World of Warcraft™

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-15017484

O.o

This could lead to interesting places...

I just saw that. Personally, I'm curious how much of physics would be broken if that was true.

Consider the freeway. There are speeders, people doing the speed limit, and then everything going slower than the speed limit (I know, rare these days).

This is not that surprising to me. Depending upon what speed things going faster than light become unobservable would hopefully help to determine just how fast they are going. That nothing, absolutely nothing goes faster than light seems ludicrous to me, personally.

It's like saying there's no statistical outliers that can exist beyond the speed of light.

That we cannot observe what is going on beyond the speed of light may only be a limitation of our current sensor/sensing technology.

This isn't so much surprising, as it is challenging the current build of scientific knowledge, as it is currently understood.

The problem will be, how does modern science adjust?

Edit: I'll add, the Holographic Universe Theory seems to come to mind in this case.

Just want to add that this is awesome; and can't wait to check out any updates they get :D

09/22/2011 02:22 PMPosted by Relesa

That we cannot observe what is going on beyond the speed of light may only be a limitation of our current sensor/sensing technology.

This isn't quite the case. I can't give you a completely rigorous proof off the top of my head, but it's not just that we haven't seen things go faster than the speed of light. According to Maxwell's equations (the fundamental equations of electricity and magnetism) light travels at a speed of about c=3E8 meters per second in all reference frames. As a result, it is physically impossible for anything to exceed the speed of light or else it would be possible for light to have a value other than c. There have been virtual particles that travel faster than the speed of light, but these are very theoretical and are not directly observable as information traveling faster than the speed of light would violate causality. Unfortunately, this part of physics isn't really my specialty, I'd wait for Nachtstier to respond. This is sort of up his alley and he'll probably give a much better explanation.

I'm about to read the paper right now. I'm hoping to have a discussion about this with my department tomorrow, and we were discussing this over beer tonight, when I heard about it.

I'll post any thoughts on this, but my first instinct is that due to the low sampling rate of neutrinos, the ones they are getting are not the ones being sent at the time associated to them, but earlier ones. This really seems to simple of an explanation for the scientists not to have thought of it, so I hold judgement in reserve.

As to Relesa's post, I do recall having heard a discussion somewhere about statistical fluctuation of particles causing some to exceed c, but there was some workaround (like it's really just the group velocity, not the actual particle velocity that does... which is fine).
I'm also curious if this points to some kind of extra-vacuum medium that allows for higher speeds that the neutrinos have access too, but last I heard, universal-compactified extra dimensions were ruled out, so I'm not sure how to explain said new medium.

All in all, interesting.

Here's the actual paper for those interested. Note that this is ArXiv, meaning it's not published, only in a rough draft stage. It's not been verified by another party (which is usually known as peer review) or whatnot.

http://arxiv.org/abs/1109.4897

from special relativity, the equations for the kinetic energy (and, by extension, mass) of a particle have

√[1-(v^2)/(c^2)]

in the denominator (the bottom part of a fraction).
(v is the speed of the particle; c is the speed of light).

so, if v=c (if the particle is moving at the speed of light) then the denominator is
√[1-(c^2)/(c^2)] = √[1-(c^2)/(c^2)] = √[1-1] = √0 = 0

and any x/0 -> ∞


edit: therefore, if the speed of a particle is c, it has infinite mass and infinite energy.

09/22/2011 10:56 PMPosted by Shadowsound

edit: therefore, if the speed of a particle is c, it has infinite mass and infinite energy.

It'd take an infinite amount of energy to have imparted on the particle to get it to that speed, not that the particle itself would have an actual infinite mass. The rest mass would still be constant.

edit: therefore, if the speed of a particle is c, it has infinite mass and infinite energy.

It'd take an infinite amount of energy to have imparted on the particle to get it to that speed, not that the particle itself would have an actual infinite mass. The rest mass would still be constant.

the relativistic mass would be infinite, no?

i'm pretty sure i get what you mean: changing the kinetic energy from a finite value to an infinite value requires infinite work, right?



anyway it sounds like you're a lot more versed in this area than me; i'm still a student


edit: i guess when i said mass it was pretty ambiguous

It'd take an infinite amount of energy to have imparted on the particle to get it to that speed, not that the particle itself would have an actual infinite mass. The rest mass would still be constant.

the relativistic mass would be infinite, no?

i'm pretty sure i get what you mean: changing the kinetic energy from a finite value to an infinite value requires infinite work, right?



anyway it sounds like you're a lot more versed in this area than me; i'm still a student


edit: i guess when i said mass it was pretty ambiguous

Well, I'm just trying to clear up a common misconception, but you are correct with this statement (about infinite work), from what I can remember.

Now the relativistic mass is intrinsically tied to the momentum (and thus the speed), so, yes, the limit of that would go to infinity.

09/22/2011 11:19 PMPosted by Nachtstier

Well, I'm just trying to clear up a common misconception, but you are correct with this statement (about infinite work), from what I can remember.

oh yea no problem, i was definitely being confusing there :)

something i've wondered that may sound stupid, but wouldn't the velocity of the location of the origin of a beam of light have something to do with the speed of the light itself?

like say, you somehow propel a flashlight to one half the speed of light, assuming it isn't tumbling of course and stays pointed straight ahead, is the light it emits traveling at 1.5 c or does it just change wavelength and not exceed c?

Since I'm about to pass out, I'll say this, and try to comeback to it with a real answer later.
Try to look up special relativity and speed of light in reference frames, and maybe that will help.
Short answer is "No, the light still travels at c." There is a lot of reasoning behind it, but if I tried to sound it out, I would be very confusing and not very helpful.
The wavelength should be shifted, yes.

something i've wondered that may sound stupid, but wouldn't the velocity of the location of the origin of a beam of light have something to do with the speed of the light itself?

like say, you somehow propel a flashlight to one half the speed of light, assuming it isn't tumbling of course and stays pointed straight ahead, is the light it emits traveling at 1.5 c or does it just change wavelength and not exceed c?

i wanna say something about this!

it's not a stupid question; it's pretty similar to what einstein asked himself (at age 16 :o)

basically he wondered "let's say i'm chasing a beam of light and i eventually catch up to it. when i look at it, does it look just like a standing wave? no wait, maxwell's equations don't allow for standing waves!"

i'm not gonna bother saying anything else because Nachtstier is wayyyy better qualified to answer

Science is constantly being rewritten and if this ends up being true a whole new world is going to open up.

09/23/2011 01:09 AMPosted by Marathel

Science is constantly being rewritten and if this ends up being true a whole new world is going to open up.

I'm not opposed to this turning out to be the case. It would be great because, as you said, it would be new physics, and allow us to gain further understanding to the complex nature of our universe. The same is true if we cannot find the Higgs.

The issue here is that this seems like something else is going on, specifically with the experiment or assumptions made by those conducting it. This kind of experiment has been conducted before without noticing this problem with neutrinos, and because of that, a lot of people are skeptical.


Edit: xkcd got a comic up: http://xkcd.com/955/

As to Relesa's post, I do recall having heard a discussion somewhere about statistical fluctuation of particles causing some to exceed c, but there was some workaround (like it's really just the group velocity, not the actual particle velocity that does... which is fine).
I'm also curious if this points to some kind of extra-vacuum medium that allows for higher speeds that the neutrinos have access too, but last I heard, universal-compactified extra dimensions were ruled out, so I'm not sure how to explain said new medium.

I'm curious if people here are all that familiar with the, "Holographic Universe Theory" at all.

What this theory finds in the case of electrons is that waves can form across a cloud of them. Could neutrinos functionally work in a similar fashion? The reason I ask is that things that are observed sometimes do not make sense, and there are outliers in the data that don't fit well into current scientific data sets and data points.

That the neutrinos may form a wave and actually speed themselves up slightly, pushing their speed beyond the speed of light, is not impossible. It just doesn't fit into the special relativity model by itself.

I'm trying to help make sense of this all; my point about things not being observed was more the point that, "just because we can't observe something, does not negate that it can occur and exist, absent an observer" (yes, in quantum physics this could get interesting if we can ever observe and accurately predict an occurrence).

Off to read that article here, too. I may be a layman overall, but ideas can help shape science, since theories must come from somewhere.

Unfortunately traveling at the actual speed of light is impossible under the E=MC^2 formula.

As the object approaches the speed of light the energy required to accelerate it becomes infinite. Therefore you never actually reach the speed of light.

Science Fiction is fun.

Fantasy is even better.