The Back to the Future rules don't even make sense! So yeah.

The idea of these neutrinos traveling faster than light does not necessarily invalidate Einstein's special theory of relativity. What Einstein's theory said was that an object could not be accelerated beyond the speed of light. It did not say that an object could not travel faster than the speed of light per se, it merely said that for that to be the case the object must always be traveling at that speed and could not transit through the speed of light from a speed slower than light to one faster than light. I know that this is likely to start some arguments here, but it is a very important distinction to make when discussing the real meaning of Einstein's theory. In any case, if it can be shown that a particle can in fact travel faster than the speed of light, it will open up a whole new realm of possibilities. It could have serious impact on the theory of causality and the idea that you can not travel through time. However, I am somewhat suspect of the result and will remain so until someone else has been able to duplicate the experiment and get the same result. It is more likely that, as discussed in the article, it is an issue with time synchronization between the nutrino source and the detector.

I am not qualified to comment on this subject.

@JS in SD

What Einstein's theory said was that an object could not be accelerated beyond the speed of light. It did not say that an object could not travel faster than the speed of light per se, it merely said that for that to be the case the object must always be traveling at that speed and could not transit through the speed of light from a speed slower than light to one faster than light.

That is not correct JS. Einstien's theories explicitly forbid anything to travel faster than light.

The mathmatical proof for this is usually presented using acceleration as the framework for understanding why this is so (more acceleration = more energy = more mass and more mass needs more energy to get more acceleration). This explanation causes many people, like yourself, to incorrectly believe that Einstein's theories DO allow for an object to just be travelling faster than light, but this is not the case.

While it is true that "virtual" particles do pop into and out of existence, they can't pop into our universe travelling faster than light, because they would have to have amassed infinte energy from somewhere and, of course, infinite energy is exactly why Einstein says it's impossible.

The equations that show that you'd need infinite energy to get past the speed of light because your object would have infinite mass at that point are the very same ones that say you can't have any object with mass, under any circumstance travelling faster than light.

Faster than light travel was not even considered by Einstein, as the entire notion was already out of the question once C was established and E=MC2 was discovered.

Now, there is an exception or loophole in Einstein's work in that worm holes (tears in the normal fabric of space-time) are within the mathmatical framework of possibility and going through one could conceiveably allow a traveller to reach a distance region of space faster than it would take light to get there (going the normal route), because you'd be taking a shortcut, but still not travelling at a velocity faster than C.

I've never understood the idea that if you can travel faster than light, then time travel would be possible. So you're really, really fast. How does that equate to time travel?

AG999 - It doesn't. And Einstein was wrong.

@AG999

The absolute biggest earthshattering thing that Einstein cam up with was that no matter how fast you travel, light will always travel faster than you at exactly the same speed (186,000 mps). This contradicts our normal experience. After all, if you were in a car on a highway going 185,999 mps and then you turned on your lights, you'd expect that the light would only move away from you at 1mps. But, experiments have shown that's not true. The light would race away from you at the full 186,000 mps. This means that unlike anything else in nature where speed and motion are relative to the observer (Einstein's General Relativity), light behaves differently. What Einstein realized was that if the speed of light is constant for all observers in all reference frames, then something else must have to "give". What "gives" is time. The faster you go, the slower time will pass for you from the standpoint of a staionary observer. You will not feel time slowing down, but it will pass more slowly for you than someone at rest. We're not just talking about ticks of a clock here, your heartbeat and blood will slow down, you will age less.

This "special" situation with light, speed, and time is what "Special Relativity" is all about and is more than just theory. It's been proven as fact time and again for decades.

Experiments have been done with perfectly synchronized atomic clocks, where one was put on a jet liner and flown at high altitudes and great speeds and the other left stationary on earth. When the plane lands, the clock onboard is registering a time that is slightly slower than it's perfectly syncronized companion on earth, by just the amount Special Relativty predicts.

Astronauts who have been in space for extended periods of time have essentially travelled microseconds into the future when they arrive back on earth.

Our world-wide GPS sattelite system must be adjusted daily for the time dialation effects of Special Relativity.

There is a great video that shows this phonomenon here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=V7vpw4AH8QQ

Yes, Scott, I understand all that (great explanation, btw), but what I've never gotten is how special relativity can be warped into time travel. We're not talking slowing clocks, but making them run backwards. I don't get that.

Well, I think you've got to differentiate bewteen "time travel" and travelling "backwards in time".

My earlier post describes that "time travel" is not only allowed under special relativity, but that it has actually been proven experimentally. But, in these cases, we're talking about the traveller in motion travelling into the future (be it ever so slightly). Again, this is accomplished at travelling at faster and faster speeds (up to but not at the speed of light).

To travel into the past would require faster than light travel, which is prohibited by Einstein's laws, and has no experimental or ovbservational evidence for truly being possible.

There is one caveat to Relativity that would permit travelling into the past though and that is wormholes, or shortcut passages in the fabric of space-time. In fact, Einstein's work does actually predict that wormholes should exist, if even at the microscopic level. If you could send someone or someting through this shortcut, the traveller could arrive at a point in space-time (not just space as Einstein showed that space and time are inexorably linked), faster than it would take light to travel the normal route. This is a way of getting information somewhere before it actually left if the exit of the wormhole were positioned in the right place.

But, again, to be clear no one has ever shown that travelling backwards in time has been done (unlike travelling forward in time). It's only theoritically permitted under Einstein's laws of relativity.

Then, of course, if you could go back in time, we start to get into many different theories to deal with you going back and killing your grandfather before you were born. One theory, the many worlds theory, says that if you go back and do this, you won't affect yourself in the present because you would be travelling back to an alternate reality where you were not born anyway.

To travel into the past would require faster than light travel

This is the crux of what I don't understand. How would traveling faster than light allow you to travel into the past? I'm not talking skipping a bit into the future. The past has already happened. Wormholes aside, how can you get to it?

Perhaps it is a misunderstanding of the meaning of time travel. Timelines moving at different rates is a far cry from visiting history.

I am no expert so I will only give my laymen view of how I believe this works in theory but I gather if at the speed of light time stops, then if you can go faster than C you actually start reversing time.

Please correct me if I am wrong as I would like to know the theorists explanation of this as well.

@KNW

You've got the idea. Einstein showed (and it has been proven) that the faster you travel, relative to a stationary observer, the slower time will pass for you. If you reach the speed of light, time will stop and if you then go past the speed of light and return to your launch point, time will have started to go backward and you'd be in the past.

AG999, think of it like this. As you go faster and faster, the passage of time for you, from the observation of a stationary observer would slow down. Basically, if you were to whiz past me in a fast moving (but still less than speed of light) ship, as I looked up at you you'd seem to be moving in slow motion. As you looked down at me, I'd seem to be moving in fast foward. This effect increases the faster you move, until you reached the speed of light, at which point you would appear frozen in time from my point of view.

So if going faster makes think slower, and you 'speed' in time reaches 0 when you reach the speed of light, what happens when you go faster? What's less than 0? In theory, you'd experience a 'negative' speed through time compared to the rest of the universe. If you go from normal, to slow motion, to stopped as you get up to the speed of light, pushing past it would put you in 'rewind'.

But even if Einstein is proven wrong and things can move faster than light, then it also calls into question the idea that doing so would cause backwards time travel, so even if these neutrinos are genuine, it doesn't mean you can send your younger self the winning lotto numbers just yet.

Yes, I understand special relativity. I was a physics major, eons ago. And while you may look slower to a stationary observer, from your own perspective time is normal. But what happens to your perspective if you (somehow) manage to break the light barrier? Perhaps the math doesn't provide an answer, but I'm sure not up to solving field tensors these days (if I ever was!). How would negative time even be perceived?

Of course time travel is possible. We are all doing just that right now. Whether anything can cut a straight line across the arc of space is the debate. If one could do so this would only account for travel forward in time. Given that the term time is ethereal and only a measurement of motion based upon the actual motion of said item any travel in said time would only account for a variance in the motion one uses to measure said time. I am much more interested in what happens in the absence of motion or how to measure items which may not possess mass to begin with. Math that we have now would be useless to describe such an event if it exists. Now that would be ground breaking and take us back to the original argument of atomic theory that took us about 2000 years to accept and put forth the ideology of the void hypothesis. If this is true then Einstein is wrong and space can be separated from time.

I'm still waiting for my Hoverboard. And the excuses for why I don't yet have it are wearing thin.

Hoverboard. NOW.

Paul: Interesting. I don't know what the void hypothosis is, but I remember reading a book describing a timeless (and motionless) universe, how time is merely a built-in perception but doesn't actually exist. Didn't Schrodinger develop a time-independent wave function first?

Eventually science will discover that the speed of light is not a constant. Science will eventually come to the conclusion that direction of time is a constant. Only forward. Light, particle, wave, mass, inertia, energy, ect, are all variables. The direction of time is constant. We 'MAY' be able to jump parallel universes but the direction of time will continue to be a constant.

The theories to which I alluded, both atomic and void hypotheses, are as old as 400BC and the arguments of Democritus, Paramenides and their contemporaries. It took many hundreds of years for atomic theory to be accepted though it did formulate the postulates of early Greek philosophy. The argument of the void, because it defies the finite description, ie, mathematical proof, has long been discarded. It was thought for 1000 years that no natural vacuum could exist in space therefore the theory of the void could not possibly be true. As a result of science working to prove the void the vacuum was created. Funny to me how men dispossessed of the scientific and mathematical understanding of our day had it more right than we...

Let me also point out to Mr Jacobs that if Einsteins theories hold and your conjecture that time is a constant (which, parenthetically I have to mention is not possible since time is nothing more than a measurement of the things you declare as variable) then the inevitable conclusion would be, since Einsteins proofs include the ideology (and mathematical proof) that all of space is an arc, that the constant of time on any line would only be the tangent points of an arc of the circle of space/time. Therefore time would have no beginning or end whether constant or not since those terms would be relative to the starting point of the tangent of the line described. I do not necessarily prescribe to this theory, but it is an interesting one for sure.

Paul, DIRECTION of time. Not time itself. Whether an arc or a straight line depends on your point of view, particle or wave? Wave travels in a circle away from its center (Big Bang, pebble in a pond), a straight line. A particle, or a surfer on that wave, also travels in a straight line. Still the DIRECTION remains constant. FORWARD. All the rest are variables depending on the energy invested, which is also a variable. If the speed of light were the pinnacle then a black hole would not be able to capture it. I find that the more simple we look at 'things' the more visible the solution.

....since time is nothing more than a measurement of the things....

DIRECTION of time. ONLY forward. Space Time, our fourth dimension. Doesn't matter if it is curved or straight. Curved or straight depends on the size of your horizon. Eventually it is all a sphere. But the DIRECTION is always forward and accelerating.

I've done a lot of reading on "the arrow of time" and the key points that emerge are:

That time is a unit of measurment for change in a system.

Time is measured relative to the observer's reference frame.

The best thories on time's arrow is that time (change) is governed by the second law of thermodynamics, which states that the total entropy of a closed system always moves from low to high (from order to chaos). This is why you don't see eggs unbreak themselves and spilled milk move back into the cup.

Because of this law, which holds for the closed system of our universe, it seems that the arrow of time only points in a forward direction. There is much more to it, but this explains why we don't remember things that haven't happened yet.

Now, if Einstein is right (and I believe that he is given his thories have withstood observation, experimentation and mathematical scrutiny for over 100 years), nothing can travel at or above the speed of light, which allows for forward movement in time, but not backward.

You could say that what Special Relativity has to say about time dialotion is right in line with the second law of thermodynamics and given that they were each developed and proved out independent of each other says volumes about their correctness.

Did anyone ever consider that for a particle that is accelerated to almost the speed of light, that time becomes non-linear and therefore the particle existed in more than one point in linear time, therefore fooling us "linear time monkeys" into believing that it traveled faster than light. Maybe we just stopped in time to let it pass.....

Anfalas

AG999: Since no one seems to have given you a straight answer, allow me to attempt to do so. If you used to be a physics major, you probably already knew all of this at one point.

It's easier to explain for the case of "instantaneous" signals, rather than merely superluminal signals, so let's start there. If you recall, SR shows that observers in motion relative to eachother disagree on simulaneity. That is to say, they disagree on what is happening "now". Specifically, if observer B is moving away from observer A, then B's notion of "now" will contain elements of A's past when we measure time by A's frame of reference. Thus, a signal sent "instantaneously" from A to B according to A's notion of now, and then sent back from B to A according to B's notion of "now" will arrive in A's past. For "instantaneous" signals, B can be moving away from A at any postive speed; if the signals are superluminal but not "instantaneous", then the difference in velocities between the two observers must be great enough to account for the extra time spent.

Pretty much all schemes of time travel using superlumial velocities involve different frames of reference and their different notions of "now": either two observers bouncing signals between them as in the above, or one observer traveling first superluminally, then changing his frame of reference by accelerating between subluminal velocities, and, finally, traveling superluminally relative to the new frame to arrive where he started before he left.

Peter Jacobs- i dont have to have any notion regarding the exact science of this sudject, but do you want to know why I think youre wrong when you say that science will discover that the speed of light is not a constant?

Easy... Because Einstein said it was... His theory has been tested and held up to that rigorous testing over and over... It controls our GPS systems accurately etc. And finally... You're just babbling this on a newsvine forum instead of in peer reviewed journals and within the realm of the acientific method rules of engagement.

I would like to compliment the posters above, especially AG and Scott for the very illuminating discussion.

It helped me very much to understand the issue, far better than the article (sorry Alan, you da man, but I got it from them).

Personally, while I think the whole idea of Time Travel is fun and exciting in a fictional sense, I'm a believer in the "NOW" theory. "Time" is a human invention and an illusion, there is no "past" or "future" in existence anywhere that you can travel to (I don't subscribe to String theory either). There is only NOW, this instant. Yesterday is a memory and tomorrow is a promise, nothing more.

But that's just me.

A very interesting article and a very good discussion. I hope we can have more like it in the future....uh......I mean......

@ Stop the Hypocrisy,

make sure you get one with POWAH!

StMiller,

I am at best an amateur thinker and would not dare submit any theories for peer review. I would much rather test my theories here on the Vine where others can give constructive criticism and hopefully expand my horizons. Even Einstein forever looked at alternatives. Surely as science makes better and better testing and detecting equipment we will improve our equations. Evolution is inevitable.

Maybe I should have said it in a different way to better convey my meaning. Maybe the speed of light in a vacuum is constant. However, we should eventually find particles and waves moving faster than the speed of light in a vacuum. Hope this helped to clear my statement.

Viners such a AG, Scott, Paul, Martin, Anfalas all help add to whatever deficiencies may appear in my theories and thought process. They help quite a bit when they add constructive criticism.

Want to know why I believe that the speed of light is not the pinnacle of speed? A simple question, what happens to the speed of light as it becomes trapped by a black hole and can not escape? Does the massive gravity accelerate it beyond the constant? It can not, after all, escape this gravity from any angle. This is where my questions are coming from. Direction of time, speed of light, gravity of a black hole and the interactions of the three together. Interesting times we are living in because I have a feeling that we will soon find out.

Gee, I should have checked back on this thread sooner. Thanks, everyone, for your inputs.

Peter: As I understand it, light's inability to escape a black hole is a function of geometry, not speed. Space has become so curved that there is simply no path to the outside. The black hole is literally cutoff from the rest of the universe.

One of the books I read, ages ago, talked about how once past the event horizon, you could travel laterally through time all you liked, but directionally you could only move towards the singularity. You can take ages to do it, but your path is fixed.

Paul, you're hilarious dude. You spout a bunch of philosophical mumbo jumbo and then end with...

I do not necessarily prescribe to this theory

Peter Jacobs: The gravity of a black hole (or any massive body, for that matter) red-shifts the light that is leaving it. The redshifting decreases the energy content of the photons. Any photons originating from the event horizon or below are drained of their energy entirely causing them to cease to exist in any pratical sense. That is to say, the speed of an emitted photon is not changed by the black hole, only its frequency.

Hey Martin,

Any photons originating from the event horizon or below are drained of their energy entirely causing them to cease to exist in any pratical sense.

What is the reference to this statement?

Ad'M: Most sources about graviational redshift from black holes will confirm that photons emitted from the event horizon will be redshifted to zero energy. For instance, here:

lifeng.lamost.org/courses/astrotoday/CHAISSON/AT322/HTML/AT32206 dot HTM

(I admit I did not look into the quality of this particular source. I picked the first one I saw that had a reasonable exposition on the topic. It looks like an undergrad astronomy textbook.) If it loses all of its energy, it no longer exists.

Martin, thanks for link, yes looks like undergrad.

Look up Schwarzschild Radius for a more detailed conversation on "large" gravitational sources, like black holes, neutron star, etc.

I asked for the reference because of some of the words you used, "below" and "zero energy".

I guess the real issue here is one which has been in debate for decades and that is how do we treat infinities in quantum mechanics? I am one who believes re-normalization (QM treatment of infinities) simplifies the mathematics but clouds the physics.

"Below" Schwarzschild radius (black hole's event horizon) is a zero thickness surface which "light" approaches but never crosses, it just takes "forever" to get there (i.e. time goes to zero).

"Zero energy", the photon emitted from an orbit (never below) just over Schwarzschild radius does not lose it's energy it just that the frequency is red shifted to an infinite length, i.e. the photon's energy standard deviation (the wave packet flattens out) is infinite and so is distributed over an infinite distance, hence at any point the energy (hv) is practically zero.

The conservation laws are still obeyed even in a black hole.

Ad'M,

What kind of idiot are you? Asking questions like that on here. Do you honestly think you're going to get an intelligent answer?

So what's the answer?

Commentators have been surprisingly fast to point to faster-than-light neutrinos as evidence that scientists could be wrong about lots of things, including the causes of climate change.

-----

What kind of idiot are you? Asking questions like that on here.

Well at Ad'M isn't THAT kind of idiot...

@Ad'M

Q. Produce two neutrino beams and have them collide at the speed of light but allow sufficient time from when the neutrinos are created to the collision point for the beams to fluctuate with a good dose of tau neutrinos.

A. We do not have the technology to accelerate neutrinos "to" the speed of light and as far as Einstien is concerned, they can't be, because they have mass and you'd need infinite energy to accelerate them to the speed of light.

Alan Boyle.

Congress would rather spend billions to fund bigger firecrackers so that the over paid NASA personal can keep playing with human spaceflight (very little societal value).

Congress should fund the new collider and keep the Tevatron operating as well. We need these facilities to keep the research physics turnstile operating efficiently and compete with the rest of the world.

NASA had their chance over a span of 60 years and they blew it, give the physics community their share now.

Maybe someone could send a faster-than-light neutrino signal from the future and let us know if Project X will/did get funded.

Paradox, though, right?

(I know you were joking...)

"I'm no physicist"

Well there's your problem!

I'm still right.

@Ron Bennett-344377

Hmmm, where to start...

Come on folks it is much easier than you think in our Ocean Universe, light is relative alright so is gravity but our universe isn't only about light or gravity.

Light is not "relative". Einstien's breakthrough idea was that light is "constant" with respect to speed. He found that "time" is relative.

Look way back to Democritis over 2,400 years ago, the founding father for this revelation, "look for the smallest indivisible Aatom and you will find the meaning of our existence", hint it aint neutrinos what we currently know as the smallest indivisible particle of matter.

Neutrinos are not what we currently know as the smallest indivisible particle of matter. Quarks, leptons and bosons are what we currently understand to be the smallest forms of matter.

The meaning for our existence, the Higgs Boson 'The God Particle", is similar to binary number 1 and 0's that make up complex computer programs.

The Higgs Boson is not thought to be the meaning of our existence. It is called the "God" particle because, if it can be confirmed, it would be the missing piece of several theories. It would explain how particles get mass. But, it is not going to help humanity understand their place in the universe or why we are here.

And the whole analogy to binary code is well....

Be careful for neutrinos have been known to morph into photons, so if logic rule's the universe do photons morph into neutrinos? Here is not yet known fact, yes they do........

Scott M keep thinking that way, books are good for the soul but -- you have to get out more. By the way you were both wrong, you can't tell the difference between leptons and bosons that tells me that you are only now trying to figure this out. Keep up the work, incidentally charged leptons are electrons that give off neutral leptons, neutrinos. To date neutrinos have been measured to be the smallest particles with mass. Charged Leptons, ie electrons, are much more massive...

@Ron

The problem with your posts is that you are taking something, which we know to be true (like neutrinos being able to spot change when they interact with other matter) and then use that to form your own theory that is based on untrue/unproven statements (like you are the only one that knows something that is a not yet known fact).

By the way, where did your knowledge of physics come from? Were there books involved?

Scott M-536256 wrote - "By the way, where did your knowledge ofphysics come from? Were there books involved?"

Ron's reply - Plenty of books of which I still have from years past including advance physic starting with college required Physics Halliday/ Resnick, etc, advanced math Calc 1,2,3,DFQ, organic chemistry, etc, etc, etc, etc...

@Ron

Great! But it does make your comment earlier seem rather hypocritical.

Maybe you need to "get out more"?

I think you missed the point (or maybe mistyped). Those comments were made by those that were opposed to the theory of man-made climate change. Article is about how fallacious those arguements are.

@delaville

A UC undergrad writing course (before I switched majors) was memorable in that the entire trimester focused on science's history being dependent on the constant breakdowns of paradigms. Einstein was a genious, not an all knowing GOD. Even his work must face the ideas of the future and ultimately be found wanting. Either today or in a thousand years (if we last that long) he will be chipped away and ultimately thrown out, or at least put on an out-of-the-way shelf and studied as no more than a part of the history of science.

While it's certainly true that new truths will be discovered and it may be found that Einstein was incorrect in his ideas, you are incorrect to say that he'd be thrown out or put on an out of the way shelf and here's why...

Einstein's theories and equations, in particular, work. They work for keeping our GPS sattelites accurate, they work for us to be able to make and use lasers, they work for us to harness nuclear energy (for good or bad), they work for us to understand the gravitational lensing of the light we see in our telescopes and they work for understanding the effects of frame dragging.

Should someone come along and figure out that Einstein thought about something in the wrong way (as Einstein did about Newton's absoltue time and absolute space theory), that isn't going to make his equations that have been thoroughly tested time and time again for 100 years suddenly incorrect. Our GPS sattelites will still need to be adjusted for the effects of general and special relativity, our DVD recorders and players will stil have software that runs the laser guided by Einstien's equations, and so on.

Just as Einstein proved that Newton was wrong about absoltue time and space, Newtons laws of motion were and still are correct and we still use them today many hundreds of years later.

Just as Newton is not irrelevant and could never be, so will Einstein always be, even when the next genius comes along and enlightens us all to the next level.

@Kannin

I'm not sure about your equations there, but General and Special Relativity absolutely reject the notion of anything travelling at a velocity faster than C.

General and Special Relativity absolutely reject the notion of anything travelling at a velocity faster than C

Anything, Scott ?? Are you quite sure of that? Einstein was fond of what he called gedanken, or "thought" experiments. So let's do one of them (you may need to do a sketch). Imagine the almost planar wavefront from a distant gamma ray burst encountering a long narrow wisp of interstellar dust and gas, which is at a 30-degree angle to the wavefront. An observer to the side of the wisp would see a hot spot propagating from one end to the other it at 2c.

@Scott M-536256 - I'm not sure about your equations there

Standard Lorenz-Fitzgerald: mass = rest mass times the square root of (1-V^2/c^2)

If your concern is causality: in the Gedanken experiment, above, There is no violation of causality, because no information can be encoded on that superluminal pulse.

By the same token, a tachyonic neutrino would be regressing to an earlier state, and therefore losing more current information, in direct proportion to its speed above c. So, again, no violation of causality.

@Kannnin

Yes, I am quite sure that General and Special Relativity absolutely forbid anything from travelling at a velocity faster than light. This is the bedrock on which these theories are founded and it only takes E=MC2 and F= MA to understand why.

Additionally, thought experiments were typically used to imagine situations that could not be analyzed in any other way. Your scenario doesn't really fit into that category as we can use the mathematical models of Einstein to calculate the velocities involved in your scenario and they do not add up to 2c.

Again, Einstein's theories say that faster than C requires more than infinite mass and infinite energy, which is unachievable. However you are arriving at your FTL results (your math or your thought experiment) are incorrect.

Now, please understand that I'm discussing this with you from the standpoint of Einstien. Any (repeat any) scenario where an object with mass travels with a velocity faster than light is entirely rejected by Relativity. There is no mathematical framework in relativity that allows for this under any circumstance.

There are those who like to infer that objects are allowed to go faster than light because Einstein's equations (and the explanations for them) always talk about how the more you accelerate, the more mass you acquire and the more mass you acquire, the more energy you need to accelerated any further and when you reach the speed of light you would need infinite energy and have infinite mass.

These explanations talk about acceleration and there are those that say "Well, he didn't say that something couldn't just already be going at the speed of light and therefore, skip the acceleration phase and therefore not be bound by Einstein's rule." But, this is a misunderstanding of the math. Any object with mass moving faster than light (regardless of how it got to that speed) would have to have more than infinite energy and infinite mass and since that is not possible, the entire concept of FTL is forbidden and was considered to be a nonsensical idea under relativity. It is analogous to a rule that states that a human cannot survive consuming more than 1 gallon of rat poison at any given time and then someone saying, "Well, what if the human didn't consume the poison? What if the poison were just already in his/her system?" The consumption part is not what's important (just as the accelerating part is not the key) to understanding the law. A human can't survive with that much poison in their system is the point, it doesn't matter how it got there. And, particles with mass can travel faster than light (it doesn't matter how they got that velocity). C is a proven mathematical limit and you can't break a limit.

Correction:

And, particles with mass CAN'T travel faster than light (it doesn't matter how they got that velocity). C is a proven mathematical limit and you can't break a limit

@Scott M-536256 - we can use the mathematical models of Einstein to calculate the velocities involved in your scenario and they do not add up to 2c.

The scenario is based on Pythagoras, not Einstein. The sine of 30 degrees is 0.5, meaning that in the time the wavefront has moved forward 1 light year, it traverses 2 light years of the gas cloud.

@Scott M-536256 - ... skip the acceleration phase and therefore not be bound by Einstein's rule. But, this is a misunderstanding of the math.

When we speak of the photon having zero rest mass, it is a convenience only, since the photon is never actually at rest. It is "born" going the speed of light and does, in fact, "skip the acceleration phase." Buy the same token a neutrino that oscillates through a version that has a rest mass in the form m = iz (where i^2 = −1), is "born" going faster that c and also skips the acceleration phase. This is a consequence of the math, not a misunderstanding.

To understand relativity, requires a fundamental knowledge of calculus. It is apparent you not only lack knowledge of calculus, but even an understanding of basic trigonometry.

Nerd Fight !!! Nerd Fight !!! Nerd Fight !!!

@Kannin

You are applying mathematical models to scenarios that don't relate to your final position.

No, I am not a Calculus guru and it has been a while since I've done trig, but I do know that if you are using established Geometric proofs, applyin them in the proper circumstances (and you are doing the math correctly) your results will NOT contradict relativity. This is why Einstein's thories have proven to be correct for over 100 years. The mathematical proof fits completely with the whole of mathematics.

If you are correct, you should publish a paper as you will be the first person to matematically show that Relativity is not matematically sound.

Secondly, no particle can skip an acceleration phase and just be travelling at some velocity, let alone go faster than C. Photons (light) is emitted from stars. As nuclear fusion takes place, photons are released. In our sun, those photons can actually take upwards of a million years before they even reach the surface of the sun because of its dense gravity at the core. After reaching the surface, the journey to us lasts 8 minutes as the photon ACCELERATES to the speed of light.

And, again, E = MC2 forbids anthing from travelling faster than C, so particles could not just be "born" with velocities faster than C. That statement is completely nonsensical in Einstein's world.

Your statement above that a neutrino will be born going faster than C is rather percarious given that this entire discussion relates to some of the first ever observations of anything with mass travelling faster than C and even the scientists that did the work are skeptical that this is correct. Yet, you seem to just have knowledge and proof of the correctness of this.

Scott: Actually, Kannin is right. A particle with imaginary mass would be superluminal. Not that we have ever seen such a thing, but it is a wellknown part of SR. SR is mathematically sound, that's where the result comes from. And yes, such a particle would be superluminal since it's creation. It would never have to accelerate across the light barrier. (In fact, it couldn't.) Also, it *does* matter how the particle got to that speed.

@Martin

The particles you are discussing are hypothetical. There is zero evidence for their existence. The theories for them are based on a bit of matematical trickery that requires these particles to have "imaginary mass".

Theorist often use these mathematical tricks because they let them look at problems in a new way and hopefully come up with new solutions to the "real" problem using "hypothetical" math.

During this entire discussion, when I've been saying that nothing, absoltely nothing can travel faster than light, I have been referring to REAL (not hypothetical) objects with REAL rest mass (not imaginary mass).

To jump into a discussion and say that this claim is false and that FTL particles are real (as Kannin has done) is woefully irresponsible and just confuses the discussion.

I didn't get the impression that Kannin was trying to imply that tachyons were real, merely that they were consistent with special relativity. The math works, but I doubt many physicists actually think that there is a reasonable chance that they exist. Anyway, I suppose you may be right in saying that discussing objects that are purely hypothetical may be confusing to other readers. They may interpret our discussion as a belief that such particles do exist, and I certainly don't want to give that impression.

@Martin

Kannin has (several times) tried to "correct" me when I've said that Relativity forbids anything to travel faster than light and he has given neutrinos, tacheyons and gamma ray bursts encountering gas clouds at a 30 degree angle as his proof of it.

As for neutrinos, that's the whole point of this discussion. This result has been seen 2 times by different teams. The first was Fermilab about 10 years ago, but the discrepency was within the margin of error for the experiment. This time around, even the scientists that got the results are very skeptical that they are seeing faster than light travel by the neutrinos, that's why they are not announcing a new "discovery", rather they are asking for others to verify their data. So, to proclaim that neutrinos go faster than light as a fact (as Kannin has done), is utterly ridiculous and very irresponsible.

As for the Gamma ray burst encountering a gas cloud at a 30 degree angle. Well, I'll admint my math skills aren't up to comprehending what Kannin is trying to say, but my physics skills tell me that a gammay ray burst will travel at the speed of light and when they enounter anything at any angle they will not accelerate beyond C. Einstein tells us this.

Finally, Kannin has taken to providing his "proof" in the form of hypothetical particles that have "imaginary mass". Particles that have no evidence for existing.

My point is that if Kannin "believes" that FTL travel is possible, he should be clear to explain that he has a "theory" and what that therory is based on, rather than just proclaiming that it's true, when there is no basis in the evidence for it.

If I had to guess, I would say the measurement of FTL neutrinos is erroneous. But suppose it's correct: could neutrinos *be* the elusive tachyons?

No because they have mass, which is why the measurement is probably wrong.

In Kannin's gedanken example of the intersection of a moving wavefront, the location of the intersection may indeed move at 2C, but a point of intersection is not an object, and of course it has no mass.

@MikeyMike,

Yes, I get your point. A point of intersection, which changes position is not "something" travelling faster than C. However, Kannin did not present his information this way. He stated that the Gamma Ray would travel at 2C.

I too have read of ideas that gravity propagates thousands of times faster than light. I want to throw out some thoughts I like to think through...

The AEgIS experiment at CERN is to test the affects of earths gravity on the anti-hydrogen atom and, to do this, the moiré interferometer is the tool of choice. Are there any tests for the effects of gravity on normal hydrogen using the same interferometer method? Liquid Hydrogen, for example, is affected by earths gravity; but is there a hydrogen atom-to-hydrogen atom gravitational attraction? Calculations of the gravitational attraction between the Protons, like Hydrogen atoms, assume that there is an attraction. However, an assumption-based calculation is not a measurement. Does anyone know of any dirrect measurements?

I ask this question for two reasons. I read a report on hydrogen clouds in the early universe where it was claimed they should not exist. Gravity, it seems, should not allow these clouds to remain intact. I lost track of the specific report. Anyway...

Studies using Atom Interferometry show that the acceleration of gravity on atoms is the same as on large objects. However, studies on the gravitational attractions on neutrons, using Neutron Interferometry, show a small variation from the gravitational force acting on large objects. I gather that it is assumed there is something not understood about Neutron Interferometry?

The neutron, I understand, is a composite particle that breaks up into proton, electron and anti-electron (Positron). Does the neutron then, in a sense, contain anti-matter (bound in a similar sense as quarks within Protons)? Is the anti-matter Positron confined within the neutron the source of gravitational energy within our every day experience??? Is gravity a property of space or is it another form of energy, perhaps related to anti-matter? (We don’t see or think of gravity as energy; but neither do we normally see anti-mater). Are black holes perhaps composed of anti-mater from the primordial universe? If gravity is a form of energy, can gravity convert to or from other forms of energy? How does E=MC^2 relate to anti-mater? Could the E in relation to anti-mater actually be, or include, gravity (as a negative form of energy)?

The common model of the bending of space/time shows a 2 dimensional sheet with a depression to indicate the bending. We live in 3 dimensions and the 2 dimensional model requires an increase in space.

Is there a connection between the fixed speed of light and the action of gravity in exerting a fixed acceleration regardless of mass (about a 16% rate of acceleration on the moon vs. the earth)? Note that all attempts to measure the earth's gravitational constant give results from about 1 - 2% plus or minus?

Fun to muse on such things; but, is there a direct measure of Hydrogen to Hydrogen gravitational attraction? Also, is the attraction exactly as assumed, no attraction at all or a very tiny attraction?

As for the Neutreno experiment, I wonder how many times they repeated the 'run' and what variations did they see?

@Thomas Walsh

I too have read of ideas that gravity propagates thousands of times faster than light.

Those theories are wrong.

• Newton's laws of motion describe the effects of gravity perfectly.
• Einstein's laws of Relativity show that gravity propagates at exactly the speed of light.
• 100 years of observation and experimentation have confirmed that Newton and Einstein are correct about gravity's effects and speed.

LetMeExplain,

You have an interesting idea. It is not obvious to me how it could be tested.

"I just read a article that stated Neutrinos have a habit of disappearing for no know reason, and then reappearing mysteriously again in another position." Hmm, just like socks.

All seriousness aside, what the article probably meant is that you can measure *any* elementary particle at various points, but you can't prove what path it took to get from each point to the next. Photons, for example: one interpretation of the well-known two slit experiment is that a photon passes through *both* slits, allowing it to interfere with itself--and if you send successive photons through the slits, you'll get an interference pattern, even if the photons are emitted so infrequently that only one would be in the path at a time. But if you try to detect the photon passing through one or both slits, i.e. tell how it got from the emitter to the screen (e.g. a piece of film), you only detect the photon going through one or the other slit--and the interference pattern disappears.

Well, since no one really knows what exactly gravity is or what gives rise to it, your question is one that just about every physicist would like an answer to.

We understand the effects of gravity on objects with mass, but we only have theories on what gravity is.

String theory suggests that the smallest form of matter are vibrating strings that are "coiled" in and around 11 dimensions and thus, different strings vibrate differently (just like the different strings on a violin cause different notes). String Theory says that these different vibration patters mean that the different strings vibrate with different energies and since E=MC2 different energies mean different masses for various particles.

Now, the theorized Higgs Boson (a.k.a. The God Particle) is a predicted particle that aids in giving particles their mass.

Finally, the theorized Graviton is thought to be the massless messanger particle that conveys the gravitational force upon an object from the fabric of space/time.

Alan Boyle

Thanks for the reference, I will check it out.

This particular inquiry was more inline of throwing an idea out there and checkout the responses of your readers. A previous post suggested that maybe this is not the right place for such inquiries but I have made contact before here with some very interesting physicists.

My inquiry was in reference to a recent paper, "Matter-Wave Bullets" in Rydberg-dressed Bose Einstein Condensates", Feb. 10, 2011.

Abstract:

We propose a scheme for the creation of stable three dimensional bright solitons in Bose-Einsteincondensates, i.e., the matter-wave analog of so-called spatio-temporal "light bullets". Off-resonantdressing to Rydberg nD-states is shown to provide nonlocal attractive interactions, leading to selftrapping of mesoscopic atomic clouds by a collective excitation of a single Rydberg atom pair.We present detailed potential calculations, and demonstrate the existence of stable solitons underrealistic experimental conditions by means of numerical simulations.

The body of the paper begins with:

Self-trapped nonlinear waves and the possibility to create ”particle-like” wave packets have fascinated scientists over the last decades [1–4]. In nonlinear optics,the creation of stable three-dimensional bright solitons− so called ”light-bullets“ − has been under active pursuit [4], but was realized only recently in a discrete setting of waveguide arrays [5]. One major obstacle stems from the fact that nonlinear confinement usually comes hand in hand with collapse instabilities [6]. In principle, this problem can be overcome via nonlocal nonlinearities, where the nonlinear self-induced potential at a particular point in space depends also on the nearby wave amplitudes.

Self-trapped nonlinear waves are the "real" mass and the collapsing instabilities in a point in space which is depended on adjacent wave amplitudes is the mechanism that could create the gravitational field. These collapsing instabilities could in fact be real and have an attraction force that permeates throughout the field (Minkowski spacetime) at the speed of light. The reverse of Newton's cradle if you will.

So, I say mass creates the gravitational field without the need of a virtual particle, graviton, but via the instabilities at the transition between a none-zero VEV and zero VEV (induced nothingness of space).

Hey, Brian Fraser, what do you think, if you are still out? I got this idea reading your paper, "Advanced Stellar Propulsion Systems".

What is Matter? Never mind.

What is Mind? Doesn't matter.

Could be since Kannin is doing his own special kind of math that results in answers forbidden by the physical laws that have been tested and proven for 100 years.

Wrong again Scott, not my math. Just the standard math associated with Relativistic effects. Just because you don't understand it, don't imply it doesn't exist.

"A tachyon is a hypothetical subatomic particle that moves faster than light. In the language of special relativity, a tachyon would be a particle with space-like four-momentum and imaginary proper time. A tachyon would be constrained to the space-like portion of the energy-momentum graph. Therefore, it cannot slow down to subluminal speeds. One curious effect is that, unlike ordinary particles, the speed of a tachyon increases as its energy decreases. In particular, E approaches zero when v approaches infinity. (For ordinary bradyonic matter, E increases with increasing speed, becoming arbitrarily large as v approaches c, the speed of light). Therefore, just as bradyons are forbidden to break the light-speed barrier, so too are tachyons forbidden from slowing down to below c, because infinite energy is required to reach the barrier from either above or below."

@Kannin

You keep indicating that you know the math very well, but what you keep skipping is that Relativity explicitly forbids ANYTHING to travel faster than light. E = MC2 is the only math you need to undertand this and it is the only mathematical framework that has withstood 100 years of observation, experimentation, and matematical scrutiny. It's predictions have come true every time.

Whatever formulas and equations you post are simply not applicable in the way that you are trying to apply them, the formulas are not correct, or you are not doing the math correctly. I can say this with certatude because, as I pointed out in a previous post, you would be the first person in 100 years to show that the math relating to Relativity is not sound and I very much doubt that you are that good at math. The most gifted mathematicians have been scrutinizing Einstein for 100 years and no one has ever come up with ANY equation (that contradicts Relativity) and has been borne out to be correct.

Your post, postulates on "hypothetical" particles that do not have any of the experimentation, observation, and mathematical proof that Relativity has.

Oh, and by the way, you didn't copy/paste all of the pertinent information from your Wiki-proof:

"The existence of such particles would pose intriguing problems in modern physics since they are faster than light."

"what you keep skipping is that Relativity explicitly forbids ANYTHING to travel faster than light. E = MC2 is the only math you need to undertand this."

No, it doesn't, and no, it isn't. The equation that explains why ordinary matter cannot be accelerated beyond (or even to) the speed of light is not the one you give (since your equation doesn't include a term for the velocity at all), but rather the relativistic version of that, namely E = mc**2/sqrt(1 - v**2/c**2). As v approaches c, the denominator of this equation approaches zero, making E approach infinity. However, that assumes m is a real number (obviously true of all ordinary matter). If however m were an imaginary number, then there is a finite solution of this equation with v > c.

So if tachyons exist, then they have masses which are imaginary numbers. Whether any such particles exist is a matter of physics, not math; the math allows it.

@Mike

The facts are the Relativity does forbid ANYTHING from travelling faster than light and E=MC2 is the formula that shows why.

While you show a more involved version, the basis for why nothing can travel faster than light is the discovery of E= MC2. While you are correct that this doesn't include a term for velocity. My point is that it is now well known that the more velocity something with mass has, the more energy it has and E=MC2 shows that energy relates to mass. Without E=MC2, the revalation that you can't go faster than C would not have come.

Next, you transistion into tachyons, but let's stop for a moment and be clear here. For the hypothetical tachyon to travel faster than light, it would have to have "imaginary mass" using "imaginary numbers".

This math trickery (using non-real numbers) is something that is useful in science to solve a real problem by looking at it from a symetrically opposite way and appliying real math to that imaginary scenario.

There is no evidence for tachyons or anything that goes FTL. The only way to make a case that you can have FTL is to use hypothetical particles that only exist if mathematical trickery is used.

As I stated in my earlier posts, Relativity expressly forbids anything from travelling FTL. And when I say "anything", I mean things in the real world that can be mathematically examined without resorting to imaginary numbers.

The bottom line is that those who have argued this point have essentially said, "Relativity does allow for FTL if you use numbers that aren't real and imaginary mass." That's not what Einstein was saying with Relativity. His math, observation, experimentation, and predictions are quite clear... C is the cosmic speed limit. There are no exceptions in Relativity for this.

As I posted above, the point of intersection which Kannin refers to as moving at 2C is not an object. It might be definable as a 'thing' but it certainly has no mass.

@MikeyMike

Regardless, nothing travels at 2C. Kannin is incorrect in his analysis and using hypothetical particles and imaginary numbers for his proof.

@Brightfutures

Nothing can have infinite mass (whic is the reason why nothing can travel faster than light) and mass is not the same thing as size (something can have extremem mass but also very dense, like a neutron star).

But, Einstein showed that light is affected by gravity in an effect called "gravitational lensing" which was predicted by Relativity and confirmed in experiments after his death.

The medium in which light travels does affect its speed and you can see this in a phonemon that is very common: put a straw in a glass of water. The straw will appear to bend sharpy at the water line. This is because light travels slower in water than it does in our atmospere, which is also slower than in a vacuum.

Gravity doesn't affect a black hole, black hole have such density of mass that they have immense gravity, which (like a deep pocket in a trampoline causes objects on the surface to want to roll into the pocket) pulls everything (even light) into it.

@Scott M-536256 - But, Einstein showed that light is affected by gravity in an effect called "gravitational lensing" which was predicted by Relativity and confirmed in experiments after his death.

The first observation of light deflection was performed by noting the change in position of stars as they passed near the Sun on the celestial sphere. The observations were performed in 1919 (while Einstein was very much alive) by Arthur Eddington and his collaborators during a total solar eclipse

@Scott M-536256 - Gravity doesn't affect a black hole

So you don't think that a black hole can orbit a massive star. Wrong again.

Thank you for addressing my question guys! I appreciated it and feel a little bit more educated.

@Kannin

@Scott M-536256 - Gravity doesn't affect a black hole

So you don't think that a black hole can orbit a massive star. Wrong again.

Cyberstalking is one thing, but just saying "wrong again" doesn't make it so.

Any black hole in space is going to have a MUCH stronger gravitiational field (by orders of magnitude) than any star (even a neutron star). The star would be pulled into the black hole's gravity well, not the other way around. The suggestion that a black hole would oribt a star is just ludicrous.

You've really got to stop jumping all over my statements with these ridiculous rationelles that have no basis in fact.

I will revise my statement though to say that the gravitational fields of TWO black holes of similar masses would affect each other and has been observed.

@Kannin

@Scott M-536256 - But, Einstein showed that light is affected by gravity in an effect called "gravitational lensing" which was predicted by Relativity and confirmed in experiments after his death.

The first observation of light deflection was performed by noting the change in position of stars as they passed near the Sun on the celestial sphere. The observations were performed in 1919 (while Einstein was very much alive) by Arthur Eddington and his collaborators during a total solar eclipse

Fantastic, however my comments are discussing "gravitational lensing", which is a different phonomenon from light just being bent.

Gravitational Lensing was not confirmed until 1979 (when Einstein was very much dead).

Scott: no, a black hole does not necessarily have a much stronger gravitational field than any star. A black hole newly formed from a supernova would have a smaller mass than the progenitor star, because some of the mass of the star would have been expelled in the supernova explosion. Over time, such a black hole will almost inevitably suck in more mass, and by so doing may become far more massive than the original star. There appear to be such super-massive black holes at the centers of many galaxies, but that doesn't mean all black holes are that massive.

@Mike

By definition, a star can only turn into a black hole if it exceeds a certain mass threshold in the first place (a star like our own sun could never become a black hole, for example).

It's true that in going supernova, some of the lighter gas near the surface will be blown off, but it is the heavier material that collapses in on itself in the first place and this material would be the basis for the singularity in the black hole.

Because of the mass needed to successfully form a black hole in the first place, any black hole is going to have a more dense gravity well than any other star, which will cause the star to ultimately give way to the black hole, not the other way around.

Additionally, the explosion of the supernova would push any stars nearby away from the it, thus the newly formed black hole would not orbit any star.

@Mike

By definition, a star can only turn into a black hole if it exceeds a certain mass threshold in the first place (a star like our own sun could never become a black hole, for example).

It's true that in going supernova, some of the lighter gas near the surface will be blown off, but it is the heavier material that collapses in on itself in the first place and this material would be the basis for the singularity in the black hole.

Because of the mass needed to successfully form a black hole in the first place, any black hole is going to have a more dense gravity well than any other star, which will cause the star to ultimately give way to the black hole, not the other way around.

Additionally, the explosion of the supernova would push any stars nearby away from the it, thus the newly formed black hole would not orbit any star.

Well, when you come up with a theory that is backed up with the math to show how it works and that theory makes predictions that over the next 100 years keep coming true, and when your theory is required to make the GPS sattelite sytem, lasers, and nuclear energy possible, maybe people will think you are right too.

John Titor entertained, angered, frightened and even belittled those who engaged him in conversation.

Beacuse he was an Internet troll looking for attention?

After that, he was never heard from again. Speculation and investigation about who John Titor was and why he was online continues to this day.

Because his mom kicked him out of the basement and he no longer has free Internet?

I never cease to be amazed at how people who don't understand something feel that they should be taken seriously when they bash it.

The speed of light, C, isn't some random number that Einstein plopped into his equations to make them work. It is a value that was derived from mathmatical work and observation. This value has since been measured directly and has been verified to be correct.

This value is what makes telecommunications, GPS and lasers (to name a few) possible. If it were wrong, people would be driving into trees and into buildings when their GPS told them to turn left.

But you just feel that the value is incorrect. Ok, that's a strong argument you make. You're probably right.

@ClarkKent

Inflation may turn out to be incorrect, but it is the best theory we have that explains how, in a universe of the current size, we can be where we are and still look back in time to see the most early galaxies and stars.

When we look into deep space, we are seeing stars that didn't form until much later after the Big Bang, then burned for billions of years (all the while the universe was expanding at rates that have pushed us, and indeed everything in the unvierse, apart faster than light (this year's Nobel prize in physics was awarded to scientists that confirmed this).

So, if there is light being transmitted for billions of years and our region of space is being pushed away from that light at rates faster than light, then we are essentially outrunning the light from those stars, which means we can turn around and look back at that light.