[meteorite-list] ebay restriction on international auctions of meteorites? and faster than the speed of light neutrinos!
From: pshugar at messengersfromthecosmos.com <pshugar_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2011 18:46:22 -0700 Message-ID: <20110922184622.979558876a36f2d1b40acd6b9bcaf01e.78fbcc9939.wbe_at_email09.secureserver.net> Ok, Folks, If there is anything to this story, then everything we ever knew about Physics will now go out the window. You gotta love it!!!! Cutting edge!!!!!! I love a good physics problem. Right up my alley. I'm a BSEE so this will directly impact electricity and electronics. I wonder how much effect this will impact meteorite age determiniation and travel time from creation till they landed here on good ol earth. If a particle can travel faster than light, what happens to a group of particles? And these are just the first two questions!! Pete IMCA 1733 > -------- Original Message -------- > Subject: [meteorite-list] ebay restriction on international auctions of > meteorites? and faster than the speed of light neutrinos! > From: "JoshuaTreeMuseum" <joshuatreemuseum at embarqmail.com> > Date: Thu, September 22, 2011 7:29 pm > To: <meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com> > > > Meg is taking over as head honcho of Hewlett-Packard. I just was notified > by eBay today that as of October 1st no more mention of emails will be > allowed. They don't want any off eBay transactions taking place. > > Also, this is pretty cool: > > http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2011/sep/22/faster-than-light-particles-neutrinos?newsfeed=true > > Faster than light particles found, claim scientists > Particle physicists detect neutrinos travelling faster than light, a feat > forbidden by Einstein's theory of special relativity > > a.. > a.. b.. c.. reddit this > b.. Comments (80) > a.. Ian Sample, science correspondent > b.. guardian.co.uk, Thursday 22 September 2011 18.32 EDT > c.. Article history > > Neutrinos, like the ones above, have been detected travelling faster than > light, say particle physicists. Photograph: Dan Mccoy /Corbis > It is a concept that forms a cornerstone of our understanding of the > universe and the concept of time - nothing can travel faster than the speed > of light. > > But now it seems that researchers working in one of the world's largest > physics laboratories, under a mountain in central Italy, have recorded > particles travelling at a speed that is supposedly forbidden by Einstein's > theory of special relativity. > > Scientists at the Gran Sasso facility will unveil evidence on Friday that > raises the troubling possibility of a way to send information back in time, > blurring the line between past and present and wreaking havoc with the > fundamental principle of cause and effect. > > They will announce the result at a special seminar at Cern - the European > particle physics laboratory - timed to coincide with the publication of a > research paper describing the experiment. > > Researchers on the Opera (Oscillation Project with Emulsion-tRacking > Apparatus) experiment recorded the arrival times of ghostly subatomic > particles called neutrinos sent from Cern on a 730km journey through the > Earth to the Gran Sasso lab. > > The trip would take a beam of light 2.4 milliseconds to complete, but after > running the experiment for three years and timing the arrival of 15,000 > neutrinos, the scientists discovered that the particles arrived at Gran > Sasso sixty billionths of a second earlier, with an error margin of plus or > minus 10 billionths of a second. > > The measurement amounts to the neutrinos travelling faster than the speed of > light by a fraction of 20 parts per million. Since the speed of light is > 299,792,458 metres per second, the neutrinos were evidently travelling at > 299,798,454 metres per second. > > The result is so unlikely that even the research team is being cautious with > its interpretation. Physicists said they would be sceptical of the finding > until other laboratories confirmed the result. > > Antonio Ereditato, coordinator of the Opera collaboration, told the > Guardian: "We are very much astonished by this result, but a result is never > a discovery until other people confirm it. > > "When you get such a result you want to make sure you made no mistakes, that > there are no nasty things going on you didn't think of. We spent months and > months doing checks and we have not been able to find any errors. > > "If there is a problem, it must be a tough, nasty effect, because trivial > things we are clever enough to rule out." > > The Opera group said it hoped the physics community would scrutinise the > result and help uncover any flaws in the measurement, or verify it with > their own experiments. > > Subir Sarkar, head of particle theory at Oxford University, said: "If this > is proved to be true it would be a massive, massive event. It is something > nobody was expecting. > > "The constancy of the speed of light essentially underpins our understanding > of space and time and causality, which is the fact that cause comes before > effect. > > "Cause cannot come after effect and that is absolutely fundamental to our > construction of the physical universe. If we do not have causality, we are > buggered." > > The Opera experiment detects neutrinos as they strike 150,000 "bricks" of > photographic emulsion films interleaved with lead plates. The detector > weighs a total of 1300 tonnes. > > Despite the marginal increase on the speed of light observed by Ereditato's > team, the result is intriguing because its statistical significance, the > measure by which particle physics discoveries stand and fall, is so strong. > > Physicists can claim a discovery if the chances of their result being a > fluke of statistics are greater than five standard deviations, or less than > one in a few million. The Gran Sasso team's result is six standard > deviations. > > Ereditato said the team would not claim a discovery because the result was > so radical. "Whenever you touch something so fundamental, you have to be > much more prudent," he said. > > Alan Kostelecky, an expert in the possibility of faster-than-light processes > at Indiana University, said that while physicists would await confirmation > of the result, it was none the less exciting. > > "It's such a dramatic result it would be difficult to accept without others > replicating it, but there will be enormous interest in this," he told the > Guardian. > > One theory Kostelecky and his colleagues put forward in 1985 predicted that > neutrinos could travel faster than the speed of light by interacting with an > unknown field that lurks in the vacuum. > > "With this kind of background, it is not necessarily the case that the > limiting speed in nature is the speed of light," he said. "It might actually > be the speed of neutrinos and light goes more slowly." > > Neutrinos are mysterious particles. They have a minuscule mass, no electric > charge, and pass through almost any material as though it was not there. > > Kostelecky said that if the result was verified - a big if - it might pave > the way to a grand theory that marries gravity with quantum mechanics, a > puzzle that has defied physicists for nearly a century. > > "If this is confirmed, this is the first evidence for a crack in the > structure of physics as we know it that could provide a clue to constructing > such a unified theory," Kostelecky said. > > 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." > > Teams at two experiments known as T2K in Japan and MINOS near Chicago in the > US will now attempt to replicate the finding. The MINOS experiment saw hints > of neutrinos moving at faster than the speed of light in 2007 but has yet to > confirm them. > > > > ======================= > > Phil Whitmer > > > > > > ------------------------- > > > Hi Yinan, > > I didn't realize she came in that early in the game. > > So who do we blame? LOL > > Best regards, > > MikeG > > ______________________________________________ > Visit the Archives at http://www.meteoritecentral.com/mailing-list-archives.html > Meteorite-list mailing list > Meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com > http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list Received on Thu 22 Sep 2011 09:46:22 PM PDT |
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