Video on Faster Than Light Neutrinos



There’s a common mistake that this is a problem for relativity but it is not. Relativity forbids is accelerating up to and past the speed of light but does not for bid particles that naturally travel faster than the speed of light. Such particles have been speculated about for decades under name tachyons.

The only real difficulty is that neutrinos have a small but real rest mass and so should not be traveling faster than the speed of light. In that case the issue is most likely with our understanding of neutrinos and relativity

Quantum Mechanics allows particles to skip part of space instantly and so could be clocked at faster than the speed of light while going sub-light through the space it actually goes through. This is the most likely explanation of this observation given calculations from India.  See in Faster Than Light Neutrinos Fl aw Found.

Faster than Light Neutrinos Flaw Found

Two Indian physicists have found serious a problem with the experimental observations that neutrinos went faster than Light. That problem is has to do with the fact that if the neutrinos has traveled faster than Light relativity shows that their energy would have actually been much lower than what was actually observed. This throws an interesting wrench in problem.

Interestingly there is a way of reconciling these results that is consistent with established physics, specifically Quantum Mechanics. That solution is that the CERN neutrinos did travel at sublight speeds but only through the space they actually went through and that the instantly skipped the rest of it making their average speed faster than light. Quantum Mechanics has several phenomenon like quantum tunneling that allow this to happen

CERN Traps Antimatter Atoms



Scientists have successfully produced and trapped Antimatter hydrogen. They have managed to keep it in a magnetic bottle. In the past the Antimatter hydrogen has managed to leak out and get annihilated. This is the first time that any degree of long term storage of antimatter atoms has been achieved.

The importance of this is that real long term storage of antimatter atoms is need if antimatter is ever going to be used as an energy source. While the math of a real warp drive is now in place, like it’s Star Trek counter part only antimatter has any hope of providing the needed energy and long term storage of antimatter atoms beings this a  step closer.

Why Faster than Light Neutrinos are not a Problem for Relativity.

When CERN reported measuring neutrinos going faster than the speed of light it created speculation that it showed a problem withSpecial Relativity. The measurement was about 20 parts per million faster than light so since the speed of light is 299,792,458 m/s the neutrinos were going 6 km/s faster than light which could easily be an experimental error.

If it is confirmed it would still not be a problem for Special Relativity since not traveling at or faster than the speed of light only applies to particles with a real non zero rest mass. A particle like a photon that has a zero rest mass travels at the speed of light. Particles that travel faster than light have been speculated for years under the name tachyons. Tachyons would have a negative imaginary rest mass giving it a real non zero mass at speeds above the speed of light. It would however be incapable of being decelerated to the speed of light below it.

Furthermore quantum effects such as quantum tunneling provided another way around the light barrier by allowing particles to instantly skip over an area of space without actually going through it while traveling sub light through the space it does go through thus not violating Special Relativity.