September 24, 2011

Beyond Einstein

CERN's Dario Auterio
“Nothing can go faster than the speed of light.” That’s one of the very pillars of physics and Einstein’s theory of relativity (and one of the few things I can remember of my science studies in high school). But that’s what seems to have been rocked by new findings from the world’s largest physics lab, the CERN of Geneva, which stunned the world of science by announcing they had observed tiny particles known as neutrinos travelling slightly faster than light (see here and here).

Researchers themselves were so astonished by their findings that they spent months checking their data, without finding any errors that would disprove their claim, and cautiously invited the world to prove them wrong. Yet, presenting the findings to a packed and clearly skeptical auditorium at CERN on Friday, Italian scientist Dario Auterio said they were of “high statistical accuracy” and could not be explained by extraneous effects such as seismic tremors or moon phases.
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2 comments:

  1. Steven Dexter5:46 PM, September 24, 2011

    I'm convinced of the notion that art and lit create the universe. Science fiction has been having man travel faster than light for a long time. It's only a matter of time before it becomes our reality.

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  2. van der Merwe12:00 AM, September 25, 2011

    But CERN neutrinos DON'T “disprove” Einstein. “Even if this measurement holds up, it doesn’t really prove Einstein wrong about the speed of light being a cosmic speed limit, any more than Einstein proved Newton wrong about gravity, motion, light, etc. These revolutionary theories build on one another. Newton’s physics correctly explains most ordinary phenomena as we experience it, and Einstein’s relativity does the same for things moving at great speed.” See here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/achenblog/post/cern-neutrinos-dont-disprove-einstein/2011/09/23/gIQAmehHrK_blog.html

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