BF2S Forums Speed of Light Exceeded?

Superior Mind wrote:

Kmar wrote:

If true those particles are traveling backwards in time.. right?

blowing my mind dude

Heinrich Paes, a physicist at Dortmund University, has developed another theory that could explain the result. The neutrinos may be taking a shortcut through space-time, by travelling from Cern to Gran Sasso through extra dimensions. "That can make it look like a particle has gone faster than the speed of light when it hasn't," he said.

But Susan Cartwright, senior lecturer in particle astrophysics at Sheffield University, said: "Neutrino experimental results are not historically all that reliable, so the words 'don't hold your breath' do spring to mind when you hear very counter-intuitive results like this." .. read more

If a report of particles traveling faster than the speed of light turns out to be true, it will rock the foundations of modern physics — and perhaps even change the way scientists think about time travel.

But don't fire up the DeLorean just yet. Physicists are skeptical that the tiny subatomic particles, called neutrinos, really are breaking the cosmic rule that nothing goes faster than light. And even if they are, neutrinos don't make the best vessel for sending signals to the past because they pass through ordinary matter almost unaffected, interacting only weakly with the wider world. [Countdown of Bizarre Subatomic Particles]

So you may be able to send neutrinos back in time, but would anyone notice? "If you're trying to get people's attention by bouncing neutrinos off their head, you could wait for quite awhile," Seth Lloyd, a physicist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, told LiveScience.

That hasn't stopped physicists from imagining the possibilities in a world where faster-than-light travel is possible. If the neutrino experiment is confirmed, it opens the door to at least sending messages through time using those neutrinos, physicists say. You might even be able to send messages to "past you" with neutrinos, one physicist suggests. Experiencing time backwards, once thought impossible, might be outside the realm of sci-fi, another imagines. Of course, this is all predicated on the finding being true — and it raises thorny questions of how the universe would work if people were able to go back in time and, say, erase their own existence.

"You're talking about a tidal wave hitting physics if it's true," Kaku told LiveScience. "There are two rocks upon which modern physics is based. One is quantum theory and one is relativity. If one of the pillars falls, we're in deep trouble."

What does that mean for time travel? In theory, it might be more possible than scientists had thought. Einstein pointed out that time is relative: As you approach light speed, your experience of time is not the same as it is for the folks chugging along at their usual speed. What feels like a second to you will feel like much longer to them. This idea, called "time dilation," spawned such sci-fi classics as 1968's "Planet of the Apes," in which what feels like 18 months to Charleton Heston and his crew is enough time for gorillas, chimps and orangutans to evolve language and complex societies back on Earth. [Top 10 Scary Sci-Fi Series]

There are a lot of barriers to approaching light speed, much less breaking it, but if you could, you could theoretically experience time running backward, Kaku said. Here's how it would work: As you approach light speed, you might time goes slower in the outside world than it does for you. When you hit light speed, the outside world goes so slow in relation to you that it stops (again, in relation to you; people in the outside world feel as if time is the same as always). So if you could push past that speed limit, the outside world would be so slow as to be moving backward in relation to you.
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HITNRUNXX wrote:

My thoughts: Maybe going the speed of light doesn't actually have anything to do with time... I mean, seriously, if this were true, it debunks a theory that Physics have been based on for years. Why not debunk the time-lightspeed correlation also?

Seriously, as something approaches the speed of light, time slows down for it? What ridiculousness. Why only that speed? Why doesn't time get a microfraction slower when I am in a jet?

Hey Billy, you look exactly the same as last time I saw you.

Yeah, I know, I drove 88 m.p.h. on the way over...