Was Einstein Wrong?

[moi621 (imported)]

Remember:

Einstein used imagination first.

Then came the math.

If this street car

approaches the speed of light,

then. . .

on his way to a dull job at the Swiss Patent office.



Would you rather be a neutrino or a higgs boson and why,

[Elizabeth (imported)]

Ok, we are going to need to go back to a few basics here. First, this is not the first time an anomaly has shown up like this. I predict Einstein's discovery of light speed being the absolute speed limit through space time will be upheld. Secondly, the idea that neutrinos have no mass has been dropped. Neutrino's come in three "flavours" as it were and all were originally believed to be discreet. However new observations have shown that neutrinos actually change "flavours" as they propogate through space. This requires time. In order for neutrinos to experience time, they must have some small mass, otherwise they could not experience the time it would take for them to oscillate between "flavours". As for the Higgs boson, it is looking more and more like it does not exist. The physicists at the LHC will have the data before the end of the year, but it has not been found in the likely energies predicted by the Standard Model. There are only a few places left they can check for it and it is looking more and more like the Standard Model is wrong. Wouldn't that be exciting?

http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/47283

This is not the first time that a neutrino experiment has glimpsed superluminal speeds. In 2007 the MINOS experiment in the US looked at 473 neutrons that travelled from Fermilab near Chicago to a detector in northern Minnesota. MINOS physicists reported speeds similar to that seen by OPERA, but their experimental uncertainties were much larger. According to the OPERA researchers, their measurement of the neutrino velocity is 10 times better than previous neutrino accelerator experiments.

Elizabeth

[Cainanite (imported)]

Would you rather be a neutrino or a higgs boson and why,

The Higgs Boson is like a cop that makes everyone slow down, and obey the rules.

The neutrino is like a kid in a sports car, flipping the cop the bird as he blows past him on the highway.

As the cop seems to think it would be too much work to catch the kid in the hot-rod, and it is much easier for him to just sip coffee as he is parked behind his shrub and catch easier prey as they go by...

...I'd vote to be a neutrino. Seems like the neutrinos are having all the fun.

[Cainanite (imported)]

Elizabeth,

I agree with you on the basics of what you've said.

In my thought experiment, I may have mis-worded. I didn't mean to say a neutrino has no mass at all, but can shed its mass, faster than it can accumulate, in a way that separates it from other known particles. It essentially reflects entropy to the particles around it. It would still be bound by the laws of general relativity (though with additions) by what percentage it can overcome the speed of light. It would have a different upper limit than other standard particles. It would still experience time, as it moves.

I believe I've also explained a plausible reason for why the Higgs Boson cannot be found by any method in this universe, but still exist nonetheless.

If the standard model is proven wrong, it would indeed be very exciting. I rub my hands at the thought of it. So many new ideas to test. So much new thinking to be had.

Who doesn't love a good mystery?

[Slammr (imported)]

...

If the standard model is proven wrong, it would indeed be very exciting. I rub my hands at the thought of it. So many new ideas to test. So much new thinking to be had.

Who doesn't love a good mystery?

Before Einstein, Physicists were predicting that they would soon know all there is to know about physics. Now, the more we learn, the more we realize we don't know. The Universe seems much more mysterious than it did 15 or 20 years ago, and if neutrinos do move

[quote="Slammr (imported)" tim

e=1316999100]
faster than the speed of light,
[/quote]
it's much more mysterious t

han it was last week.

I do have this concern, though:

The other reason that many are voicing skepticism are past measurements of neutrino speeds obtained from supernovae. Since these are so incredibly distant, the small signal seen here would be huge—the neutrinos should arrive roughly four years ahead of the photons. Other experime

nts on Earth also suggested insignificant differences.

[erikboy (imported)]

Probably it is some kind of phenomena if not a measurement error. Of the top of my head I know at least 2 similar phenomena.

1. Cherenkov radiation - neutrons travel faster than light in the water.

2. Neutrinos reach earth before electromagnetic radiation when distant star explosions happen.

[moi621 (imported)]

Let's bring in String Theory

What about the "strings" within them all?

Or are they really there?

Do you think Higgs Bosons believe in String Theory? If a H-B could believe.

Would a Neutrino care (if it could)? Or about as much as we care about our atomic components.

More potassium? Getting enough calcium every day?

It won't matter when your strings start to fray.

Moi

Quantum Philosopher

[Dave (imported)]

Jeeepers, really jeepers and YIKES!!!

I'm not that good on string theory. In fact, I'm pathetic on string theory.

I could more readily tell you how Nancy Grace's bosom exposure affect affairs of state then explain the Higg's Boson means to string theory.

[Cainanite (imported)]

We know an incredibly small amount about our universe. It remains quite possible that we can't actually know everything about how our universe functions.

We are approaching a tenuous time in science where what we think we know is becoming possible to test. If what we think we know is proven wrong, we may have to go back to the drawing board, and start from scratch. We may have to go back to Newton and scratch our way up a different path. What that means for Einstein, and the General Theory of Relativity is uncertain. (though it is a good bet he'll come out fine.)

A lot of scientists are on edge, and preparing to have to fight to re-prove theories they've already offered as valid, when the testing proves them wrong. Years of work and many a scientist's livelihoods will be on the line. A lot of scientists have built their careers around the current understanding of how our universe works. What happens to them when all that goes away?

The Higgs Boson still can't be found, even with the use of the Large Hadron Collider. Neutrinos are clocked

traveling [quote="Slammr (imported)" time=1

316999100]
faster than the speed of light.
[/quote]
A lot of work building the theories of Quantum Mechanics might have been proven to be for naught.

I worry for the bigger picture of our world. This is the first time a consensus of the scientific community has come under question in this magnitude since the question of; Does the Sun revolve around the Earth, or the other way round? What will politicians and their pundits cling to, when someone says, "The Science is in."??? How easy will it be for them to undermine solid science, when the scientific community fails on such a dramatic level?

In truth, I don't think it will come to that. With all the minds working on the problems at hand, there will no doubt be new theories and new science come into play, with barely a blink in the interim.

The whole thing is exciting, but scary too. I just hope that all the scientists are prepared for the mental throw-down that might be to come. Who knows what we'll be talking about scientifically a year from now?

[Slammr (imported)]

If neutrinos are fly[qu

ote="Slammr (imported)" time=13

17111960]
ing [quote="Slammr (imported)" tim
[/quote]
e=1316999100]
faster than the speed of light,
[/quote]
while it causes

problems for the theory of relativity,

it doesn't mean the t-o-r no longer has value. The t-o-r (theory of relativity) replaced Newton's theory of gravity, but we still use Newton's theory for most everyday things here on Earth. We only have to rely on Einstein when things are moving very fast or they are in fields of high gravity. The t-o-r came about because certain observations didn't match Newton's theory of gravity. If neutrinos do exceed the speed of light, someone will have to come up with a new theory to explain why, but the t-o-r will still function in day to day calculations, to synchronize gps signals, for instance, as it has.

I think this is a most exciting time. Only a few years ago, they were arguing whether or not black holes existed. Our view of the Universe has drastically changed in the last ten years or so. It hasn't been that long ago that we discovered an extrasolar planets. Now, they seem to find new ones every day. A hundred years ago, it was thought the Milky Way comprised the whole universe. Now, we're talking about infinite multiverses.