That’s why they call me Mr Fahrenheit

Oh dear. It would appear those boffins at CERN have maybe gone and broken the speed of light, except they don’t believe they really have and have farmed the whole thing out to the scientific community for verification.

The fools. They’d have been better running it by the BBC comment board for analysis. In the scientists’ experiments, neutrinos arrived at their destination from their source faster than the speed of light and they are stumped as to why.  Thankfully the BBC spotted this, enabled comments on the story and the helpful suggestions flooded in- had they even considered that the speed of light would be slower when it hit some rocks?  

There are several schools of thought. The speed of light is of course notoriously fickle, so Alison and N94 question the medium the speed of light is travelling in:

“318. Alison
speed of light in vacuum verses speed of light in a medium ( rock ) could explain the results .”

“195.N94
couldnt they check by sending a Neutrino and some light down the same route at the same time and see which one got there first, just to see if it was an error?”

Both good points. It stands to reason that if you fire a number six at some rock it would slow it down to a five as it meets resistance and they should really try that neutrino race idea- just to see if the speed of light is correct or if light actually moves faster/slower than the speed of light.

It’s an idea picked up by fentot and Graham Lyons who writes:

“331. fentot
Maybe we should conclude our value for the speed of light was wrong by a few billionths of a second !!”

“301. Graham Lyons
A few billionths of a second?? Surely 'official' measurements of the speed of light from one year to the next vary by that much. A particle exceeding SoL by 5 or 10% would make me sit up.”

Maybe we should recalculate fentot- doesn’t sound a lot and it ‘s not like it’d change the way we look at our understanding of the universe or anything. And that’s more like it Graham- sticking it to the man with all his “official” figures and fighting back with some Street Physics – seasonal variations in the speed of light, corrupt officials changing the speed of light to suit their grotty ends and any variation of less than 10% can fuck right off- bigger fish to fry, my friend, bigger fish to fry.

Rowald takes it in a spiritual direction :

“300. rowald
Only God can exceed this speed because he can answer our prayers immediately anywhere at any time. Sub atomic particles are not God”

But are they Playing God? The arrogance of neutrinos is well documented, as it that of scientists, eh Pietr8?

“289. pietr8
The advantage of being neither mathematician or physicist is I can speak from a great deal of ignorance.

It has always seemed to me that given enough fuel there is no limit to acceleration and that the top speed must therefore be infinite.

But if speed is relative to something, eg point of departure, that introduces an unnecessary complication into the logic.”

Ah yes, Instinctive Physics- Street Physics’ emotional sister. However, I like the use of “therefore”, which renders it true, especially the part about the unnecessary context COMPLICATING EVERYTHING. I personally am all about unfettered acceleration .Free from start points, end points, limited fuel and the physical limits of the environment to unfettered acceleration.

Meanwhile, Adeel and Al-canfor rail against the blind dogma of science

“116.Al-canfor
So how exactly did Einstein come up with that speed of light limit? Is this something deducted from his theories or it's a supposition the whole corpus of relativity is build upon? In other words, the fact that the speed of light is the limit, is a dogma or there is a rationale behind it?”

Quite. Defend yourself Einstein. Do you actually have any maths supporting your so-called “theory” or is this yet more dogma from the “E=MC2” brigade with their unfounded faith?

As I thought- Your silence on the matter speaks volumes.

“13. adeel
I think physics should try to have an open mind to accept new or different things”

Maybe, adeel. Maybe they could even come up with a name for this process and its associated method? But hang on a second- David has some disturbing news:

“183. David
A non scientific idea.
To measure something travielling at the speed of light, the measuring eqipment must work exactly at or above that speed. Problem solved I think, the equipment isn't fast enough.”

Ah. I had no idea! I thought it was possible to fire a beam of light at a point and measure the time it takes to traverse that distance. What a fool I’ve been, and how in hell is CERN going to accelerate Brian Cox to the speed of light so he can use his measuring equipment? Particularly if he were carrying a torch as James Pullen explains:

140. James Pullan
the speed of light is relative to the observer - if you were travelling at the speed of light (if it were possible) and carrying a lit torch, the light from the torch would travel away from you at the speed of light. This is a paradox, because the light from the torch must be travelling at twice the speed of light relative to a stationary observer. we have much to learn about the fundamentals.

We do indeed. With your very first sentence you illustrate the nature of the problem, and if only spacetime were relative you could explain it to me. But what if, also, the problem was science itself?

“60. rideforever
Mysticism ...400,000 years ...did not destroy the planet

Science :.....200 years ....... might destroy the planet

The game is not over yet, but there is a clear leader !”

It’s a good point, in fact I understand that “It wasn’t me, it was the science” is now admissible as a defence in court. But after all that mysticism, who is it that can bring us back to earth with a bump? Over to you, Neverwas:

“152. Neverwas
I'm shocked: I'd expected most comments to point the finger of blame at climate change.”

I bet you say that to all the comments boards Neverwas, but if you reference Alison’s point above you’d know that the Big Freeze we’re due owing to carbon taxes will slow the speed of light as a result of all the icicles.

The whole thing leaves me hungry and exhausted and I'm no closer to understanding the problem. Whilst I figure it out using a calculator, some grease paper and a stopwatch my assistants have been kind enough to create a pictorial representation of the advanced mathematics involved, to further the public understanding of science: