26 Comments

1. Wilhelm Arcturus  •  Sep 22, 2011 @1:24 pm
   

   Damn, that title is both awesome and too long to retweet. Even Google Reader truncated it.

2. C. S. P. Schofield  •  Sep 22, 2011 @1:39 pm
   

   1.803×(10 to the 12th) furlongs per fortnight, it's not the law, it's just a good idea….

3. Ken  •  Sep 22, 2011 @1:42 pm
   

   That's good. Because this planet is full of assholes.

4. Jack Crow  •  Sep 22, 2011 @1:59 pm
   

   Well. Hot. Damn.

5. Patrick  •  Sep 22, 2011 @2:04 pm
   

   I have an alternative thesis: the most complex and intricate machine ever made by humans, which was designed, financed, and built by a consortium of dozens of European bureaucratic states, and which has already suffered many breakdowns and similar embarrassments, is dividing whole numbers by zero.

   I won't speculate as to whether the bureaucratic equivalent of Deep Thought is smarter than every important physicist of the past century, because I'm feeling optimistic today.

6. Terriligunn  •  Sep 22, 2011 @2:11 pm
   

   Cool, and it's been my understanding that nothing can accelerate to faster then the speed of light. I think that's a large part of Einstein's theory, if I remember correctly. I've heard one theory that there could be particles the exist at FTL speeds, because well they always were FTL. I know doesn't make a lot of sense, but that's physics sometimes. Still it doesn't say in the article if they neutrinos were just clocked at FTL, or accelerated to FTL. I'm going to have to do some digging, thanks for the heads up.

7. Patrick  •  Sep 22, 2011 @2:21 pm
   

   I’ve heard one theory that there could be particles the exist at FTL speeds, because well they always were FTL.

   Those are purely theoretical particles (I believe science fiction authors call them "tachyons"), which have never been observed.

   This is observational physics, which if it's confirmed means every theory out there is badly flawed.

8. mojo  •  Sep 22, 2011 @3:00 pm
   

   When the difference is measured in nano (or possibly pico) seconds, I'd bet on a bad clock sync before I overturned Einsteinian physics. But that's me – a conservative.

   Lets do a few repeats of the experiment before we blow up the balloons, what say?

9. Wilhelm Arcturus  •  Sep 22, 2011 @3:56 pm
   

   @mojo – Oh yea, the scientific community is clearly going to eyeball this very closely and attempt to reproduce it before they start tearing Einstein out of textbooks.

   The story in the link indicated that this is not the first such measurement of a particle exceeding c, merely the first one where the margin for error was small enough to be worthwhile looking into, or some such.

10. Scott Jacobs  •  Sep 22, 2011 @7:26 pm
    

    The bigger issue is that einsteinian laws of physics have never been entirely correct when dealing with the quantum level.

11. Patrick  •  Sep 22, 2011 @7:43 pm
    

    Scott, if multiple particles with mass (and a neutrino has mass) can be observed traveling faster than light, then quantum theory is broken too. Superstring, M-theory, you name it, all broken.

    Which is why I hope it can be verified through further experiment. If it is, we're at the dawn of an age of truly weird discoveries, things that make quantum theory look like Aristotle yapping 2500 years ago about how the whole world is made of "hyle".

12. delurking  •  Sep 22, 2011 @7:58 pm
    

    Given the history of science over the last few centuries, even if neutrinos can travel faster than light it is unlikely that "every theory out there is badly flawed". Slightly flawed is more likely.

    Newtonian mechanics is still excellent in most regimes that matter to people, even though it doesn't describe the quantum and relativistic regimes well. So, Newtonian mechanics isn't badly flawed, it is slightly flawed. The odds that what we know about the regimes we've already studied well is wrong are very slim.

13. Patrick  •  Sep 22, 2011 @8:27 pm
    

    Horribly flawed. They're all wrong about the nature of space and time. Can we exploit it now? No. But Greeks other than Aristotle guessed at atoms two thousand years ago. Where will we be in two thousand years?

    If this isn't a computer error, it's as though this morning we woke up in a world where Roger Waters was universally considered the best songwriter of the 1970s. This afternoon, we discovered that it was George Clinton, all along.

14. Bruce  •  Sep 22, 2011 @8:28 pm
    

    This is a good one to have beside Clark's debut in the timeline.

    When presented with a potential game changer the original finders don't leap into "I was right" mode, despite how over the top the reporting of this may seem, they are asking for others to check their results and see if they can replicate it. Although I wonder if their reaction would be the same if c were part of a politicised debate.

15. Hal_10000  •  Sep 22, 2011 @9:14 pm
    

    I find it very unlikely this is real. If it were, the neutrinos from SN1987A would have been detected four years before the explosion, rather than immediately after.

16. G Thompson  •  Sep 23, 2011 @1:10 am
    

    Patrick: Horribly flawed. They’re all wrong about the nature of space and time.

    Time is a relative and intangible concept, and space is the area between the ears of those who believe it isn't.

    Actually Einstein never said that nothing could go faster than the speed of light, he stated that according to his theory it couldn't, and in his later years he started to really question that theory.

    As for your theory on CERN being Deep Thought, your avatar always reminds me of Zaphod (from original TV series), so is Clark the new Marvin or Ford, which must mean… OMG! Kens real name is Arthur and his secretary is no other than Trillian. It all makes sense now.

17. delurking  •  Sep 23, 2011 @5:35 am
    

    "Horribly flawed"…

    They are not all wrong about the nature of space and time, they are slightly wrong about it. For example, Newtonian mechanics says that space is flat, ie the radius of curvature is infinite. The relativistic correction to that is small, the radius of curvature of space is really really large in some places (and infinite in others). It gets small in some very specialized cases, like very close to a black hole, but those are few and far between.

18. John Anderson  •  Sep 23, 2011 @6:03 am
    

    That headline is awesome. Thanks for a good chuckle.

19. Robert  •  Sep 23, 2011 @6:26 am
    

    Eventually they will all realize that the real answer to their question is 42!

20. Richard Hershberger  •  Sep 23, 2011 @6:30 am
    

    For some commentary by someone who actually knows what he is talking about, see

    http://scienceblogs.com/startswithabang/2011/09/this_extraordinary_claim_requi.php?utm_source=sbhomepage&utm_medium=link&utm_content=channellink

    aka

    http://tinyurl.com/3m8ptbp

21. eddie  •  Sep 23, 2011 @10:11 am
    

    The important take-away from Richard's link is that THE SWISS ARE SHOOTING DEATH RAYS INTO THE EARTH!

    I always knew that "neutrality" thing was just a cover.

22. Patrick  •  Sep 23, 2011 @10:25 am
    

    I don't believe that's the message Richard intends you to take away from his authoritative link. Richard is a srs man, who writes srs comments.

23. Richard Hershberger  •  Sep 23, 2011 @12:53 pm
    

    "Richard is a srs man, who writes srs comments."

    Sorry about killing your buzz, what with linking to someone who is actually qualified to discuss the topic. I obviously forgot where I was.

24. Patrick  •  Sep 23, 2011 @1:47 pm
    

    Sorry about killing your buzz

    Hrdly.

    what with linking to someone who is actually qualified to discuss the topic. I obviously forgot where I was.

    It was your snorting tone (as though I'd represented myself as a physicist with a Star Wars reference in the title) tht klld m bzz n th frst plc.

25. Zendo Deb  •  Sep 23, 2011 @5:33 pm
    

    Good. This should put to rest something else that has bothered me for decades. Dark Matter. Can't see it. Can't measure. Only see its "impact" on the universe because otherwise Newton's constant isn't constant.

    That has sounded so much like the aether from the end of the 19th century to be ridiculous. Waves had to exist in something, and since light was obviously acting like a wave there had to be something for the wave to be in. Couldn't see it. Couldn't measure it. It just "had" to be there or Newton was wrong about a lot of stuff.

    As if to think that at the beginning of the 21st century, humans were going to say that they knew "everything." Hubris.

26. ThomasS  •  Sep 25, 2011 @1:57 pm
    

    http://xkcd.com/955/

    Any takers?