We have broken the speed of light

[Madic74]

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/24/science/24speed.html

How mad are all the relativity people now?

[Lasercookie]

"We have broken the speed of light" is misleading thread title. They are still not sure if the result is correct.

I don't understand why they would not be mad at all.

There's a huge chance that there was a flaw in their experiment.
If it is a correct result - than I don't believe there would be any physicist in the world that would be annoyed in the slightest bit.
It'd mean more work to be done and something new and exciting to be discovered.

The NY Times article seems better than most, but I'd also be wary of the media blowing things out of proportion and making misleading statements. I'd stick with the CERN Press Release website. I think I covered most of what CERN has released so far in my earlier post.

http://public.web.cern.ch/press/pressreleases/Releases2011/PR19.11E.html - Press release.
http://static.arxiv.org/pdf/1109.4897.pdf - Preprint paper
http://cdsweb.cern.ch/record/1384486/ - Recording of seminar (does not seem to be working currently, here is interview with the guy on youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oggF3MjMU_k)

[Madic74]

Not any more misleading than any tabloid wanting people to buy their paper.
lol, you must be new to the internet.
I understand why you're acting sceptical, but are we not allowed to get excited about this?
If they do discover that there was an error, then fine, we move on. But in the meantime let us discuss the implications.
Regardless, it is a pretty significant thing if they DO prove that neutrinos can break the elusive value of c.
Special relativity would have to be edited drastically, or a new model would have to be determined.

[Lasercookie]

I am extremely excited about this. I never said anything that would suggest that I am not excited.

What I am saying is that we shouldn't be stating something as fact when it is not certain.

This is an extremely new result. Not only was it released in that context, it was released with the fact that it is a new result and that it needs to be checked thoroughly. That is why I have linked to all those official CERN pages - take the information straight from the horse's mouth.

edit: You must be new to concept of science

[pi]

Is there any practical significance to this discovery?

I'm still waiting for time travel

[Lasercookie]

some parts of physics would change , if that thesis is really true then it might change physics in some way regarding to relativity, but then there's many sceptics out there whom may not believe its true, it will take a bit of time to confirm that concept is really true I'd imagined.

The "thesis" (http://arxiv.org/abs/1109.4897 - preprint paper) is pretty sceptical itself. It doesn't discuss implications at all, it only discusses how they measured the result and the investigations in trying to find a flaw in their methodogy. Since it's preprint, this hasn't undergone peer review yet. Also they called for the need for scrutiny themselves.

I know I am kind of being a party pooper here, but I don't accept this result until it is proven to not be experimental error.

[Shark 774]

No way is it true. File it under experimental error.

[Russ]

Peer review will probably kill the theory regardless, but pencil in a bunch more tests despite that.

Is there any practical significance to this discovery?

I'm still waiting for time travel

Time travel is possible already

[Kiro Kompiro]

Is there any practical significance to this discovery?

I'm still waiting for time travel

If it is true, then from my recent reading it is very significant.  It would mean for example that the law of cause and effect would be affected (events happen before the event that makes the first event happen has happened), time travel to the past would be possible,(and the implication for that is that paradoxes could occur ie go back in time, kill your father before you are born, how could you then have existed in the future so that you could go back in  time kill your father before you were born). 

I don't think this is possible: for eg why hasn't anyone come to visit us from the future?

[xZero]

Why would they want to visit us from the future? And for paradox it can be solved if you think of it this way, every time you create a paradox, you create a new parallel universe so it doesn't affect your own.

[Russ]

^^
Yeah that's the classic dodge argument

I don't think this is possible: for eg why hasn't anyone come to visit us from the future?

I will leave this to the theoretical physicists to explain properly, but my understanding is that whilst we can definitely visit the past, we cannot bend time to reach a time period BEFORE the creation of the first "time machine". Time travel in this fashion also involves linking black and white holes, so I wouldn't go hoping for it to be invented any time soon

[Kiro Kompiro]

Why would they want to visit us from the future?

To get hold of a sports almanac and win a lot of bets.

But seriously why wouldn't they?

And for paradox it can be solved if you think of it this way, every time you create a paradox, you create a new parallel universe so it doesn't affect your own.

I've read some articles in Scientific American about the existence of parallel universes.  On this I find Steven Weinberg's piont of view the most compelling: "Thats not science, but more like philosophy"