Well if Einstein is wrong, than Modern Physics will need to be changed. Which is a good thing but it also means work.
Btw, my jaw literally dropped when I read the article. Still can't believe it... Unless other labs confirm it , I won't take CERN's claim as a verdict.
Last edited by EngStud : 09-23-2011 at 12:05 AM.
09-23-2011 at 12:07 AM
#17
tyrant
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Originally Posted by Misspolitics
Glad I'm studying political science
lol never thought I'd hear someone say that......jk
09-23-2011 at 12:18 AM
#18
Scarecrow
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Even if it's true, the awesome thing about the scientific community (the ones that still have heads that didn't explode from sheer WTF-ness after this) is that it is always willing to accept new empirical evidence and build on it!
I'd like to see it:
a) Reproduced under strictly defined conditions
b) Quadruple checked
c) Possibly (if it is possible) done at a different facility
Keep in mind that CERN is not claiming anything. They know it will be (and has already been) sensationalized in the news so they're playing it safe. But hell, if it's true then almost all of the physics we know will have to be reasserted.
The IAU defines a planet as a celestial body:
-is in orbit around the Sun
-is round in shape (a result of it's mass and thus it's size)
-has "cleared the neighbourhood" around its orbit
A dwarf planet is one that:
-is in orbit around the Sun (so cannot be a satellite)
-is round or close to round in shape
-has NOT "cleared the neighbourhood" around its orbit
Pluto is a body in the Kuiper Belt (it's a KBO), so it shares it's orbit with lots of other KBO's. Also, it's not the largest.
Alright? Planet is a planet. Dwarf planet is a dwarf planet, not a type of planet. It's a celestial body, yes. Pluto is a dwarf planet, yes. Shut up. Yes.
EDIT: Btw that definition only stands for our solar system. So back to how Einstein was a wrongling please.
I know the definition's solid, its just the sentimental value, lol. I wouldn't be so mad about it if Eris took over Pluto's old planet slot...
Besides, Science does all kinds of stupid things for the sake of history. Half the units we use are named from some old technique (mmHg, for example).
09-23-2011 at 12:28 PM
#23
Misspolitics
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lol never thought I'd hear someone say that......jk
I swear to god if you guys spread out to youtube and 4chan and websites like that, you would literally be the most academically correct trolls ever, and put them to shame...
I don't know whether to hate you or to applaud your scientific (but useless) knowledge.
GENEVA (AP) -- A pillar of physics - that nothing can go faster than the speed of light - appears to be smashed by an oddball subatomic particle that has apparently made a giant end run around Albert Einstein's theories.
Scientists at the world's largest physics lab said Thursday they have clocked neutrinos traveling faster than light. That's something that according to Einstein's 1905 special theory of relativity - the famous E (equals) mc2 equation - just doesn't happen.
"The feeling that most people have is this can't be right, this can't be real," said James Gillies, a spokesman for the European Organization for Nuclear Research. The organization, known as CERN, hosted part of the experiment, which is unrelated to the massive $10 billion Large Hadron Collider also located at the site.
Gillies told The Associated Press that the readings have so astounded researchers that they are asking others to independently verify the measurements before claiming an actual discovery.
"They are inviting the broader physics community to look at what they've done and really scrutinize it in great detail, and ideally for someone elsewhere in the world to repeat the measurements," he said Thursday.
Scientists at the competing Fermilab in Chicago have promised to start such work immediately.
"It's a shock," said Fermilab head theoretician Stephen Parke, who was not part of the research in Geneva. "It's going to cause us problems, no doubt about that - if it's true."
The Chicago team had similar faster-than-light results in 2007, but those came with a giant margin of error that undercut its scientific significance.
Other outside scientists expressed skepticism at CERN's claim that the neutrinos - one of the strangest well-known particles in physics - were observed smashing past the cosmic speed barrier of 186,282 miles per second (299,792 kilometers per second).
University of Maryland physics department chairman Drew Baden called it "a flying carpet," something that was too fantastic to be believable.
CERN says a neutrino beam fired from a particle accelerator near Geneva to a lab 454 miles (730 kilometers) away in Italy traveled 60 nanoseconds faster than the speed of light. Scientists calculated the margin of error at just 10 nanoseconds, making the difference statistically significant. But given the enormous implications of the find, they still spent months checking and rechecking their results to make sure there was no flaws in the experiment.
"We have not found any instrumental effect that could explain the result of the measurement," said Antonio Ereditato, a physicist at the University of Bern, Switzerland, who was involved in the experiment known as OPERA.
The researchers are now looking to the United States and Japan to confirm the results.
A similar neutrino experiment at Fermilab near Chicago would be capable of running the tests, said Stavros Katsanevas, the deputy director of France's National Institute for Nuclear and Particle Physics Research. The institute collaborated with Italy's Gran Sasso National Laboratory for the experiment at CERN.
Katsanevas said help could also come from the T2K experiment in Japan, though that is currently on hold after the country's devastating March 11 earthquake and tsunami.
Scientists agree if the results are confirmed, that it would force a fundamental rethink of the laws of nature.
Einstein's special relativity theory that says energy equals mass times the speed of light squared underlies "pretty much everything in modern physics," said John Ellis, a theoretical physicist at CERN who was not involved in the experiment. "It has worked perfectly up until now."
He cautioned that the neutrino researchers would have to explain why similar results weren't detected before.
"This would be such a sensational discovery if it were true that one has to treat it extremely carefully," said Ellis.
People are gonna be too mind****ed and busy trying to justify x amount of school to x number of people to be focusing on new discoveries after that. (not indefinitely, but you know what I mean)
Sorry, but they might as well "oh shit, we were wrong about evolution this whole time too!"
It's cool as hell but the shitstorm that'll come from it...
(e.g. that time when Pluto was no longer considered a planet.)
I agree. Unfortunately, that will be the lay approach to this.
However, amidst scientists who aren't arrogantly pushing their own beliefs and truly care about the science, this will be a beautiful time to be an intellectual.
I know the definition's solid, its just the sentimental value, lol. I wouldn't be so mad about it if Eris took over Pluto's old planet slot...
Besides, Science does all kinds of stupid things for the sake of history. Half the units we use are named from some old technique (mmHg, for example).
Science doesn't do anything. We do it, (not me but other folks involved).
Personally, I'm skeptical. Physicists will now have the figure out questions like why ligh exhibits certain properties if its speed is not the cosmic limit. All of Quantum physics will have to be reviewed.
And a heads up to those that are going to think physicists are going to debate this calmy : They won't. Just like other major physics debate, the physics community will be split over this. Debating is good for scientific advencement, but in the physics community it gets pretty ugly.
Science doesn't do anything. We do it, (not me but other folks involved).
Seriously. I get so ****ing annoyed when people attribute science as the cause for everything. Science isn't a phenomenon, it's a term given to a particular form of study. A study that we carry out.
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