Faster than the speed of light?: Scientists re-test experiment that stunned scientifi

[Drew Wilson]

Faster than the speed of light?: Scientists re-test experiment that stunned scientific world

PARIS — Scientists who threw down the gauntlet to physics by reporting particles that broke the universe’s speed limit said on Friday they were revisiting their contested experiment.

“The new test began two or three days ago,” said Stavros Kasavenas, deputy head of France’s National Institute for Nuclear Physics and Particle Physics, also called the IN2P3.

“The criticism is that the results we had were a statistical quirk. The test should help (us) address this,” he told AFP.

On September 23, the team stunned particle physicists by saying they had measured neutrinos that travelled around six kilometres per second faster than the velocity of light, determined by Einstein to be the highest speed possible.

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The future is here!

[RACKnRAIL]

Beam me the fuck up, Scotty!! If this is in fact true, this is very cool.

[carpefile]

Sure now they come up with this. Just in time for them to come up with this; http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/s...-of-space.html I hear they plan to test fire it Dec. 13 2012....... Eh, probably just a coincidence.

[YWD67]

Strange that you should post that story Drew, I read this one earlier this afternoon.

Reality Check For Starships

Last month's "100-Year Starship" conference, backed by NASA and the Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, threw a huge spotlight on the idea of sending spacecraft far beyond our solar system — but how realistic is that idea? Check out what one of the world's top experts on the subject has to say on "Virtually Speaking Science."
Marc Millis, the researcher behind NASA's Breakthrough Propulsion Physics Project and the nonprofit Tau Zero Foundation, was my guest on tonight's show, which is available as a podcast via BlogTalkRadio and iTunes.

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Millis estimates that it'll take 200 years to get in position for the first missions to stars beyond our own, but he says there are lots of small steps we can take starting tomorrow to "chip away" at the challenge. Experiments with solar sails have already started, and Millis says the next step there is to figure out the business case for more ambitious light-powered trips.

There are all sorts of potential breakthroughs to consider: Could the recent reports of faster-than-light neutrinos point to a way to break the speed limit set by special relativity? Could laser experiments let scientists warp the fabric of space-time on a small scale? "What creates the properties of an inertial frame, and how does that relate to space travel?" Millis asked

Science

[RACKnRAIL]

That was an interesting story about the super laser.