Faster than light explained

Read this first human if you haven't heard the news, before watching.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/09/23/us-science-light-idUSTRE78L4FH20110923

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Transcript
Faster than light, is it possible, and if it is, what are the implications?
If you haven't heard physicists at CERN have clocked neutrinos going 60 nanoseconds faster than light. And this contradicts Einstein's special theory of relativity, that nothing travels faster than light.
You know what's ironic, the experiment was conducted with the help of GPS, which itself actually works due to the theory of relativity. But I'll explain that later.
And I wasn't going to make any videos for a few days as I have exams all next week, but there has been lot of misinformation going around as I heard couple of other commentators talk about this so I felt compelled to make this video. But I have keep this video REALLY short.
So what is so extraordinary about this?
Well before I get into that let me give you some background information.
First off what is light? Light is made up of photons and they travel as both waves and as particles. Now photons as particles have no mass. Remember that, that is very important.
And what are neutrinos? Neutrinos are fundamental sub atomic particles that make up the universe. There are 3 types of neutrinos, but we don't need to get into that. The sun actually gives out trillions of neutrinos every second. Matter of fact, if it is sunlight outside, you are being hit by millions of neutrinos, that are passing right through you as they will travel right through the earth. Neutrinos don't interact with matter. But neutrinos DO have mass. Now remember that too.
So now we can come back to the question, what is so astonishing about neutrinos traveling faster than light?
Well Einstein theorized that time and speed is relative except for light, as speed of light in vacuum is constant and it will be the same for every observer in the universe.
So why can't anything travel faster than light?
It's exactly because it doesn't have mass. If you accelerate something WITH mass, and as you approach the speed of light it will take more and more energy to accelerate it. The result will be that you can get infinitely close to the speed of light, but never approach it.
And that is what this find is challenging, something with mass is able to travel faster than light.

So what are the implications, IF this is found to be true? And it is a big IF btw.
Well first off there are theories than can explain this abnormality. Extra dimensions are hypothesized by many other theories. So it is possible that there exists a 4th dimension through which the neutrino traveled to get to it's destination faster.

Couple of other things I have heard really talked about is time travel and causality. I'll explain them both.
Time travel -- As I explained before both speed and time are relative. So as you travel fast and approach the speed of light, time slows down for you as compared to someone that's not traveling so fast. And as you approach the speed of light and go faster than the speed of light, you travel back in time.
So can you time travel? Probably not. Even if you were able to send neutrinos back in time, as I explained before, they don't interact with matter. But we will see.
And the second is causality. Action always precedes reaction. That is if I drop a glass, it breaks after I drop it, not before. So now if neutrinos can travel back in time, it could reverse causality.
But you could kind of rule it out, as neutrinos fired in the experiment aren't arriving before they were fired, they are only arriving faster than light.

So what do I think? Well it could be that their data is wrong, but then again they have been working on this for 3 years.
Moreover special theory of relativity has been tested very well and it has held up. As I mentioned before GPS itself works due to it, as time moves at a different rate in space than on earth. So most likely the theory is going to be revised to fit this.

But I would like to end with this -- Science has always been revised. And this falls at the heart of science. It doesn't matter what your theory is when you go and conduct experiments, and if the data does not conform with your theory, then your theory is WRONG. The laws of science aren't laws at all, they are observations. Science is simply observation.
And I think this is great time to be alive. Curiosity is what I think, fundamentally makes us human. To stand at the edge of the known and stare into the unknown....

Category:

Education

Tags:

• faster
• than
• light
• neutrino
• tachyons

[wolters1953]

Your "chain of thoughts" is based on one single presumption : light consists of foton's (without mass) , and neutrino's  (with mass) . That presumption is wrong .

[H1TMANactual]

@wolters1953 It's spelled photons buddy, and no it's not a presumption.

[FuckinSIayer]

if neutrinos dont interact with matter then how were they detected?

[H1TMANactual]

@FuckinSIayer There are different methods, but usually with heavy water. They do interact but very weakly. One of the analogy I have heard is that if you pass a neutrino through a block of lead a light year long, it will it will hit one atom. So for all intents and purposes, you can say that neutrinos don't interact with matter.

[H1TMANactual]

@Gobln15 1. You have to take a lot of physics in engineering. General/special relativity and quantum mechanics is covered in University physics I.

2. I have played gears since gears 1. When I am playing any game, including gears, I am usually on my lazboy recliner with a beer. I don't play to impress you or anyone else for that matter. What I am saying is I don't give a shit if you think I am bad at gears and this is not a gameplay channel.

[ryanstr1996]

All the stupid comments make me laugh. People complaining that you're bad at gears, then the ones that tell you you dont know what you're talking about. People have pretty big balls over the Internet haha.

[Volcilord]

If the speed of light slows as electron rest mass increases since the Big Bang this will explain red shift. The half life of Th-232 matches the age of the galaxy, and the half life of U-238 matches the age of the Sun to allow proton-proton nuclear fusion by stars. By approaching nuclear reactor critical mass sound waves but not light by magic or miracle can teleport to break the speed of light. A magic trick could make appear a battery operated device but not light directly.

[DisentDesign]

This is very interesting but you did mention a few times that Neutrinos don't affect matter, however recent studies have shown that Neutrinos from the sun do cause alterations in nuclear decay rate on earth.

[superkevincao]

what is stopping us from creating away in the future to continuaslly accelerate a spacecraft faster and faster

[Antdizle2121]

the sawed off ruined this video for me..

[TheProdigalMindset]

It hasn't been verified yet. That's the great thing about science is that you have to submit your findings for peer review, replication and verification.