This is a huge freaking deal.

This potentially changes, without a stitch of exaggeration, everything. If this is true almost everything in the theoretical physics textbooks is completely wrong. Hell, if this is what it looks like, this is as big a moment in physics as when we first split the atom.

Thoughts?

No, it simply can't be right.
They can't beat Einstein, right?

Because damn, this is a big deal.

Relativity has been disproven.

But he was right in many stuff.

Still, it's just so wierd hearing this. Like, I've always heard that the speed of light is the max limit for speed in the universe, and now there is a possibility that there exist particles that move faster.

[citation needed]


Not AFAIK. People have proposed theories for variable c / g / planck's constant but these were all without proof, and in many cases, easy to prove false, since c has implications in gravity waves whose effects from millions of years ago are easy enough to observe IIRC.

That's different. If spacetime is expanding, then a particle(or galaxy) can appear to exceed c, but it's only the expansion of spacetime that's causing this. in other words:


Again, you're getting it wrong. Lots of things can exceed the speed of light in a medium, but nothing that has real mass can exceed c as per E=mc^2 (except for virtual photons, and non-information-bearing particles). A neutrino has real mass, and if E=mc^2 is true, cannot exceed c. Except that these one apparently did.


My (inexpert) guess is that 90% of theoretical physics relies on E = mc^2 being true. It is not a 'tiny bit of the theory of relativity', it is the foundation. If E = mc^2 is false, Lorentz invariance is potentially false, which undermines quantum physics, the Standard Model of particle physics, and general relativity.


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*I'm no expert physicist. This entire post is IIRC and AFAIK.

wait... c in flux due to the space-time expanding?

Does this mean the universe expands faster than c?

Because if it's true you said that there are galaxies whose light will never reach us, and light goes at c, this would mean that the universe expands at c or more.

But there's also the possibility that the universe expands at almost-c speed, and the light from the galaxy just haven't reached us yet all those years...

And what about the Muon that lived longer when it reaches almost-c speeds?

Quick definition for clarity's sake:
c = the speed of light in a vacuum = 299 792 458 m/s


No, and Yes. c is constant (see my responses to Nonsequitorian above and below) but the universe can and does expand faster than c.


Here. There's no evidence for this, in fact, the evidence goes the complete other way. In fact, we're so sure c is constant that we've based the official measurement for a meter off of it.

It's very well documented that the speed of light in a medium is slower than the speed of light in a vacuum. It is easy to exceed the speed of light in a medium (in fact, neutrinos do this all the time). However, if E=mc^2 holds true, then it is impossible for a particle with positive mass to exceed c, the speed of light in a vacuum. CERN's neutrinos moving through a medium exceeded the speed of light in a vacuum. In other words, the neutrinos traveled 760(?)km with a total average speed greater than c, which is 299 792 458 m/s.

Haha ♥♥♥♥ you light. We finally beat your speedy ass. I look forward to never being able to take advantage of these developments, since I'll be dead and (hopefully, if my family follows my funeral plans) residing at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean after being shot out of a cannon.

So now we just need to figure out how to work this into macroscopic scale FTL travel.
Or how to become neutrinos long enough to get somewhere.

This may a big deal....BUT we don't even have AT light speed technologies expect particle accelerators and the like, what do we need FTL for?

Also, citations (other than the OP) deserves more educational and organizational resources, Wikipedia is not authoritative enough.

The internet is a whole lot smarter if you treat wikipedia as a source index rather than use the summary of the sources as knowledge. Also, that's not how technology works.

There are approximately equal number of serious errors per article on Wikipedia and The Encyclopaedia Britannica.
EDIT: lol paywall

Also the point of this ins't (immediately) FTL travel. The point is that if we figure out what we've got wrong, we might finally be able to unify gravity, and get a working grand unified theory. From there, you get (potentially) cold fusion, etc, etc, etc.

And what you see in many Sci-Fi and futuristic games could become real (Well, it depends, but still).

This isn't new news to me, you guys ever hear of the theoretical Tachyon particle

btw if it did go faster than light that means allot of theories based on the light cone is wrong which means that paradoxes are possible and we can send ourselves a message in the past