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The Speed of Light Barrier has allegedly been broken


Fender&EHX4ever

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Well no, the Singularity is a prediction about the "future emergence of greater-than human intelligence through technological means."

This is actual science, not science fiction.
Einstein's theory of Special Relativity (E=MC^2) says that nothing can go faster than the speed of light because as you approach the speed of light, time slows down. If you hit the speed of light time would effectively stop for you but not for the rest of the universe. So if time stops you can't be travelling anywhere, therefore can't be travelling at the speed of light.
Also, as you approach the speed of light your mass increases, so to get to 95% of the speed of light you would have to use up more energy accelerating than there is in the universe, and at the speed of light you would have infinite mass - which is clearly impossible.
So the speed of light is effectively a speed limit. If this particle at cern has gone faster then one of two things has happened: one, Einstein was wrong (and since scientists have been finding more and more evidence that he's right for decades (we use Special Relativity every day in our sat navs, for instance) it's very unlikely, but not impossible that this is the case) so we're going to have to come up with a new theory that includes this new data and all the previous data (awesome), or two, the particles only appeared to be going faster than light and someone will have to figure out how and why (also awesome).

Either way, Science works, bitchez!

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Well no, the
is a prediction about the "future emergence of greater-than human intelligence through technological means."


This is actual science, not science fiction.

Einstein's theory of Special Relativity (E=MC^2) says that nothing can go faster than the speed of light because as you approach the speed of light, time slows down. If you hit the speed of light time would effectively stop for you but not for the rest of the universe. So if time stops you can't be travelling anywhere, therefore can't be travelling at the speed of light.

Also, as you approach the speed of light your mass increases, so to get to 95% of the speed of light you would have to use up more energy accelerating than there is in the universe, and at the speed of light you would have infinite mass - which is clearly impossible.

So the speed of light is effectively a speed limit. If this particle at cern has gone faster then one of two things has happened: one, Einstein was wrong (and since scientists have been finding more and more evidence that he's right for decades (we use Special Relativity every day in our sat navs, for instance) it's very unlikely, but not impossible that this is the case) so we're going to have to come up with a new theory that includes this new data
and
all the previous data (awesome), or two, the particles only appeared to be going faster than light and someone will have to figure out how and why (also awesome).


Either way, Science works, bitchez!

 

 

E=mc^2(a relationship of mass to energy) does not say that nothing can go faster than light. I believe you are referring to the lorentz factor and time dialation. THAT is what shows the theory. When I'm not on my phone ill go more in depth. I will say though, who else remembers the {censored} show that was cold fusion?

 

EE undergrad who gas taken way too many physics/quantum mechanics classes.

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that would suck to be this great genius for a while and then have your theory debunked after you die and all you're left with is hiroshima and nagasaki

 

 

That's how science works, one dude is right (all the evidence backs him up) until another dude comes along with way more evidence for something else and then he gets to be right.

But Einstein's Special Relativity has been gathering evidence that it's right for a long time, and this is one tiny piece of evidence that it's wrong. I think Mr Einstein can rest in peace for a while yet, and if not, then he get's to be the guy who did the preliminary work for an even greater genius. after all, we don't think any less of Newton because Einstein worked out he was wrong, he was also so right about a great many things.

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E=mc^2 does not say that nothing can go faster than light. I believe you are referring to the lorentz factor and time dialation. THAT is what shows the theory. When I'm not on my phone ill go more in depth.


EE undergrad who gas taken way too many physics/quantum mechanics classes.

 

I'll bow to your superior knowledge, i'm just a dude who's just discovered how fantastic science is (why didn't they tell me that in school?) who knows just enough to show how much he doesn't actually know :D

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Pretty level-headed article about it here, from an actual physicist.

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2011/09/22/faster-than-light-travel-discovered-slow-down-folks/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+BadAstronomyBlog+%28Bad+Astronomy%29&utm_content=Google+Reader

 

(my bolding of the text)

 

So the web is buzzing right now over news that scientists have detected some subatomic particles moving faster than the speed of light.

Yeah, well, not so fast. Let

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I'm super excited about this, and then I realized that non-scientists will think of a litany of brutal, horrifying uses for it that will have nothing to do with the advancement of the human race.

 

They'll probably be like "sweet, now we can teleport bombs to people with different skin color and ideas about money than us"

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Pretty level-headed article about it here, from an actual physicist.



(my bolding of the text)

 

 

The full article on it explains that the scientists who did this experiment is submitting the report for peer review in Japan and I think Germany and are not claiming anything until it's rigorously tested by the scientific community.

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The full article on it explains that the scientists who did this experiment is submitting the report for peer review in Japan and I think Germany and are
not
claiming anything until it's rigorously tested by the scientific community.

 

yeah, even the scientists making the claims are (rightly) skeptical of what their results say, they're so incredible :D

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Well no, the
is a prediction about the "future emergence of greater-than human intelligence through technological means."


This is actual science, not science fiction.

Einstein's theory of Special Relativity (E=MC^2) says that nothing can go faster than the speed of light because as you approach the speed of light, time slows down. If you hit the speed of light time would effectively stop for you but not for the rest of the universe. So if time stops you can't be travelling anywhere, therefore can't be travelling at the speed of light.

Also, as you approach the speed of light your mass increases, so to get to 95% of the speed of light you would have to use up more energy accelerating than there is in the universe, and at the speed of light you would have infinite mass - which is clearly impossible.

So the speed of light is effectively a speed limit. If this particle at cern has gone faster then one of two things has happened: one, Einstein was wrong (and since scientists have been finding more and more evidence that he's right for decades (we use Special Relativity every day in our sat navs, for instance) it's very unlikely, but not impossible that this is the case) so we're going to have to come up with a new theory that includes this new data
and
all the previous data (awesome), or two, the particles only appeared to be going faster than light and someone will have to figure out how and why (also awesome).


Either way, Science works, bitchez!

 

 

Good post, but theoretically you can have particles travel faster than light in vacuum (this is for you vacuum tube nerds out there). Theoretically.

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