Brian Cox on Cern's baffling light-speed find

[Tank]

Well, if you consider that mass attracts and that eventually mass is likely to be swallowed up into black holes and that matter limited to the speed of light cannot escape a black hole, and that the beginnings of our universe sounds incredibly like a black hole and that scientists theorise an inflationary period where expansion was faster than the speed of light.

Inside a black hole, matter breaks down, it is also likely that particles break down. When its mass hits such a threshold and matter breaks down enough, smaller than particles contained in light, is in inconceivable that this energy could travel faster than the speed of light and escape this black hole?

Otherwise wouldn't the universe and space be full of black holes?

AFAIK the Universe is still very much a baby in terms of a human life span, just a few hours old. So as you posit as matter can go into black holes but not out (excepting Hawking radiation apparently) in due course the universe would end up as a collection of black holes slowly evapourating Hawking radiation. The time it would take to reach this point would be interesting do debate as expansion is not only still happening, it appears to be accellerating, having originally slowed down during the first 4BY of the universes existance. This means that the existing black holes are spreading apart, which could leave islands of matter marooned. What the universe will ultimatly look like is an intersting subject.

Whether or not this has any bearing on the speed of light within black holes is rather a moot point as the event horizon represents a limit to the explanatory value of our current understanding of cosmology and physics, so one ends up in a speculation loop.

[Pharaoh Cat]

I must say I am very attracted to the idea that the neutrino is taking a short cut via a 5th dimension. Firstly because it leaves the issue of the speed of light intact in 4 dimentional spacetime. Secondly it indicates there are additional dimensions. 

Thirdly - hyperdrive! 

That pesky absolute limit of "c" for space travel is what forces many people to conclude we will never explore other solar systems in person, a saddening notion for all sci fi fans.  The sci fi concept of hyperdrive has always seemed the only escape, and hey, if neutrinos can do it, then maybe somehow our ships can too.   

[Tank]

I must say I am very attracted to the idea that the neutrino is taking a short cut via a 5th dimension. Firstly because it leaves the issue of the speed of light intact in 4 dimentional spacetime. Secondly it indicates there are additional dimensions. 

Thirdly - hyperdrive! 

That pesky absolute limit of "c" for space travel is what forces many people to conclude we will never explore other solar systems in person, a saddening notion for all sci fi fans.  The sci fi concept of hyperdrive has always seemed the only escape, and hey, if neutrinos can do it, then maybe somehow our ships can too.   

If you like SiFi then try the Revalation Space series by Alastair Rynolds. He's an ex-scientist who worked for ESA and he knows his stuff and the Revalation Space series doesn't 'cheat' with FTL space flight. You get all the relativity effects where the space craft travels close to the speed of light so the crews take years of their time to travel between star systems while the star systems age by thousands of years.

[Pharaoh Cat]

If you like SiFi then try the Revalation Space series by Alastair Rynolds. He's an ex-scientist who worked for ESA and he knows his stuff and the Revalation Space series doesn't 'cheat' with FTL space flight. You get all the relativity effects where the space craft travels close to the speed of light so the crews take years of their time to travel between star systems while the star systems age by thousands of years.

Ooh - and his books are on Kindle! 

Thanks Tank! 

[Tank]

If you like SiFi then try the Revalation Space series by Alastair Rynolds. He's an ex-scientist who worked for ESA and he knows his stuff and the Revalation Space series doesn't 'cheat' with FTL space flight. You get all the relativity effects where the space craft travels close to the speed of light so the crews take years of their time to travel between star systems while the star systems age by thousands of years.

Ooh - and his books are on Kindle! 

Thanks Tank! 

You're welcome. His books are also interesting as he takes the view that theism is in endemic in humanity, which makes for some interesting plot lines particularly when combined with some characters who are artificially augmented.

[xSilverPhinx]

So cool

I'm guessing neutrinos actually do travel faster than light, or least take a shortcut.

Well we're not there yet. For a finding to be declared acceptable it has to be ratified by another tean and the kit to do this doesn't come cheap. And the probablility has to be beyond 6 sigma probability deviation and that is going to be hellishly difficault to get to in such a complex experiment.

I must say I am very attracted to the idea that the neutrino is taking a short cut via a 5th dimension. Firstly because it leaves the issue of the speed of light intact in 4 dimentional spacetime. Secondly it indicates there are additional dimensions. 

I know, I'm just following this with interest. It's not everyday that you get a particle with mass going faster than light...and would be very interesting if it did

And yes, just because neutrinos have been measured to arrive before light a few times, with adjusted experiments, doesn't mean that the light speed law necessarily has been broken.

[xSilverPhinx]

I must say I am very attracted to the idea that the neutrino is taking a short cut via a 5th dimension. Firstly because it leaves the issue of the speed of light intact in 4 dimentional spacetime. Secondly it indicates there are additional dimensions. 

Thirdly - hyperdrive! 

That pesky absolute limit of "c" for space travel is what forces many people to conclude we will never explore other solar systems in person, a saddening notion for all sci fi fans.  The sci fi concept of hyperdrive has always seemed the only escape, and hey, if neutrinos can do it, then maybe somehow our ships can too.   

Wormholes

Or hyperdrive, but by twisting the fabric of space-time rather than actually exceeding the speed of light. Could happen...

[Tank]

Faster-than-light neutrino result queried

Subatomic particles called neutrinos cannot move faster than the speed of light, according to a new report.

...One of the first objections to the experiment to be formally published appeared just five weeks later in the journal Physical Review Letters, co-authored by Nobel prize-winning physicist Sheldon Glashow.

Prof Glashow and his co-author Andrew Cohen argued that particles moving faster than light should emit further particles as they travel - in the process losing energy until they slow down to light-speed.

The Icarus team already had measurements of the spread of energies in neutrinos, detected in their underground instruments at Gran Sasso.

They showed in a paper again on the Arxiv repository that the neutrino energies they measure are consistent with slower-than-light-speed travel...

Keep watching 

[xSilverPhinx]

Faster-than-light neutrino result queried

Subatomic particles called neutrinos cannot move faster than the speed of light, according to a new report.

...One of the first objections to the experiment to be formally published appeared just five weeks later in the journal Physical Review Letters, co-authored by Nobel prize-winning physicist Sheldon Glashow.

Prof Glashow and his co-author Andrew Cohen argued that particles moving faster than light should emit further particles as they travel - in the process losing energy until they slow down to light-speed.

The Icarus team already had measurements of the spread of energies in neutrinos, detected in their underground instruments at Gran Sasso.

They showed in a paper again on the Arxiv repository that the neutrino energies they measure are consistent with slower-than-light-speed travel...

Keep watching 

[Tank]

New data

http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2012/02/faster-than-light-neutrino-result-apparently-a-mistake-due-to-loose-cable.ars

But now, ScienceInsider is reporting that there was a good reason the measurements and reality weren't lining up: a loose fiber optic cable was causing one of the atomic clocks used to time the neutrinos' flight to produce spurious results.

This could be one of the biggest Ooops! in history!

[Crow]

New data

http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2012/02/faster-than-light-neutrino-result-apparently-a-mistake-due-to-loose-cable.ars

But now, ScienceInsider is reporting that there was a good reason the measurements and reality weren't lining up: a loose fiber optic cable was causing one of the atomic clocks used to time the neutrinos' flight to produce spurious results.

This could be one of the biggest Ooops! in history!

Hahahaha bloody quality!

[The Magic Pudding]

Hello, IT. Have you tried turning it off and on again? Have you made sure it's plugged in?

[DeterminedJuliet]

Well, that's the nice thing about science. You can admit when you are mistaken.

[Siz]

I must say I am very attracted to the idea that the neutrino is taking a short cut via a 5th dimension. Firstly because it leaves the issue of the speed of light intact in 4 dimentional spacetime. Secondly it indicates there are additional dimensions.  

Thirdly - hyperdrive!  

That pesky absolute limit of "c" for space travel is what forces many people to conclude we will never explore other solar systems in person, a saddening notion for all sci fi fans.  The sci fi concept of hyperdrive has always seemed the only escape, and hey, if neutrinos can do it, then maybe somehow our ships can too.  

If you like SiFi then try the Revalation Space series by Alastair Rynolds. He's an ex-scientist who worked for ESA and he knows his stuff and the Revalation Space series doesn't 'cheat' with FTL space flight. You get all the relativity effects where the space craft travels close to the speed of light so the crews take years of their time to travel between star systems while the star systems age by thousands of years.

Yeah I picked up one of his books (on kindle) after your open recommendation a while ago - House of Suns. Stunning, and just my kind of SF (though the dialogue between the 6million y/o characters I found a little... er... immature). Anyway, I started Revelation Space last week to get some more of the same good fix. I LOVE the far-reaching and 'outside of the human scale' aspect of his work.

It makes previously well considered genre experts (Clarke, Bova, Lee) seem very spacially and psychologically confined.

[Amicale]

Well, that's the nice thing about science. You can admit when you are mistaken.

This. Science is a field of study that's very open to correction, and I love that about it. And while this may have been a huge 'Oooops!', they still learned something valuable: before publishing research, dot your i's, cross your t's, check for human error and any possible technology failures. It's a step that could so easily be overlooked in other research for, say, cancer or for AIDS.... so it's always good to get a reminder, so it's less likely to happen again.