Light barrier possibly broken.

[Photonic]

Not to start a debate on the subject, but this case is a classic example of the Scientific Method in action.
First you have these highly qualified and experienced physicists at CERN who have made some strange measurements, and after throwing everything at the wall trying to make sense of it all they publish their results for everyone to see with the added comment "Please pick this apart for us and show us where we went wrong", which is exactly what hundreds of scientists around the globe are currently busying themselves with.

I think I mentioned that on a political forum actually.

I'm proud of my fellow scientists for adhering to the very core of the scientific method on this one. No politics, no drivel or biased assumptions. Just pure science. Me and my colleague are picking this apart too.

 

[Oneatatime]

Paradigm shifts...tingly.

Or an exception to the rule...not so tingly

 

[Silver]

The neutrinos were transmitted from CERN Switzerland to Italy.
Were the particles transmitted in a straight line through the earth or over the surface of the earth in an arc?

 

[PolyHedral]

Or an exception to the rule...not so tingly

The laws of physics do not permit exceptions. Hence, having to rebuild everything if this turns out to be valid.

The neutrinos were transmitted from CERN Switzerland to Italy.
Were the particles transmitted in a straight line through the earth or over the surface of the earth in an arc?

In a straight line. Neutrinos pass through solid matter easily.

 

[Penumbra]

It'll certainly be interesting to see what the scientific consensus is on the matter over time.

When I heard it, the first thing I thought of was that, if I recall from classes, it's not that particles can't go the speed of light, it's that particles with mass cannot accelerate to the speed of light (since it would take infinite energy, and therefore things with mass don't go light speed). But the loophole is, if I remember, that some particles, in theory, could be "on the other side" of that barrier, where they always move faster than light and cannot decelerate to the speed of light or below. But maybe I'm remembering wrong. It was speculative stuff anyway.

If the "Theory of Relativity" turns out to be wrong,
does that mean that it was a lowercase 'theory'
instead of an Uppercase "scientific theory"?

I don't understand this.
If a scientific theory is seen/catagorized as a fact,
but then it later turns out to be incorrect....

Is 'The' "Theory of Relativity",
then demoted to 'a' "theory of Relativity"?
(or was it simply 'Einstien's theory' all along?)

A scientific theory is basically a collection and interpretation of a set of facts. Theories can change over time to become more accurate as new information is brought forth, or can occasionally be completely discarded if they are really off.

When Einstein put forth his theory, it wouldn't be the best way to phrase it to say that he proved Newton "wrong". Newton's model was less complete than Einstein's, and Einstein had access to Newton's knowledge to build his model. But Newton's was a major breakthrough for the time, and many aspects of it are still useful today. The same thing would be true for Einstein; if eventually there is a more completely theory than his, Einstein's efforts in the area are still enormous. All of the GPS satellites that currently use Einstein's equations to work properly are not all going to stop working just because someone found something different. It would still be an ingenious breakthrough, albeit one that would have to be corrected like previous ones. Or maybe not, and this particle isn't what it seems. Who knows yet.

 

[Riverwolf]

"The BCT consists of toroidal transformers coaxial to the proton beam providing a
signal proportional to the beam current instantaneously transiting through it, with a few hundred
MHz bandwidth."

Uh... are you sure you didn't just take that from Star Trek? That really sounds like bad technobabble. ^_^

 

[Photonic]

Uh... are you sure you didn't just take that from Star Trek? That really sounds like bad technobabble. ^_^

Transformer - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Just helps with the proton beam, that's all.

 

[Riverwolf]

Transformer - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Just helps with the proton beam, that's all.

...where do they come up with this crazy terminology!!!??

 

[Photonic]

...where do they come up with this crazy terminology!!!??

It's terroidal...and a transformer...

Hence Terroidal Transformer.

 

[Awoon]

Did they do it or not?

 

[Riverwolf]

It's terroidal...and a transformer...

Hence Terroidal Transformer.

What's terroidal? What kind of Trek talk is that?

 

[Riverwolf]

Did they do it or not?

We don't know; other scientists have to confirm it first.

 

[Photonic]

Besides the fact that I just realized how badly I spelled it. Toroidal***. Weird... don't normally make such blaring spelling mistakes haha!


(I was probably distracted)

 

[ManTimeForgot]

It'll certainly be interesting to see what the scientific consensus is on the matter over time.

When I heard it, the first thing I thought of was that, if I recall from classes, it's not that particles can't go the speed of light, it's that particles with mass cannot accelerate to the speed of light (since it would take infinite energy, and therefore things with mass don't go light speed). But the loophole is, if I remember, that some particles, in theory, could be "on the other side" of that barrier, where they always move faster than light and cannot decelerate to the speed of light or below. But maybe I'm remembering wrong. It was speculative stuff anyway.

I seem to remember a program discussing tachyons which suggested that in order to go faster than light the proposed particle would have to have an inverse energy-velocity relationship. The less energy it had the faster it would go; with zero energy it would end up going infinitely fast, and if you add energy to the system it would slow down till it hit the speed of light and then become a photon...

But as I recall the "loophole" for a neutrino is that acceleration to the speed of light would require infinite energy because the mass of an object approaches infinity the closer it gets to the speed of light, but that for something which is already traveling at the speed of light it has no need to accelerate...

Perhaps I am misremembering things though; it has been a while since discussed FTL in any in depth capacity.

MTF

 

[Panda]

What's terroidal? What kind of Trek talk is that?

I'm assuming he means a toroidal core on the transformer. (Donut shaped)

Spoiler: toroidal transformer

 

[Photonic]

I'm assuming he means a toroidal core on the transformer. (Donut shaped)

Spoiler: toroidal transformer

Like I said, was distracted and didn't realize I was spelling it incorrectly. I'm an air head sometimes.

 

[Kilgore Trout]

Somebody forgot to carry a one. Glavin!

 

[Panda]

Like I said, was distracted and didn't realize I was spelling it incorrectly. I'm an air head sometimes.

Oh I didn't notice the spelling mistake until you pointed it out. Just didn't know if you meant something else or not. Know what you silly physicists are like

 

[Photonic]

Oh I didn't notice the spelling mistake until you pointed it out. Just didn't know if you meant something else or not. Know what you silly physicists are like

The word is my own, maybe I'll use it for something in the future though.

 

[Matthew78]

If the "Theory of Relativity" turns out to be wrong,
does that mean that it was a lowercase 'theory'
instead of an Uppercase "scientific theory"?

I don't understand this.
If a scientific theory is seen/catagorized as a fact,
but then it later turns out to be incorrect....

Is 'The' "Theory of Relativity",
then demoted to 'a' "theory of Relativity"?
(or was it simply 'Einstien's theory' all along?)

I don't think that Einstein's theories will turn out to be wrong. If anything, Einstein's theory might shown to be incomplete. Phyiscs is necessarily incomplete. Einstein's special theory of relativity might need to be revised in the same way that evolutionary theory has had to be revised. Only when we get a quantum theory of gravity, which can incoporate all known forces, particles, and laws, will we have a complete theory of physics. This is once we work out all the details.