>>GENEVA (AP) — One of the very pillars of physics and Einstein's theory of relativity — that nothing can go faster than the speed of light — was rocked Thursday by new findings from one of the world's foremost laboratories.

European researchers said they clocked an oddball type of subatomic particle called a neutrino going faster than the 186,282 miles per second that has long been considered the cosmic speed limit.>>

See:

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5itJoucSavbSyaCCWmiF1ga00gHhw?docId=58b5aed0a77c45ddb163d90951b36b35

Would be REALLY EXCITING if it turns out to be correct but I am sceptical. Tracking and detecting neutrinos is very difficult.

>>Parke said there could be a cosmic shortcut through another dimension — physics theory is full of unseen dimensions — that allows the neutrinos to beat the speed of light.>>

Now that would be something. Can we take a "cosmic shortcut" to Alpha Centauri?

Watch this space.

In the 1840s astronomers discover that the orbit of the planet Uranus deviates slightly from the trajectory predicted by Newton’s law of gravity. Is there a flaw in Newtonian gravity?

Two mathematicians, Urbain Le Verrier in France and John Couch Adams in England think not. Independently of each other they theorise that the gravitational pull of an as yet undiscovered planet is nudging Uranus out of its calculated trajectory. Once allowance is made for the gravitational pull of the new planet, so Adams and Le Verrier theorise, it will be seen that Uranus and the new planet are following trajectories dictated by Newton.

Le Verrier gives his calculations for the position of the new planet to the German astronomer, Johann Gottfried Galle in September 1846. Assisted by Heinrich Louis d'Arrest, Galle discovers the new planet early in the morning of 24 September 1846. The new planet is called "Neptune." Newton is vindicated.

After the discovery of Neptune confidence in Newton is close to absolute.

In 1859, the same year Darwin publishes "On the Origin of the Species," Le Verrier reports that the trajectory of Mercury, the planet closest to the sun, is also departing from its Newtonian path. He is confident that this deviation from Newton is also due to an as yet undiscovered planet sunward from Mercury. The planet is given the name "Vulcan" and the search commences.

Vulcan is never discovered. All attempts to explain the anomalies in Mercury's orbit in terms of Newtonian dynamics fail. It will take Albert Einstein's general relativity (GR) to explain Mercury's orbit but in 1859 that is nearly 60 years in the future.

In retrospect Mercury’s tiny orbital anomalies were the first crack in the edifice of Newtonian cosmology. With the publication of GR in 1917 we moved into the era of Einsteinian cosmology.

Are these neutrino observations the first indication that we are moving to the next level, to the era of post-Einsteinian cosmology?

Maybe.

Perhaps we are witnessing one of those rare historic moments in physics that herald the start of a whole new paradigm.

Wouldn’t that be exciting?

There goes another one...

"Nothing can travel faster than light--it's impossible!"
"It's just basic physics: As things travel faster they gain more mass and require more energy & so on & so on --and, anyone, who suggests otherwise shows their ignorance!"

"Anthropogenic greenhouse gases are far and away the major cause climate change. The evidence is so overwhelming (we should censor out
opposing views)"--"The science is settled"

It shows once again that the *real* representatives of science are not those who slavishly follow dogma (however fashionable!) but those who challenge & question --commiserations bonmot & co!

I'm also skeptical. The time period is small and the measurement is subject to various imprecisions. I expect this will turn out to be artefactual rather than a real result. Of course, it may turn out that there is some missing term in Einstein's theory - this would be interesting, but it was only ever a model and as such, subject to constant scrutiny. This is science in action!

Acceleration in a vacuum and a speed limit has never made sense to me.

Science is constantly having to admit that maybe they weren't so right as previously argued to the death.

finally we get more closer to the truths
[perhaps this is more earth shattering that the goings on last night at the un]

finally we are seeing beyond the veil of kiddies explanations...and such formualed simplified spin such as e=mc2..and maybe in time evolution and global warming and c02 polution..lol

like also in the news last night
nasa's satilite didnt 'fall'
seems the 2 solar flairs heated uop the iono-sphere
and that heat slowed the sata/lite*..down ..more than the clever nassa science formulation 'predicted'

its only to easy to be seen as a clever airo.nautical math wizard with a formulatrion..AND A THEORY

just like the formula..that claimed to predict..
winners and loosers in the shock market
failed to predict the bust in 2008

just like the flawed model bling
for cli-mate change

seems the science god head
does have feet of clay...eh?

next lets eliminate the spin
from nauty netanyahoo words of peace..[lol]
at the un..and dare the faulse prince of peace[obama]..
to declare his UN/veto...and reveal which master he is really serving

wonder id the treasurors plan
to save the virtual economy..from destroying the real economy
will be just more wind and spin..or really shock and awe..or just more of the same..for the benifit of the same

or if we seperate the gamblers
from the spin merchants
from the savers

who allways seem to loose their savings

are we enjoying this end time
where we sort the spin goats.,.from the sheeple?

ask for proof
ask for the details..not your con-colusion

the next holy cow will be the c02 model bling
then who knows the truth finally of like making like
[to wit puting to test..the spin of evolution..where species evolve out of genus...lol]

yes we live in amassing time
but its a time where you need to fact check
is this real..or a formulated..focus group bit of..PEER-age...*spin

peers allways get it wrong
use fresh eyes..ie make students confim the theory
with study and fact..i guess the cern helped lead us to deserning..better truths that peer reviewed simplistic spin

SPQR Was it a scientist who said that the 'science is settled'? I'd be surprised if it was, because it seems to me that it is universally accepted by scientists these days, that science is an ongoing search for truths and that paradigm change is an integral part of that search.

If you have evidence that the climate scientists are not following the scientific method, then you have a case for seeing them as 'non-scientists'. Otherwise, what is the rational foundation for your belief that this area of science does not deserve the respect that science deserves?

If the current consensus about climate change is wrong, the continued application of the scientific method will reveal this to be the case. There are always young researchers who are strongly motivated to show that the establised science is wrong. I can see no evidence that this would not be the case in the climate science areas.

It seems to me to be a mistake to single out this one area of science and discredit it, and thereby the whole edifice of western science, for short term political reasons.

If the entire intellectual history of conscious man was expressed in a timeline of an hour, we have gained 99.99% of our knowledge of “things” in the dying seconds of that hour.

Previously only the physicality of cause and effect dominated our understanding of our environment. We knew that if you shot an arrow it would travel a known distance and embed, or fall to the ground when the energy was spent. But we had no concept of the forces that governed the arrow regardless of our input; we only knew what we could see, all other physics defying events we attributed to a deity, one who can defy what we knew to be fact.

Then Newton discovers gravity and that dispels the chaos theory, matter will always be governed by gravity, but later we found that we didn’t have enough gravity from the matter we could “see” to keep the galaxy in place so we employed a theoretical “no mass mass” we called Dark Matter. We can’t see it, smell it, taste it, but it is there, because a galaxies gravity is far stronger than the combined pull of all their visible stars and gas clouds so there is more mass there than we can identify. Dark Matter is a design reality, if it wasn’t there, there would be no galaxy.

All we can see and measure accounts for only about four percent of the total mass and energy in the universe, and now we have the advent of Dark Energy theory, anti gravity if you like. A force that repels rather than attracts, a Yin to Dark Matters Yang and it seems that this force works in a universe rather than galactic level. There is nothing random about existence, and the more we understand about physics the more intricate and designed the platform for existence seems to be.

Regarding gravity, don’t you just love how Jupiter's overbearing gravity shields Earth from space junk, giving us time to evolve, a bit? In fact when you look at the combination of things that had to be in place or come about for us vulnerable bags of water to survive you could almost think it was created. The Earth and we exists in this state at uncalculable odds.

Regarding the speed of light, I never really considered it to be the fastest forever amen, lots of waves travel at near that speed all day long, I never considered it an end, it is for us at this stage of evolution, but probably not tomorrow

That is excellent news stevelmeyer.Perhaps we can now travel back in time to 1913 and stop Pres Woodrow Wilson from giving the powers of money creation to the US Federal Reserve.

Mollydukes

you put it very well. Science is a constant effort to improve our understanding of the universe.

To continue the story.

Many attempts were made to tweak Newton’s laws to account for the anomalies detected in Mercury’s trajectory. That was the easy part.

The difficulty was that when you applied those tweaks to the rest of the solar system they gave the wrong answers for all the other moons and planets.

A replacement theory for Newton had to explain everything that Newton explained PLUS the anomalies in Mercury’s orbit. That was a tall order.

The genius of general relativity (GR) is that it explained everything Newtonian gravity explained and much more beside. GR and special relativity (SR) were not a mere tweaking of Newtonian dynamics. Their implications changed the way scientists thought about the world.

Now here is the thing. SR and GR make numerous very precise predictions. So far ALL these predictions have been born out by experiment.

Any replacement theory has to explain everything that SR and GR explain PLUS the apparent ability of neutrinos to exceed the speed of light. That’s a tall order which leads me to think this is probably, not certainly but probably, a false alarm.

SPQR wrote:

>>"It's just basic physics: As things travel faster they gain more mass and require more energy & so on & so on --and, anyone, who suggests otherwise shows their ignorance!">>

No.

I’m not aware of any serious scientist who has said that anyone who disputes SR “shows their ignorance.” No one is accusing the CERN researchers of “show[ing] their ignorance.”

But anyone who “suggests otherwise” without addressing the reasons why most physicists who studied the evidence concluded nothing can travel faster than light does indeed demonstrate his ignorance.

Do you understand the evidence SPQR?

Or are you just sounding off?

If true, this would revolutionise how we thought about the world. It would not mean that the laws of physics we have come to know would be wrong. They would still work in exactly the same was as they do now. Apples would still fall to Earth; homeopathy would still be impossible; carbon dioxide would still be a greenhouse gas. What it would mean is we would need a new understanding of how things work at really fast velocities or really small scales. We might get a new and better understanding of the evolution of the Universe.

My guess is an artefact. We have seen this time and time again when measurements are being made at the limit of our measuring ability. In the CERN experiments, the equipment error is about 10 ns and the difference about 60 ns.

SPQR, your reference to me when I had not previously posted in this thread is telling.

Last paragraph: http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12604#218282

Which part of "science is never settled and it is certainly not absolute" do you not understand?

Besides, if you knew anything about E = mc^2, you would know about the *assumptions* Einstein was making.

You clearly have not got a clue.

arjay..""Perhaps we can now travel back in time""

yeah aint that little tidbit
the media just threw in..an interesting destraction

as if..the facts wernt amasing enough..by them/selves..they had to sex..the story..up into delusion

no doudt..they mean on the astral level
where light[photon]..takes billions of years to reach earth
[and the so called back/ground noise...no doudt preceeds..the specific photons arrival here]

we could eventually predict..[via better science]
by making sense of..the meaning..of all that 'random noise'

predict that../mere photons..only moving
at the speed of light..eventually will..reveal
to our limited vision

as..to going..back
lol..in time...

""to 1913..and stop Pres Woodrow Wilson
from giving..the powers of money creation to the US Federal Reserve.""

that ship has sailed

we might feel/believe..we can predict the outcome
but how many times..has the expert market..got that wrong..too

no bailout..has fixed the systematic errors of greed
every bank ever formed..has eventually 'lost'..all the savings
muggins..put into the bankers trust..

time-travel..is a dream
predicting..what the photons..will in time..*reveal
is practical..[soonish]

once..we begin using our smarts..for good
to explain that..we currently can only guess about..or re-act to

and stop treating..cetain people
as godheads..cause they got clever spin/formula
press or control..the weight of opinion or the media
or the peer re-vieuw..or the patent

to refute that spin..for the carbon tax
needs someone to finance it..then be brave enough
*to publisise it

and that's..not going to be allowed to happen

for now..its enough..that we have proved
what-ever..the facts end up proving

we for now..we..must seek to regain..*more truth
into this reality..the time of theory
being sold as fact..must end..soon.

lets face it..*dark/matter
is simply..the generic lable
for something..that science says..*MUST be there
but they cant find-out..what it is..lol..yet*

so we say dark/matter
just like we say..*evolution
and that..the secret to life..{and all that}..=..42

anything..to stop us questioning
all..the other santa/clause fictions..they sold to us..as kids

if only this key/event
helped other..key events..
that could happen

if only people dared to say..
PLEASE EXPLAIN*...it in plain speak

in your own words
..and if a child
dont get it..!

*its spin..!

Oh well, let’s talk about dark matter.

What keeps the planets orbiting the sun? Why don’t they just fly off into space?

The answer, we know today, is gravity.

In the case of the solar system it’s fairly easy to understand. Most of the matter in the solar system is concentrated in the sun. As a first approximation we can ignore the mutual attraction of the planets for each other or the attraction between the planets and the sun. We can treat the sun as a fixed object to which the planets are gravitationally bound.

The eccentric and personally very unpleasant physicist, Fritz Zwicky(1), was the first to understand that for galaxies and galactic clusters the situation is not so simple. Zwicky calculated the total visible mass of the Coma Galaxy Cluster and concluded there was not enough mass to hold it together. By rights the individual galaxies should be flying off in all directions just as the planets would if we switched off the sun’s gravity.

Zwicky concluded that most of the mass in the cluster must be “dark” – ie not visible through a telescope.

Later calculations showed that even within individual galaxies there does not appear to be enough mass to hold them together. The individual stars should be flying off.

So what is holding the galaxies and galactic clusters together if not dark matter? I don’t know. I’m agnostic. Perhaps there is some weird property of the fabric of space-time we don’t understand.

However I would have to say that, given what we know as of today, some sort of dark matter seems to be the most likely answer.

The science is NOT settled. However anyone who wants to dismiss the dark matter explanation needs to come up with an alternative source for the forces that are holding galaxies together.

Anyone want to give it a try?

This could be the stuff of Nobel prizes.

Zwicki’s daughter, Barabrina, thinks her father gets a bum rap. She says he was not really such an unpleasant chap.

See:

http://discovermagazine.com/2009/jan/30-the-father-of-dark-matter-still-gets-no-respect

(1) Wikipedia on Zwicky:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fritz_Zwicky

Meanwhile back at the ranch...

@ Stevenlmeyer:

<<anyone who “suggests otherwise” without addressing the reasons why most physicists who studied the evidence concluded nothing can travel faster than light does indeed demonstrate his ignorance>>

Totally irrelevant. It matters not what the reasons were.The point is that up until recently there was no challenge to *faith* that nothing could travel faster than the speed of light. Now, evidence is emerging to the contrary--and the CERN finding is not the only source.

@ Bonmot
<< Which part of "science is never settled and it is certainly not absolute" do you not understand?>>

Err, perhaps this part: You trying to aid & comfort a fellow traveler who was being grilled for asserting that a recent extreme weather event was indubitable evidence of AGW.

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=11513#196168

You can't run the with foxes and hunt with the hounds --leastways , it was thought impossible till you showed it wasn't!

Perhaps you should read that whole thread again, petal.

Here's the proof:

The barman says "Sorry, we don't serve neutrinos in this bar"

A neutrino walks into a bar.

SPQR

From your latest posting I infer you don't have the faintest idea why most physicists concluded that it was not possible for a material object to travel faster than light. If you did you would not be talking about a "faith."

Oh well, have a good night.

Pericles,

LOL, just noticed your latest post.

Nice one :-)

Here's an oldie but a goodie for ya Pericles:

A neutrino walks into a bar and the bar tender says, 'We do not serve neutrinos here.'
The neutrino says, "Hey, I was just passing through."

While I admire your recent attempts to raise the standard of discourse on these threads Steven, I have come to the conclusion that it might be a bit of a lost cause on this site, as most people don't have an opinion on most actual science, what science discussions there are usually end up being either about evolution or climate change.

"Yep, that theory on the speed of light looks like it's wrong, it's just a matter of time before evolution and/or climate change will be proved the same."

Bugsy

LOL,

Some posters do seem to live in a science-free zone.

Incidentally strictly the problem is that you cannot accelerate a material object that is travelling slower than light beyond the "light barrier."

If something was already travelling faster than light you could not decelerate it below the speed of light. The infinities crop up at the speed of light.

For years scientists have been speculating about particles called tachyons that are doomed always to stay above light speed.

See:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tachyon

Maybe the CERN physicists have discovered tachyons.

Of course according to SR a faster than light particle would have an "imaginary" mass. But maybe in the tachyon case their mass becomes imaginary when they slow down.

Just idle speculation. Don't take these ruminations too seriously.

Then there's the one about two atoms walking out of the bar, one says "I think I lost an electron back in there".
The other says "Are you sure?"
The first says "Yeah, I'm positive!"

well well were comming
into some great jokes

meanwhile
back in the real world

http://www.myfoxtwincities.com/dpp/news/soudan-mine-neutrino-faster-than-light

Scientists at the Soudan mine..in northern Minnesota
will now try to replicate..an experiment
detecting subatomic particles
called neutrinos
traveling faster...

from steven
""From your latest posting
I infer..you don't have the faintest idea
why most physicists concluded..that it was not possible
for a material object..to travel faster than light...""

lets assume air presure
or other resistance factors

but cern
is a particle accelorator

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Particle_accelerator

""A particle accelerator..is a device
that uses electromagnetic fields..to propel charged particles*
to high speeds and to contain them in well-defined beams.

An ordinary CRT television set
is a simple form of accelerator.

There are two basic types:
electrostatic and oscillating field accelerators.

In the early 20th century,
*cyclotrons were commonly referred to as atom smashers...

Despite the fact that modern colliders
actually propel subatomic particles—...*atoms themselves
now being relatively simple to disassemble without an accelerator—

the term persists
in popular usage when referring
to particle accelerators in general""..

*..isnt an atom..able to be called
'a material object'?

after all its atomic attraction..that adds more
electrons protons neutrons..etc..[the more of them sukkers arround an atom..the heavier its mass..[weight]

i have allways imagined a 'black hole'..to consist in the main simply of basic atoms..stripped of their..other bits

there is a link
to atom smashers
but
im pretty much over the topic
http://science.howstuffworks.com/atom-smasher.htm

''Early in the 20th century,
we discovered the structure of the atom.

We found that the atom was made of smaller pieces called subatomic particles..most notably the proton,neutron,and electron.

However,experiments conducted in the second half of the 20th century with "atom smashers,"..or particle accelerators,..revealed that the subatomic structure of the atom was much more complex.

Particle accelerators can take a particle,
such as an electron,..speed it up to near the speed of light,
collide it..with an atom..and thereby discover its internal parts.

Atom Smasher Image Gallery
http://science.howstuffworks.com/enlarge-image.htm?terms=atom+smasher&page=0

i will leave that
for those needing 'praise'

and willing to do the hard yards..
and trust experts..to explain the topic fully and simply

Googlomoronic autodidacticism is now ruling the world. Beware.

Some people may well decry the peer review system of science as letting bad stuff through, but it's easy to see where we're headed without it.

Wolfgang Wagner

R . I . P .

Pericles… I would have laughed harder, but I had already heard that joke next week.

My only worry is that it will be taken as evidence of a global conspiracy new world order if neutrinos corner the futures market.

We should name this effect the phantom of the OPERA.