


RE: how about...
By Mitch101 on 9/26/2011 11:42:30 AM , Rating: 2
How incredible and far ahead was Einstein that this was 100 years ago in what seems like the dark ages of technology that he drew up such theories. He lived into the 50's but his theory on light dates back 100 years.

And why does it seem like there has not been anyone as grand/celebrated since? I cant imagine what he could do conceive with today's technology.

Ive read this article on other sites can someone explain why they believe Neutrinos allow for sending information back in time as I read it its just faster than light.

RE: how about...
By MozeeToby on 9/26/2011 12:02:33 PM , Rating: 4
Any effect that allows a piece of information to reach it's destination faster than light automatically breaks causality (aka allows information to be sent back in time). It doesn't matter how it is accomplished, all that matters is that information can get somewhere faster than light from the event that produced the message.

In very simple terms, we know empirically that something traveling close to the speed of light experiences time dilation. What people don't think about is what that really means: people will disagree about when an event happened based on how fast they are going. If you have to space ships about to have an epic battle but traveling away from each other at near light speed, you can have disagreement over who shot first based on where the observer is and how fast they are traveling. So long as everything stays below the speed of light, it doesn't matter who shot first, the math always works out so that the same ship will win the fight no matter where you're observing from.

As soon as you allow for a weapon that travels faster than light the math breaks down. For example, you can have a ship fire their faster than light weapon and hit the other ship, after the ship is hit but before everyone dies they fire their regular old laser back at the first ship, if the velocities are just right the laser can hit the first ship before they fire their special FTL weapon.

A full explanation can be found here: It's the best explanation that I've seen, but to understand it you have to wrap your head around space time diagrams, which isn't easy, especially if you don't have a good understanding of what time dilation actually implies (namely, there's no such thing as two events happening at the 'exact same time' for two different observers).

RE: how about...
By Iaiken on 9/26/2011 12:35:30 PM , Rating: 2
This get's more complicated when you think about computation and data transmission.

I could perform a calculation on a piece of data and then send the answer back in time to the very instant you asked the computer to perform it.

If you want to get even more ridiculous, you can involve two such computers with each other to calculate out non terminating decimals like pi. Each takes a turn calculating the next digit and then sending it back in time to the other which then repeats the process ad infinitum. Technically, you could ask these computers for any single digit of pi instantly as between them they will have calculated them all out.

The relativistic problem then becomes one of exactly when to ask, because neither would have the entire value set available to them nor could they as any attempt to store the data would instantaneously fill all of the storage space.

Fun times!

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RE: how about...
By JediJeb on 9/27/2011 2:50:25 PM , Rating: 3
The logic problem I have always thought of when asking about FTL communications is this.

If you had a metal rod 1 light year long, and you push on one end of it, when will the other end move?

If it moves at both ends at the same time then you have communicated faster than the speed of light. If that can not happen, then what delays the movement of the other end?

RE: how about...
By Wraithor on 9/27/2011 8:30:33 PM , Rating: 3
I would assume that if you had a set up like this what would happen when you push the rod is that it will compress the amount which you push it and simultaneously decompress at the rate which the particles would allow, for instance if your rod was made up of five 0's this is what would happen:
0 0 0 0 0
]00 0 0 0
]0 00 0 0
]0 0 00 0
]0 0 0 00
]0 0 0 0 0
, or maybe you just destroy the universe.

RE: how about...
By AnnihilatorX on 9/28/2011 3:06:59 PM , Rating: 2
It will still move below the speed of light due to pushing an object really is really subatomic electromagnetic interactions

RE: how about...
By MozeeToby on 9/28/2011 3:16:06 PM , Rating: 2
When you push one end of the rod, the other end moves much more than one year later. A compression wave travels through the metal rod at something closer to the speed of sound than the speed of light. In any normal human scenario that all happens so fast that you'd never notice it, especially in something as rigid as a metal. But imagine you had a meter long rod of jello and you push one end, the other end doesn't move immediately. The same is true of all materials, it just happens more quickly.

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Thanks will give it a read.




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I suppose light speed could have magical properties


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I watched that same documentary and it was pretty awesome

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Observer from Fringe: Their theories are quite fascinating.

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Did it have something to do with a flux capacitor?

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RE: how about...
By zmatt on 9/26/2011 4:45:03 PM , Rating: 2
causality isn't some golden law that was passed down from the gods. It is entirely possible (although very unlikely) that causality can be violated. We just haven't seen it yet. A lot of people get uppity about stuff like this and they toss out the "it violates causality so it's impossible" argument. Given what we have seen things like this shouldn't happen and so far causality has been good, but rule #1 about science is nothing is set in stone.

As far as this announcement, I'll hold judgement until the scientific community chimes in and we see if it stands up to the scrutiny.

RE: how about...
By JediJeb on 9/27/2011 3:06:01 PM , Rating: 3
If it is true that there can be multiple timelines causing infinite parallel universes then it would be possible to return to the past and kill your grandfather and still continue to live. You would simply cause a fragmentation of the timelines at that point and start another parallel universe where you were never born, yet your timeline continues as if nothing ever happened.


RE: how about...

No, read back 5th paragraph of section III.

