Author Topic: Stop! You have violated the laws of nature!  (Read 13203 times)

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Offline Flipside

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Re: Stop! You have violated the laws of nature!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-15791236

Tests re-run and results confirmed, the Neutrinos appear to be breaking the speed the light.

This could get interesting.

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Offline starlord

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Re: Stop! You have violated the laws of nature!
Ah! so you are following this too?

 

Offline headdie

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Re: Stop! You have violated the laws of nature!
an interesting development lets hope these are the moments that allow future generations to achieve some form of FTL.
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Offline Flipside

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Re: Stop! You have violated the laws of nature!
Ah! so you are following this too?

I find it interesting, I'm not certain how significant it is in the larger scheme of things, the implications might actually be echoing louder than the impact it actually has on physics, but only time will answer that, but it is a serious shot across the bow of Relativity as it stands. And it's always exciting when a basic scientific precept gets a bit of an airing, it does it some good :)

 

Offline starlord

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Re: Stop! You have violated the laws of nature!
Well that could mean many things however we are quite still far from the idea of FTL, aren't we?

  

Offline Flipside

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Re: Stop! You have violated the laws of nature!
Well, not whilst this is only operating at a neutrino level, I would have thought. Whether such a trick could be applied to larger objects is both unknown and, on first glance, probably unlikely. What we are seeing here, most likely, is a quantum level effect, and quantum, like biology, doesn't scale up to macro sizes very well. Make an exact duplicate of a pigeon, only ten times bigger, and it will break its legs every time it lands. I think you'll come across a similar type of problem with this.

Edit: At the end of the day, it depends how fundamental the flaw is in the original theories I suppose (assuming this neutrino event stands up to peer-review), but I still consider relativity to be a pretty sound theory, it's probably a case of a slight alteration than a complete re-write, and it all depends on what alteration it involves as to what impact it has.

Edit 2 :  I suppose the next question Physicists will be asking themselves is 'does the neutrino actually occupy real-space for the entire journey, or is there some kind distant relative to electron state-jumping going on here?' Since moving the neutrino out of the 'Newtonian universe' would allow it to do this without actually breaking any relativity laws whatsoever.
« Last Edit: November 18, 2011, 09:40:38 am by Flipside »

 

Offline jr2

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Re: Stop! You have violated the laws of nature!
Edit 2 :  I suppose the next question Physicists will be asking themselves is 'does the neutrino actually occupy real-space for the entire journey, or is there some kind distant relative to electron state-jumping going on here?' Since moving the neutrino out of the 'Newtonian universe' would allow it to do this without actually breaking any relativity laws whatsoever.

Is this sort of like a subspace idea here where the neutrino / electron enters a different dimension, or is it the neutrino / electron itself that changes its properties?

 

Offline Flipside

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Re: Stop! You have violated the laws of nature!
I think it would be more a case of ignoring certain properties of space time, in the same way as an electron appears to jump states without traversing 'time' in any detectable way. I really am a layman with regards to this, but I remember Richard Feynman putting forward a thought-proposition that seemed intriuging. He basically said that it is not beyond the realms of possibility in quantum physics that every single electron in the universe is the same electron just jittering back and forth through all of time and space. It wasn't really put forward as a plausible theory as such, more a demonstration of the kind of wierd possibilities that have to be included when dealing with stuff at a quantum level.

Edit: As a thought, what this might have implications for in the future is possibly more along the lines of FTL computing rather than travel. If these sort of quantum effects could be utilised to carry data, the possibiilties are quite formidable.
« Last Edit: November 18, 2011, 12:15:19 pm by Flipside »

 

Offline Mika

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Re: Stop! You have violated the laws of nature!
Here's to hope that this isn't a measurement error.

I'm starting to accept the possibility that they might have discovered a new phenomenon. Which would be good news, especially from the side of experimental physics.

However, I still do detect some amount of sceptism about this.
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Offline The E

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Re: Stop! You have violated the laws of nature!
However, I still do detect some amount of sceptism about this.

This is science. And a rather revolutionary discovery. I would be rather disappointed if there wasn't a LOT of skepticism.
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Offline FlamingCobra

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Re: Stop! You have violated the laws of nature!
Quote
I think it would be more a case of ignoring certain properties of space time, in the same way as an electron appears to jump states without traversing 'time' in any detectable way. I really am a layman with regards to this, but I remember Richard Feynman putting forward a thought-proposition that seemed intriuging. He basically said that it is not beyond the realms of possibility in quantum physics that every single electron in the universe is the same electron just jittering back and forth through all of time and space. It wasn't really put forward as a plausible theory as such, more a demonstration of the kind of wierd possibilities that have to be included when dealing with stuff at a quantum level.

That would be more like infinite improbability wouldn't it? Because you cannot be certain at any exact moment where that one electron is.

 

Offline Bobboau

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Re: Stop! You have violated the laws of nature!
this is big because it disproves the whole 'causality' connection to the speed of light. in other words it does not break the most basic premises of what we know as reality and time to move faster than the speed of light.
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Offline starlord

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Re: Stop! You have violated the laws of nature!
well flipside, I believe it was once aknowledged that the transport of even information at FTL speeds was as seemingly unfeasable as transporting matter at FTL speeds! That means we are quite far off!

However if one is achieved, then I believe the other would be regarded as a much more credible possibility.

 

Offline Mikes

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Re: Stop! You have violated the laws of nature!
The best explanation for a hard limit on speed is still derived from Conways Game of Live imho... where c = 1 square per turn.

Considering that we can already model computer circuitry in Conways game there is currently no know reason why we wouldn't, in theory, be able to model AI and ultimately brain activity (using billions over billions over billions over billions of squares ;) ) ...   and heh, those poor sods seriously would have little chance to ever guess what system their universe is based on as it would literally be impossible to verify the nature of the system while yourself being a) within the system and b) complex enough to ponder the quesiton ;)
« Last Edit: November 19, 2011, 09:06:33 am by Mikes »

 

Offline Flipside

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Re: Stop! You have violated the laws of nature!
well flipside, I believe it was once aknowledged that the transport of even information at FTL speeds was as seemingly unfeasable as transporting matter at FTL speeds! That means we are quite far off!

However if one is achieved, then I believe the other would be regarded as a much more credible possibility.

Well, thing is, there are some breakthroughs with stuff like Quantum computing that are already making use of things like entanglement etc. Obviously, the usefulness of this neutrino effect, if it is confirmed, is still unknown, but I think it would be far more likely to move information around at FTL speeds than matter. After all, you can encode information using something like amplitude or frequency of signal within something that already exists and has the neccessary properties (that's, pretty much, how digital stuff works). That may be impossible in this case, but I think it's a far more likely outcome for usage. A simple stream of 'neutrino/no neutrino' could be encoded as a binary signal once some kind of synchronization had been figured out. It uses the same theory as current tech, but just uses neutrinos instead of electrons.

I'll once again re-iterate that I don't know if such a system would be possible, heck, we don't even know for certain if this effect is real yet or how or why it comes into being if it is, let alone investigated possible applications, but we shall have to wait and see.

 

Offline watsisname

Re: Stop! You have violated the laws of nature!
:bump:

New news on the alleged FTL neutrinos.  Looks very likely that experimental error is to blame after all.  More tests expected in May.

Quote
The two problems the team has identified would have opposing effects on the apparent speed.

On the one hand, the team said there is a problem in the "oscillator" that provides a ticking clock to the experiment in the intervals between the synchronisations of GPS equipment.

This is used to provide start and stop times for the measurement as well as precise distance information.

That problem would increase the measured time of the neutrinos' flight, in turn reducing the surprising faster-than-light effect.

But the team also said they found a problem in the optical fibre connection between the GPS signal and the experiment's main clock.

In contrast, the team said that effect would increase the neutrinos' apparent speed.

....

Given that the opposing effects only seem to muddy the waters further on whether neutrinos can exceed the "universal speed limit", only more experiments will put the matter to rest.

For its part, the Opera team said in a statement: "While continuing our investigations, in order to unambiguously quantify the effect on the observed result, the collaboration is looking forward to performing a new measurement of the neutrino velocity as soon as a new bunched beam will be available in 2012."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-17139635
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Re: Stop! You have violated the laws of nature!
Damn! It was so exciting...

 

Offline Flipside

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Re: Stop! You have violated the laws of nature!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-17364682

Excitement over, looks like that under the new conditions, they stick to the speed limit.

Ah well, it was fun while it lasted :)

 

Offline FireSpawn

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Re: Stop! You have violated the laws of nature!
That would be more like infinite improbability wouldn't it?
Is it bad that the first thing I thought about after reading those words was this...
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Offline redsniper

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Re: Stop! You have violated the laws of nature!
No, no at all because that was the exact thing he was (quite obviously) referencing. :wtf:
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