Thread: Faster than the speed of light?
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23rd Sep 2011, 4:09 PM #1
Faster than the speed of light?
Very interesting stuff being discovered at Cern...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-15034852
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23rd Sep 2011, 4:12 PM #2
The key point there is 'if it is right'. So far this has been done once. The essence of science is reproducibility. Of course this doesn't stop the media from grabbing hold of it as if the whole of science has just been turned upside down.
I predict a whole bunch of 'Einstein was wrong, so science clearly knows nothing' ignorance from many quarters now, sadly.
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23rd Sep 2011, 5:03 PM #3
Although... they did say that they had repeated the experiment a few times. I suspect that there will be a calibration error, but you never know. It's worth being sure!
Either that, or maybe we don't know the speed of light as accruately as we think we do?
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23rd Sep 2011, 5:43 PM #4
Does this mean time travel is now possible? AWESOME. When is Richard Branson launching his Virgin Tardis?
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23rd Sep 2011, 10:09 PM #5
Surely if it's disproving, or at least showing fault in, Einstein's relativity, Then it means time travel is less likely. Though I don't know enough about physics to be sure of that.
Saying that I suspect is probably just some sort of calibration error. Its not like Cern has been short of faults since its launch.
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8th Oct 2011, 4:23 PM #6
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If anything is faster than light, it's bills and OHMS letters.
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9th Oct 2011, 7:13 AM #7
Einstein might not have predicted this, but Freddie Mercury did!
Thing is there are always special cases etc in science. It's like Isaac Newtons theories of motion and gravitation. He was working in the 17th Century - and we still teach his theories now.
However we've also found areas (relativity is one) where they don't quite hold. So things like the observation might just mean there's some aspect of relativity we're not aware of, and need some more rules.Remember, just because Davros is dead doesn't mean the Dalek menace has been contained ......
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10th Oct 2011, 3:29 PM #8
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And bearing in mind that ancient Greek theories were still the basis of medicine until relatively recently. This side of the Theory of Everything turning up, there'll always be something for physicists to fine-tune.
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11th Oct 2011, 12:49 PM #9
But that said, I doubt it's possible.
Si.
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11th Oct 2011, 12:50 PM #10
It would be exciting if faster than light travel became a possibility.
Si.
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11th Oct 2011, 9:13 PM #11
But most science we have today isn't just philosophies, but applied science. We know Einstein was in the ballpark with his theories, because we have observed relativity in astronomy and indeed time-dilation in particles at high speed.
Remember, just because Davros is dead doesn't mean the Dalek menace has been contained ......
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13th Oct 2011, 3:17 PM #12
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