A particle goes faster than light.

Physics is one of my favorite subjects (heck, I'm in a class a studying it here in college). However, I've been following this and they've shown that they accounted for many possible things that could have thrown off their results a bit and their finding s have held up under initial scrutiny. However, they did admit that it was highly possible that something could turn up that would invalidate their results. And due to the fact that Neutrinos have almost zero mass (hence its nickname the 'Ghost Particle') and that they already travel at something like 99% the speed of light, I find it likely that there was some error with such a large margin of error present. If they turn out to have been correct (which we'll know for sure sometime next year), much of physics will be shaken up.

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If this is true, there will be a lot of mathematicians and physicians freaking out lol. I'm so excited to see if they can reproduce this and prove it to be Indeed true

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It did happen.
It travelled a few thousandth of a millisecondes faster... which is big.

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@drwho15 Currently, it is almost certain that doing that is impossible. It's one thing to have a particle with the lowest mass of any known particle (other than photons) possibly moving faster than light. It's a far different thing to have any object of sizable mass to do so. It would literally require infinite energy to do so. Explanation:

-The larger an object is, the more energy it takes to accelerate it (duh)

-If an object that has a mass greater than zero (i.e everything except for photons) the speed increases in a way that it attains infinite momentum

-Thus, to maintain infinite momentum, infinite energy is needed, which is impossible to do within a finite universe.

And that's not even mentioning the fact that there's is no known material that could withstand speeds even near that without tearing apart, disintegrating, or exploding from collisions with even dust sized particles.
As of now, nearly every physicist worldwide (Hawkins and the whole shebang) are doubting this as of know, since similar experiments over the last few decades contradict these claims.
Source

It's my job to help the next generation, and set a good example for them. And for that I'll gladly lay down my life.

The best chance we have of getting around the limit of light would be via the contraction of space behind an object and the expansion of space in front of the object. Space moves around the object, the object itself never actually moves.
And yes, I do get obsessed with physics at times. o3o

It's my job to help the next generation, and set a good example for them. And for that I'll gladly lay down my life.

The distinguished Skittles spake:

Hawkins

*Hawking

Also, although FTL travel will most likely be completely useless due to lack of strong materials (until we can get force sheilds), if not impossible in the end anyway, we still have temporal rifts and warp physics/wormhole theory to play with.
If nothing, we could investigate alternate universes in which the laws of physics were different and find one of pure energy to travel instantaneously to other points in space. Although again, either ships would need mile thick lead to protect from radiation, or force sheilds. :l

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The distinguished Arceus234090 spake:

The distinguished Skittles spake:[quote]Hawkins
<br>

<br>*Hawking
<br>
<br>Also, although FTL travel will most likely be completely useless due to lack of strong materials (until we can get force sheilds), if not impossible in the end anyway, we still have temporal rifts and warp physics/wormhole theory to play with.
<br>If nothing, we could investigate alternate universes in which the laws of physics were different and find one of pure energy to travel instantaneously to other points in space. Although again, either ships would need mile thick lead to protect from radiation, or force sheilds. :l[/quote]

Heh, I didn't notice my typo. xD Anyway, your alternate universe idea falls into the same trap: the energy needed to do so, if even possible, would make it either impossible or at the very least too costly. And we'd have no idea of the consequences of matter interacting with pure energy.

@viper I don't think so, but I could be wrong. The theory has already been proven true that you could expand space by using negative energy ( I kid you not). It entails creating a ridiculously small, enclosed space between two flat objects. Then, the negative energy cause the space between the two objects to widen by contracting the space in front of one of the objects. Its called the Casmir-Polder force. You can read about it here.

It's my job to help the next generation, and set a good example for them. And for that I'll gladly lay down my life.

um.. its only 60 nanosecondes faster then light :p thats not much faster

Where there is light, there is always darkness.

60 nano seconds is enough. Remember, everything is based off light being the fastest thing in the universe.

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Another reason why we won't be going near the speed of light anytime soon even if Einstein's theory ends of being proven false or flawed: electrons. What I mean is, we can't even get electrons to move at the speed of light. They've been accelerated to roughly 98-99% the speed of light. However, if we can't speed ridiculously small subatomic particles to that speed, why the heck would we be able to accelerate anything on our plane of existence anywhere near that speed?

It's my job to help the next generation, and set a good example for them. And for that I'll gladly lay down my life.

People can't write the small power, Ultra.

Interesting to see how physics will take a turn...

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