Could it be possible that these particles are having a negative mass, hence not limited by speed of light?
Time is traveling at a different rate for the 2nd floor of your house than it is for the first floor of your house - something that's now measurable (and has been measured experimentally.)
Is that due to the Earth's rotation giving those with higher altitudes a faster velocity? Or is it something else?
For the Supernova, did they already have neutrino detectors pointing in the right direction? If they waited to see the light before looking then they would have missed the neutrino front.
No, we have always known for a long time that the speed of light is variable mattering what materials it is traveling though. So nothing could travel though cesium faster then light, nothing can travel though a vacuum faster then light...
February 11, 2009 9:42 PM
(AP) Scientists have apparently broken the universe's speed limit.
For generations, physicists believed there is nothing faster than light moving through a vacuum -- a speed of 186,000 miles per second.
But in an experiment in Princeton, N.J., physicists sent a pulse of laser light through cesium vapor so quickly that it left the chamber before it had even finished entering.
The pulse traveled 310 times the distance it would have covered if the chamber had contained a vacuum.
Researchers say it is the most convincing demonstration yet that the speed of light -- supposedly an ironclad rule of nature -- can be pushed beyond known boundaries, at least under certain laboratory circumstances.
"This effect cannot be used to send information back in time," said Lijun Wang, a researcher with the private NEC Institute. "However, our experiment does show that the generally held misconception that 'nothing can travel faster than the speed of light' is wrong."
The results of the work by Wang, Alexander Kuzmich and Arthur Dogariu were published in Thursday's issue of the journal Nature.
The achievement has no practical application right now, but experiments like this have generated considerable excitement in the small international community of theoretical and optical physicists.
"This is a breakthrough in the sense that people have thought that was impossible," said Raymond Chiao, a physicist at the University of California at Berkeley who was not involved in the work. Chiao has performed similar experiments using electric fields.
In the latest experiment, researchers at NEC developed a device that fired a laser pulse into a glass chamber filled with a vapor of cesium atoms. The researchers say the device is sort of a light amplifier that can push the pulse ahead.
Previously, experiments have been done in which light also appeared to achieve such so-called superluminal speeds, but the light was distorted, raising doubts as to whether scientists had really accomplished such a feat.
The laser pulse in the NEC experiment exits the chamber with almost exactly the same shape, but with less intensity, Wang said.
The pulse may look like a straight beam but actually behaves like waves of light particles. The light can leave the chamber before it has finished entering because the cesium atoms change the properties of the light, allowing it to exit more quickly than in a vacuum.
The leading edge of the light pulse has all the information needed to produce the pulse on the other end of the chamber, so the entire pulse does not need to reach the chamber for it to exit the other side.
The experiment produces an almost identical light pulse that exits the chamber and travels about 60 feet before the main part of the laser pulse finishes entering the chamber, Wang said.
Wang said the effect is possible only because light has no mass; the same thig cannot be done with physical objects.
The Princeton experiment and others like it test the limits of the theory of relativity that Albert Einstein developed nearly a century ago.
According to the special theory of relativity, the speed of particles of light in a vacuum, such as outer space, is the only absolute measurement in the universe. The speed of everything else -- rockets or inchworms -- is relative to the observer, Einstein and others explained.
In everyday circumstances, an object cannot travel faster than light.
The Princeton experiment and others change these circumstances by using devices such as the cesium chamber rather than a vacuum.
Ultimately, the work may contribute to the development of faster computers that carry information in light particles.
Not everyone agrees on the implications of the NEC experiment.
Aephraim Steinberg, a physicist at the University of Toronto, said the light particles coming out of the cesium chamber may not have been the same ones that entered, so he questions whether the speed of light was broken.
Still, the work is important, he said: "The interesting thing is how did they manage to produce light that looks exactly like something that didn't get there yet?"
Scientists calculated the margin of error at just 10 nanoseconds
How do they know for sure how fast the earth is actually travelling in absolute terms?
a universal internet
"The readings have so astounded researchers that they are asking others to independently verify the measurements before claiming an actual discovery."
Approximately three hours before the visible light from SN 1987A reached the Earth, a burst of neutrinos was observed at three separate neutrino observatories. This is likely due to neutrino emission (which occurs simultaneously with core collapse) preceding the emission of visible light (which occurs only after the shock wave reaches the stellar surface).
"The readings have so astounded researchers that they are asking others to independently verify the measurements before claiming an actual discovery."
Do you have one of those "They say" shirts?
Wait till it's confirmed, I find it funny when a theory comes out some people immediately think it's fact and then there are other who still think evolution is still in the theory phase.
So you are saying we can watch REAL alien porn!!!!????
Reading up on the 1987 Supernova, they did see the neutrinos before the visible light. It was assumed it was because the neutrinos were released first. Maybe that is not the case. 3 hour lead over 168,000 lys. How does that compare to the 60 nanoseconds in CERN?
Why is it that when it comes to particle physics and cosmology everyone suddenly becomes an expert? I know very little about particle physics but reading about it and trying to understand as much as I can from a lay persons point of view is a serious hobby of mine. Even with the little I know I can tell you that 90% of the stuff people are saying in this thread is just ridiculous stuff they pulled out of thin air. We don't do this with other topics, why physics? To give you some perspective some of what people are saying in this thread is equivalent to having a piece of software crash and saying "well I guess the programmers set the IRQ switches wrong". I'm not saying I know a lot about the topic but I know enough to know this is essentially the level of many of the posts here. Why do this guys?
99% of threads are filled with "expert" opinions from people who have no clue, not sure why you thought this would be any different.