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  1. In Memory of LAJ_FETT: Please share your remembrances and condolences HERE

[GOOOOOO SCIENCE!] Faster-than-speedlight may be possible, after all!

Discussion in 'Archive: Your Jedi Council Community' started by MandalorianDuchess, Sep 22, 2011.

  1. MandalorianDuchess

    MandalorianDuchess Jedi Youngling star 3

    Registered:
    Feb 16, 2010
    Yes, of course. Nobody's going to doubt you have a very active social life. ;)
     
  2. Lord Vivec

    Lord Vivec Chosen One star 9

    Registered:
    Apr 17, 2006
    I do enough physics during the week, thank you very much. I deserve a break! :p
     
  3. jp-30

    jp-30 Manager Emeritus star 10 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Dec 14, 2000
    4D is the thing with the moving seats and the stuff being sprayed at you (or yes even the rubbish scratch and sniff cards for cinemas that haven't got the cash for upgrading), enviromental and sensory stimulation along with 3D picture.

    I've not experienced 5D but I know a place that claims to have it, I believe it involves holograms.
     
  4. VadersLaMent

    VadersLaMent Chosen One star 10

    Registered:
    Apr 3, 2002
    MORE

    If it proves true, it won?t give us hyperdrives nor invalidate relativity. What it will do is place relativity in an even larger frame, as Eisteinian theory did to its Newtonian counterpart. It may also (finally!) give us a way to experimentally test string theory? and, just maybe, open the path to creating a fast information transmitter like the Hainish ansible, proving that ?soft? SF writers like Le Guin may be better predictors of the future than the sciency practitioners of ?hard? SF.

     
  5. Lowbacca_1977

    Lowbacca_1977 Chosen One star 7

    Registered:
    Jun 28, 2006
    My instinct is that there will be something about this that doesn't hold up, but it's 5:30 in the morning Saturday and I've only been home a couple hours and haven't gone to bed for Friday yet, so it got one of those Vivec skims from me.
     
  6. Lord Vivec

    Lord Vivec Chosen One star 9

    Registered:
    Apr 17, 2006
    Agreed. I like how they end their conclusion. "There's probably some error but we can't figure out what." In fact, I can't think of anyone in the scientific community who thinks this doesn't have an error somewhere.
     
  7. Ramza

    Ramza Administrator Emeritus star 9 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Jul 13, 2008
    Roughly half of my university's department seems to think it's a GR error. Then the other half is like "no, no, your estimates are off." To which the first half is like "Nuh uh." "Yuh huh." etc. It's kind of funny, really.
     
  8. Mar17swgirl

    Mar17swgirl Chosen One star 7

    Registered:
    Dec 26, 2000
    The bartender says: "Hey neutrino, what's the rush?". A neutrino walks into a bar.

    :p
     
  9. Lord Vivec

    Lord Vivec Chosen One star 9

    Registered:
    Apr 17, 2006
    [image=http://i.imgur.com/wr37d.jpg]
     
  10. VadersLaMent

    VadersLaMent Chosen One star 10

    Registered:
    Apr 3, 2002
    [face_laugh]
     
  11. Quixotic-Sith

    Quixotic-Sith Manager Emeritus star 6 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Jun 22, 2001
    [face_laugh] :D =D=
     
  12. Lord Vivec

    Lord Vivec Chosen One star 9

    Registered:
    Apr 17, 2006
    Time for the not fun part: This may be a synchronization error.

    Full paper here

    To summarize, because of the Earth's rotation and it not being a perfect sphere, it has a non-uniform gravitational field. The experiment started out with two clocks that were synchronized, with once clock then travelling the 730 km. Because of relativity, you find out you need to actually know what path the second clock took in it's trip beforehand to know how to synchronize it.

    Now the thing is, OPERA may or may not have done that. If they did, well ****. But if they didn't, this can actually account for the discrepancy and put the neutrinos at subluminal speeds.
     
  13. jp-30

    jp-30 Manager Emeritus star 10 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Dec 14, 2000
    http://www.engadget.com/2011/10/17/remember-those-faster-than-light-neutrinos-great-now-forget-e/

    Oh, what a surprise.
     
  14. Ghost

    Ghost Chosen One star 8

    Registered:
    Oct 13, 2003
    Knew it.

    I still think workable travel times between the stars will be possible, one day, but it will probably come from bending spacetime... not finding how to travel faster than the speed of light.
     
  15. Lord Vivec

    Lord Vivec Chosen One star 9

    Registered:
    Apr 17, 2006
    Just as I predicted. So no vegetables for me! :D
     
  16. Ghost

    Ghost Chosen One star 8

    Registered:
    Oct 13, 2003
    Recent burst of particle physics news:



    1.) Neutrinos are STILL faster than light??

    I thought this was dismissed, but now there's a second report. I'm still leaning towards this being an observation fluke.

    The Italian physicists who announced two months ago that they had detected particles called neutrinos traveling faster than light now say they've done it again ? and using an improved experimental setup. Many more tests will be needed, however, before the physics community accepts the revolutionary result as final.

    "The experiment OPERA [Oscillation Project with Emulsion-tracking Apparatus], thanks to a specially adapted CERN beam, has made an important test of consistency of its result," said Fernando Ferroni, president of the Italian Institute for Nuclear Physics (INFN), which runs the lab where the experiment was conducted. "The positive outcome of the test makes us more confident in the result, although a final word can only be said by analogous measurements performed elsewhere in the world."



    2.) Discovery of bits of matter that don't mirror the behavior of their antimatter counterparts... explanation for why Matter prevailed over Antimatter?


    The world's largest atom smasher, designed as a portal to a new view of physics, has produced its first peek at the unexpected: bits of matter that don't mirror the behavior of their antimatter counterparts.

    The discovery, if confirmed, could rewrite the known laws of particle physics and help explain why our universe is made mostly of matter and not antimatter.

    Scientists at the Large Hadron Collider, the 17-mile (27 km) circular particle accelerator underground near Geneva, Switzerland, have been colliding protons at high speeds to create explosions of energy. From this energy many subatomic particles are produced.

    Now researchers at the accelerator's LHCb experiment are reporting that some matter particles produced inside the machine appear to be behaving differently from their antimatter counterparts, which might provide a partial explanation to the mystery of antimatter.



    3.) Light created and retained from Vacuum


    Light Created from a Vacuum: Casimir Effect Observed in Superconducting Circuit

    Scientists at Chalmers have succeeded in creating light from vacuum -- observing an effect first predicted over 40 years ago. In an innovative experiment, the scientists have managed to capture some of the photons that are constantly appearing and disappearing in the vacuum.

    The results have been published in the journal Nature.

    The experiment is based on one of the most counterintuitive, yet, one of the most important principles in quantum mechanics: that vacuum is by no means empty nothingness. In fact, the vacuum is full of various particles that are continuously fluctuating in and out of existence. They appear, exist for a brief moment and then disappear again. Since their existence is so fleeting, they are usually referred to as virtual particles.

    Chalmers scientist, Christopher Wilson and his co-workers have succeeded in getting photons to leave their virtual state and become real photons, i.e. measurable light. The physicist Moore predicted way back in 1970 that this should happen if the virtual photons are allowed to bounce off a mirror that is moving at a speed that is almost as high as the speed of light. The phenomenon, known as the dynamical Casimir effect, has now been observed for the first time in a brilliant experiment conducted by the Chalmers scientists.

    "Since it's not possible to get a mirror to move fast enough, we've developed another method for achieving the same effect," explains Per Delsing, Professor of Experimental Physics at Chalmers. "Instead of varying the physical distance to a
     
  17. Lowbacca_1977

    Lowbacca_1977 Chosen One star 7

    Registered:
    Jun 28, 2006
    On #1, that one was just testing one thing to see if that was the cause of the error. And to be honest, they tested one thing that I'd never heard anyone suggest as the possible error. So.... they picked an odd thing.
     
  18. morrison85

    morrison85 Jedi Grand Master star 5

    Registered:
    May 13, 2005
    Hyperspace here we come :D :p
     
  19. Lord Vivec

    Lord Vivec Chosen One star 9

    Registered:
    Apr 17, 2006
    Well what have we here

    According to sources familiar with the experiment, the 60 nanoseconds discrepancy appears to come from a bad connection between a fiber optic cable that connects to the GPS receiver used to correct the timing of the neutrinos' flight and an electronic card in a computer.
     
  20. Aytee-Aytee

    Aytee-Aytee Jedi Master star 5

    Registered:
    Jul 20, 2008
    Can we PLEASE change the title of this thread to "faster-than-lightspeed"?

    Speedlight is what turns red when you need to stop your car.
     
  21. Ramza

    Ramza Administrator Emeritus star 9 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Jul 13, 2008
    I like to imagine my quantum mechanics professor reading that, fist pumping, and shouting "CALLED IT!"
     
  22. KissMeImARebel

    KissMeImARebel Force Ghost star 5

    Registered:
    Nov 25, 2003
    Well that's embarassing.
     
  23. Ostrich_Stapler

    Ostrich_Stapler Jedi Master star 5

    Registered:
    Jul 9, 2004
    What the hell is speedlight?
     
  24. Ghost

    Ghost Chosen One star 8

    Registered:
    Oct 13, 2003
    Don't deny that you didn't do the same thing! :p
     
  25. Obi-Zahn Kenobi

    Obi-Zahn Kenobi Force Ghost star 7

    Registered:
    Aug 23, 1999
    lol