A faster than light neutrino walks into a bar...

[PuppetZ]

Einstein is one of the physicist that gave birth to quantum physics. What he was not very fond of is Heisenberg's incertitude principle. Einstein was convinced that the universe is deterministic(that is, that if given ALL the data about the universe at any point, you could deduce the past and future with certainty). He dedicated quite a bit of his life to debunking the incertitude principle, to no avail. It now appear that at the subatomic level, we cant be sure of what is going on 100%. This also gave birth to the void energy theory, which open up great possibilities for cosmology.

Again very interesting subject all around.

P.S. that was a nice pun by HTC there 

[STEELE]

No, because if you were, then that means that you would arrive at a destination where it is pitch black because light has not yet reached that destination.

what about the light that's already there? If the sun has already been up for a few minutes before he started his run, there will be plenty of lightwaves already at his destination

[titanic3]

I excluded any other source of light for the sake of simplicity, so imagine you racing against light from a laser. If you were faster, then you'd arrive at a pitch black place.

You could also travel faster than the sun's light wave, but then when you reach the "pitch black area", it would be 5(?) billion light years away. If the sun was 4 billion years old, you would be 4 billion light years away. (Im not sure how old our Sun is).

[guncrasher]

The speed of light, hereafter refered to as "c", is constant. It is "c" whatever the speed of the emitter/observer. So say you travel toward me while emitting beams of light, you will see them travelling away from you at "c", whatever your speed is. Now from my point of view, I still see the wave front trevelling at "c". The difference is when we see it relative to each other. Since you travel at exactly "c", I cannot "see" it per se before the wave front reach me. And since you are travelling the exact same speed, I will not see neither the headlight beam nor you for that matter until you smash me right in the face as both you AND the beam of light will reach me(I will enter your cone of light(that is the volume of spacetime that an object could interact with, given no information can travel faster than "c")) at the exact same moment accordg to my clock(not yours). This is pretty mind boggling, but keep in mind that these a phenomenon that are very hard to grasp as they go against pretty much all logic we experience in our life. This kind of "relativistic effects" are mostly reserved to sub-atomic particles. Also note that a physical object with a mass cannot reach "c" because of the relation between energy and mass (E=mc2). To accelerate an object, you have to give it energy. As the speed of a massive object(meaning an object with mass, be it a proton or a space ship) gets higher, a higher and higher amount of energy is converted to mass. So to accelerate to "c", a massive object would require an infinite amount of energy, which is impossible to achieve. You can get as close as you want to it, but not quite reach it.

Very interesting subject if you ask me.

dude why can you just type yes or no  .


semp

[OOZ662]

Ok, So if I am in a car, in a vaccum driving at 186,282 miles per second and I turn on my headlights, will you see my headlights in front of the car?

In case you don't feel like reading a wall of text.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_DenvIA9gQ#t=1m23s

[dedalos]

I kinda think all this faster then light neutrino hoopla might be a false alarm.  So far nobody else has verified the results from CERN. 

I'm confused by something else with this story too.
 
I remember a story a few years ago where scientists had slowed the speed of light to 38 mph by shooting a laser through some super-cooled-near-absolute-zero medium.  So if I am driving past the lab where this experiment is running at 45 mph, with light in the lab experiment going 38 mph...   does that mean I am traveling faster then the speed of light???    Back to neutrinos.... if C = the speed of light in a vacuum (says Einstein) perhaps the neutrino was traveling at C (the fastest possible speed of light) unaffected by some medium that was slowing the light, so does that = faster then light or not.   When CERN says it went faster then light, do they mean faster then C, or faster then the light in the collider?  (wait, is there light in the collider?)

I just don't get it 

Not directed at you personally.

You guys remember when every one "knew" the earth was flat?

Member when every one "knew" the sun was revolving around it?

E=MC^2 will also be remembered as the above examples some time in the future. 

[PuppetZ]

dude why can you just type yes or no  .


semp

Simply because things are not that simple 

And beside, I love screwing with yer thoughts 

[PuppetZ]

Not directed at you personally.

You guys remember when every one "knew" the earth was flat?

Member when every one "knew" the sun was revolving around it?

E=MC^2 will also be remembered as the above examples some time in the future. 

The affirmations about earth being flat or the sun revolving around the earth were based on flawed observational data and assumption without searching for confirmation nor refutation.

The E=mc2 relation on the other hand is one that was based on empirical data and that was proved to work. One such example was the developement of nuclear technologies (civilian and military). Some effect predicted by special relativity are taken into account within some technologies we use everyday. GPS is an example of that.

Bear in mind, I`m not saying that Einstein equations are the end of all things, but they will be remembered as a good approximations of more precise theories to come. Much like Newton's law of gravitation. Because it has been supplanted by general relativity as the gravitation theory does not mean it's all rubbish. On the contrary of the example you've given, Newton's law still work in some situations. Someone saying today that earth is the center of the universe goes against observational data and IS a bunch of rubbish.

 

[dedalos]

The affirmations about earth being flat or the sun revolving around the earth were based on flawed observational data and assumption without searching for confirmation nor refutation.

The E=mc2 relation on the other hand is one that was based on empirical data and that was proved to work. One such example was the developement of nuclear technologies (civilian and military). Some effect predicted by special relativity are taken into account within some technologies we use everyday. GPS is an example of that.

Bear in mind, I`m not saying that Einstein equations are the end of all things, but they will be remembered as a good approximations of more precise theories to come. Much like Newton's law of gravitation. Because it has been supplanted by general relativity as the gravitation theory does not mean it's all rubbish. On the contrary of the example you've given, Newton's law still work in some situations. Someone saying today that earth is the center of the universe goes against observational data and IS a bunch of rubbish.

 

So, we have observed that nothing can travel faster than light?  Same as observing the earth is flat no?  It all depends on what you have seen so far. 

[RTHolmes]

The affirmations about earth being flat or the sun revolving around the earth were based on flawed observational data and assumption without searching for confirmation nor refutation.

etc ...

theres no difference at all between flat earth/newton/einstein/quantum, all observation is flawed. we still use flat earth in the same way as we still use the other theories, it just depends what you need the theory/tool to do.

eg. if you lay out a baseball pitch, you assume the earth is flat because non-euclidian geometry is a PITA and produces a level of accuracy which is not necessary for this application. the guy painting the lines doesnt think that the world is actually flat, but the theory is still good enough for what he needs to do.

[guncrasher]

Simply because things are not that simple 

And beside, I love screwing with yer thoughts 

actually I didnt read the paragraph as I just assumed it was full of bs. which it probably is.  I know people that will just go on and on for 15 or 20 minutes just to say yes/no.

but it was a joke no explanation need it .

you really want to mess with people ask them what weights more:  a lb of cotton or a lb of gold.  a lb of cotton weights more.


semp

semp

[RTHolmes]

you really want to mess with people ask them what weights more:  a lb of cotton or a lb of gold.

I'll bite. they both weigh the same, 1lb.


edit: YMMV depending on where you live for this answer

[dedalos]

I'll bite. they both weigh the same, 1lb.

Yeah, but which one is heavier?

[RTHolmes]

depends on the environments their weights were originally measured in ...

[PuppetZ]

you really want to mess with people ask them what weights more:  a lb of cotton or a lb of gold.  a lb of cotton weights more.

semp

Ok. Now expand on your answer a bit. Don't worry if you take more than 10 words to explain, I'll take the time to read it nonetheless