Particle Physics: Cherenkov Radiation

Fermilab physicist, Dr. Marcel Demarteau explains that when particles travel faster than the speed of light they emit Cherenkov radiation.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• quantum
• mechanics
• particle
• physics
• fermilab
• cherenkov
• radiation
• light

[Gunner3210]

@Fleetfox10 Nothing can travel faster than the speed of light IN VACUUM. You thought wrong in that you missed the "in vacuum" part. If you had correctly thought in the beginning that "nothing travels faster than the speed of light in vacuum", you'd still be right.

[Gunner3210]

@mananmater Speed of light is nothing like the speed of sound.

[Gunner3210]

@sayedeng100 Actually, all massless particles travel at the speed of light. So your statement is only partly correct.

[YFLOInternational]

Wrong

[davidedfernandes]

@vjanik just one small remark to your text (although i agree with what you say) is that light rays travel at "c" only when the surrounding medium is vacuum. In other cases they travel at c/n, where n is refractive index of the material in cause. But so far it is common sense that light speed in vacuum "c" is a constant, although there are new theories regarding the varying speed of light that may, if proved, state otherwise

[vjanik]

@mananmater E=mc2 The problem is that c is constant in all reference frames. Regardless of your speed relative to other bodies, light rays still pass you at c, so you can never catch up to them no matter how fast you fly.

Its not comparable to the speed of sound which you are using as an example.

[sayedeng100]

Nothing can go faster or equal to the spead of light in the vacuum

[mananmater]

Guys you can go faster than the speed of light, nothing is new under the sun, its very possible, we said the same thing about sound, if you traveled faster than sound you would be permenently deaf or you would turn into nothing or that we would get so heavy we would weigh a mountain, this has been said before by you skeptics, heck when we break the speed of light there will be a new limit to what we cant" break, one fatal thing humanity does is put limits on themselves.

[Fleetfox10]

its crazy what you learn.i always thought nothing in the known universe could go faster han the speed of light..now theres a particle that can..interesting

[phukemonster]

why is it the cerenkov radiation falls in a blue color, not green or red in the eletromagnetic spectrum.... what theory, the photon theory or the wave theory on the behavior of light...