Scientists discover particles which exceed the speed of light!

[HotelUser]

Yeah so..

Today, it was announced that scientists have discovered particles which exceeded the speed of light, by a billionth of a second.

Here's a news articles on it: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-15017484

And there's also a news article for it on Habbox > Real life news..

I'm still in shock, can't believe science has made so much progress, that they've managed to defy their own "laws of physics" (I think the speed of light is in there?). If these results really are 100% accurate, this could possibly change the future of physics :L

And for religious people - it shows science isn't always right ( I'm not starting a debate on that though -.- )


-- Sorry if there's already a thread posted on this.

I completely disagree. Newton was a huge figure in physics and we still abide by his three primary laws today. However Einstein more or less replaced vast segments of Newton's work with his theory of relativity. Our understanding of science and physics to be specific is forever evolving so it's natural for new information to inspire new concepts and theories which amend, or replace old ones.

[MKR&*42]

I completely disagree. Newton was a huge figure in physics and we still abide by his three primary laws today. However Einstein more or less replaced vast segments of Newton's work with his theory of relativity. Our understanding of science and physics to be specific is forever evolving so it's natural for new information to inspire new concepts and theories which amend, or replace old ones.

I'm actually starting to disagree with what I said about science not always being right (I know..disagreeing with my own statement) - I've been 'convinced' by many people, that science is advancing, with new technology.

However, I don't agree that the knowledge of physics is forever evolving, for example...atoms. The theory of atoms was first put forward by a philosopher called 'Democritus' in 460 B.C, of course people found his theory ridiculous at the time because people mainly believed in 'the God's' rather than philosophy/science. Anyway, he proposed that everything in the world was made up of little building blocks called atoms which were un-divisible. As we can see , over 1000's of years - this theory still exists today. It shows that all beliefs in science aren't evolving - even the most common beliefs today, go back to B.C times.

I don't think that scientific belief's are evolving, I just think that as new technology becomes available - we have new potential to discover even more - a good example, when people discovered the earth wasn't flat xL.

[Wig44.]

I think that's why the team finally released the results, for other scientists to scrutinize over and eventually reach a conclusion. Also, my friend (who's a bit smart xL) pointed out that because they were subatomic particles - they had literally no mass and wouldn't actually count for bypassing the speed of light, so it could actually be debatable whether it would affect modern day physics if the results are found out to be accurate.

That's ridiculous, whether something has mass is a non-issue. Nothing can travel faster than the speed of light (according to modern physics) regardless of mass or none. For the record, neutrinos do have mass, but it's absolutely tiny.

Considering they measured down to a billionth of a second and it travelled over 720,000 metres I'm guessing the distance wasn't accurately measured - how could you measure the distance that accurately? For the results to have a valid uncertainty, if they measured seconds to 1sec/10^9 they must measure distance to 1metre/10^9 which seems very impractical. Human error no doubt.

[N!ck]

That's ridiculous, whether something has mass is a non-issue. Nothing can travel faster than the speed of light (according to modern physics) regardless of mass or none. For the record, neutrinos do have mass, but it's absolutely tiny.

Considering they measured down to a billionth of a second and it travelled over 720,000 metres I'm guessing the distance wasn't accurately measured - how could you measure the distance that accurately? For the results to have a valid uncertainty, if they measured seconds to 1sec/10^9 they must measure distance to 1metre/10^9 which seems very impractical. Human error no doubt.

Neutrinos mathematically must have a mass.

We can get down to those accuracies and better for distance and time no problem in the lab.

[Wig44.]

Neutrinos mathematically must have a mass.

We can get down to those accuracies and better for distance and time no problem in the lab.

I know they have a mass, I said that in my post.

I know time can be measured to that accuracy but for distance I'm not so sure. What I am sure of is human error in this experiment.

[N!ck]

I know they have a mass, I said that in my post.

I know time can be measured to that accuracy but for distance I'm not so sure. What I am sure of is human error in this experiment.

We measure distance using time and light since we can measure time so well and the speed of light is Lorentz invariant. One metre is defined as the distance that light travels in 1/299,792,458 th of a second.

[Ardemax]

I'd just like to say that WOW, scientists have discovered that something can go faster than the speed of light, which apparently nothing could go faster than (if that makes sense).

Hopefully more experiments will be carried out and this can either be validated by a lot more people of rejected through errors in measurement.

[Accipiter]

People who say science isn't always right need to realise

Scientist themselves know science isn't always right, there are multiple theories explaining certain physics, not all of them can be right.

Einstein or newton will never be forgotten for their work, because they revolutionist the way we understand it.

Darwin plagerised though ;]

And something must always go faster than the speed of light, the centre of a black hole must have a speed faster than it, or the event horizon would, to create a mass that can trap light.

[Wig44.]

We measure distance using time and light since we can measure time so well and the speed of light is Lorentz invariant. One metre is defined as the distance that light travels in 1/299,792,458 th of a second.

I'm sure there were issues with measuring distance with light in this experiment? I read that somewhere, but I don't know better. It is exciting but at the same time I think an error of measurement of 60 feet is more likely here.

[Chippiewill]

Since time around you speeds up when you're travelling close to the speed of light I wonder if those neutrinos were actually going back in time? (Assuming it's correct).

Nothing can travel faster than the speed of light (according to modern physics) regardless of mass or none.

If we remember back to Newton's law:

"Force = Mass x Acceleration" which can be rearranged to:

"Force/Mass = Acceleration"

Which means that something with no mass, pushed with even a small amount of force:

"1N/0kg = Somewhere between 0 and sideways eight infinity" ms^-2

Either doesn't move or moves very fast indeed, of course nothing can be divided by zero so anything with zero mass simply doesn't exist. (No, stuff divided by 0 doesn't equal infinity)

Also, my friend (who's a bit smart xL) pointed out that because they were subatomic particles - they had literally no mass and wouldn't actually count for bypassing the speed of light

Tell your friend to stop talking out of his arse, subatomic particles do have mass, just really low mass.