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If a report of particles traveling faster than the fastness of light turn out to be dead on target , it will rock the foundations of New physics — and perhaps even change the way scientist think about time travelling .
But do n’t discharge up the DeLorean just yet . physicist are skeptical that thetiny subatomic particles , call neutrino , really are get around the cosmic rule that nothing goes quicker than light . And even if they are , neutrino do n’t make the best vessel for sending signals to the past tense because they pass through average affair almost unaffected , interacting only weakly with the wider Earth . [ Countdown of Bizarre Subatomic Particles ]
If subatomic particles called neutrinos can go faster than the speed of light, as scientists reported Sept.22, it would require a rethinking of the basics of physics, including the possibility of time travel.
So you may be able to send neutrino back in time , but would anyone notice ? " If you ’re attempt to get the great unwashed ’s aid by bouncing neutrino off their head , you could hold back for quite for a while , " Seth Lloyd , a physicist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology , told LiveScience .
That has n’t halt physicists from guess the possibilities in a world where dissipated - than - light travel is possible . If the neutrino experiment is confirm , it open up the door to at least sending subject matter through time using those neutrino , physicists say . You might even be able to send message to " past you " with neutrinos , one physicist suggests . experience time backwards , once guess unsufferable , might be outside the realm of sci - fi , another imago . Of course , this is all predicated on the finding being true — and it raise thorny enquiry of how the universe would work if masses were capable to go back in time and , say , efface their own existence .
Physics shocker
The news program that European researchers had find neutrinos travelingfaster than lightbroke yesterday ( Sept. 22 ) , triggering both typical scientific skepticism and pure astonishment in the physic world . In an experiment that atomise neutrino from CERN in Geneva to the INFN Gran Sass Laboratory in Italy , scientists clocked the particle outrun light by 60 nanosecond over 453.6 miles ( 730 kilometer ) — a neck - and - cervix race to be sure . [ Infographic : See How Neutrino Experiment Works ]
According to Einstein ’s possibility of Special Relativity , neutrino should n’t even be able to match light speed , much less give way it . neutrino have ( very small ) mass , and as Einstein posited in his noted E = mc squared equation , mass is equal to energy . As something speeds up , its energy increases , too . Because energy is equivalent to mass , its mass increases . Now you ’ve got a heavier physical object , so you ’ve get to add even more energy to get it choke faster . Before you have intercourse it , you need " completely undue " amount of vigour to keep edge your object toward light speed , allege Harvard University physicist Gary Feldman .
" You keep accelerating but you just incrementally come near [ scant speed ] , so you have to bestow more and more energy to go quicker and faster , but it becomes less and less effective , " Feldman told LiveScience .
Some particles have been shown to transcend the f number of light when move around in a medium rather than a vacuum , but neutrino pass through the Earth as if it were a vacuum , so they should n’t ever be able tozip past light speed . The buzz in the purgative community is that they in all likelihood have n’t .
" Even though the experimenters have done a very measured problem and it ’s a very impressive paper … it was a very complicated analysis and there ’s always a possibility that there ’s just an error in what they did , " Feldman said .
One possible error could be in the reckoning the scientist used to sort out for the effect of the air in their experiment , Lloyd said . Light actually gets a chip bogged down when it is n’t in a vacuum , while neutrinos zip through the atmosphere without any force . It ’s potential that the CERN investigator miscalculated in correcting for the atmospherical effect and that neutrino are n’t actually snuff it quicker , but the visible radiation is just going a smidgen slower than they bring in .
If it ’s true …
But if the solution do hold , " it ’s major , it ’s humongous , it ’s the biggest thing in 100 days , " said Michio Kaku , a theoretic physicist at the City University of New York .
" You ’re blab out about a tidal wave hitting physic if it ’s true , " Kaku told LiveScience . " There are two rocks upon whichmodern physicsis base . One is quantum hypothesis and one is Einstein’s theory of relativity . If one of the pillars lessen , we ’re in abstruse difficulty . "
What does that entail fortime travel ? In theory , it might be more potential than scientists had opine . Einstein repoint out that time is relative : As you approach light pep pill , your experience of time is not the same as it is for the common people chug along at their common velocity . What feels like a second to you will feel like much longer to them . This idea , called " time dilatation , " spawned such sci - fi classic as 1968 ’s " Planet of the Apes , " in which what feels like 18 calendar month 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 barrier to approaching unclouded speed , much less founder it , but if you could , you could theoretically experience metre scat backward , Kaku said . Here ’s how it would play : As you come near 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 dumb in relation to you that it contain ( again , in relation to you ; citizenry in the outside world experience as if time is the same as always ) . So if you could push past that velocity terminus ad quem , the outside world would be so slow as to be be active backward in relative to you .
So far , this seems pretty much impossible , not least because some other side consequence of faster - than - lightness travel should let in reducing your system of weights and width to less than nothing , Kaku say . [ view : Can You Time Travel ? ]
If the neutrino are really going quicker than wanton , though , it might be possible to use them to communicate with the yesteryear , Lloyd said . You could station off a flying - than - lightness subject matter to someone moving at a rapid velocity with respect to you . They could then bounce the faster - than - light source message back , and it would go far before the sign you send to them .
One way to cerebrate of this is like a mirror , Lloyd said . You post a message to the mirror , and it reflects it back , but so speedily that " past you " is the one who receives it .
Stuck in time
But all of this is arguable if it ’s only neutrino that can be coaxed past the speed of brightness level , Lloyd said . Because they do n’t interact with much , your substance would likely go unnoticed by preceding generations . An April 13 , 1865 , monish to Abraham Lincoln not to go into Ford ’s Theater the next day would pass through the president like a ghost . [ Read:‘Time Traveler ' Spotted ? ]
Doing forth with Einstein ’s theory would also elaborate causality , the idea that things work each other in chronological rules of order . When you allow the past times , present and futurity to interact , " that gets all messed up , " Lloyd state , and youstart to get paradoxes . A classic is theGrandfather Paradox : What if you went back in time and spud your grandfather , preventing your own birth and thus preventing yourself from ever shooting your grandad ?
It ’s a headache , to say the least . And not all researcher are positive that the finding , even if true , would ultimately rescind the well - quiz , century - old Special Theory of Relativity that keeps things from getting so mussy .
" This consequence is very small , it ’s two voice in 100,000 , " Feldman said . " If this is truthful , what it means is that there is some aspect of the Special Theory of Relativity that ’s been look out over or not understood well , but I ca n’t imagine that it really overcome the Special Theory of Relativity . "
