Dimension-hop may allow neutrinos to cheat light speed

[n2doc]

A CERN experiment claims to have caught neutrinos breaking the universe's most fundamental speed limit. The ghostly subatomic particles seem to have zipped faster than light from the particle physics laboratory near Geneva, Switzerland, to a detector in Italy.

Fish that physics textbook back out of the wastebasket, though: the new result contradicts previous measurements of neutrino speed that were based on a supernova explosion. What's more, there is still room for error in the departure time of the supposed speedsters. And even if the result is correct, thanks to theories that posit extra dimensions, it does not necessarily mean that the speed of light has been beaten.

"If it's true, it's fantastic. It will rock the foundation of physics," says Stephen Parke of Fermilab in Batavia, Illinois. "But we still have to confirm it."

Neutrinos are nearly massless subatomic particles that are notoriously shy of interacting with other forms of matter. An experiment called OPERA (Oscillation Project with Emusion tRacking Apparatus) sent beams of neutrinos from a particle accelerator at CERN to a detector in the Gran Sasso cavern in Italy, 730 kilometres away.


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http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn20957-dimensionhop-may-allow-neutrinos-to-cheat-light-speed.html

[bread_and_roses]

1. I think this is just fascinating - and I hope they ARE

going faster than light - it would be such a revolution - who knows what vistas it might open? But the "extra dimensions" would be exciting too.

[mindwalker_i]

2. An interesting question...

If this proves to be wrong and neutrinos go at the speed of light, I wonder WHY they do that. Photons ("particles" of light) have to go at the speed of light because Maxwell's equations show that changing electric and magnetic fields create each other in space and force the photon to move (at the speed of light) but neutrinos aren't photons. If they're essentially matter particles, why would they move at the speed of light and not slower?

If this does prove correct and they're faster than light, what mechanism makes them go faster? Are the "matter waves" light light is electromagnetic waves and the medium they are waving in is faster than the medium that light is waving in?

Now, the question I would absolutely kill to have answered is whether the speed of neutrinos is constant, the same way light speed is constant - it doesn't vary with the relative motion of the observer, hence the time dilation effects of special relativity. Could someone move towards a slightly faster-than-light neutrino and get a slightly-more-than-faster-than light speed reading, or will neutrino speed always be constant?

[unblock]

3. repeal e=mc^2. the amended law is e=mn^2.

relativity works based on the speed of a neutrino, not light.

that's my theory and i'm sticking to it.

[mindwalker_i]

4. Cool, I like it!

:D

[WheelWalker]

7. +n

[Ichingcarpenter]

5. Didn't John Titor talk about CERN and dimensional travel in 2000?

I'lll have to check my IBM 5100 computer....LOL

Jokes aside

Interesting stuff.

[AngkorWot]

6. So it's hypothesizing that the neutrinos tunneled.

Which is fine, but if neutrinos can tunnel, why not photons? You'd have light travelling faster than light. I'm sure the experimenters took all this into consideration.