Particles travelling faster than light

From here:

An international team of scientists said on Thursday they had recorded sub-atomic particles traveling faster than light — a finding that could overturn one of Einstein’s long-accepted fundamental laws of the universe.

Antonio Ereditato, spokesman for the researchers, told Reuters that measurements taken over three years showed neutrinos pumped from CERN near Geneva to Gran Sasso in Italy had arrived 60 nanoseconds quicker than light would have done.

“We have high confidence in our results. We have checked and rechecked for anything that could have distorted our measurements but we found nothing,” he said. “We now want colleagues to check them independently.”

Goodbye Einstein, welcome Star Trek warp drive, time travel and really fast Internet speeds.

Science is always changing: some things remain constant:

O Lord, our Lord,
how majestic is your name in all the earth!
You have set your glory above the heavens.
Out of the mouth of babies and infants,
you have established strength because of your foes,
to still the enemy and the avenger.

When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars, which you have set in place,
what is man that you are mindful of him,
and the son of man that you care for him? Ps 8

 

 

Einstein was right

From here:Add an Image

It’s taken a century but scientists have finally prove that Albert Einstein was right – time really does past more quickly if you stand on a step ladder.

In a bizarre experiment using the most accurate atomic clocks ever invented, researchers showed that clocks run faster if they are raised by just 12 inches.

However, anyone hoping that a lifetime living in a basement is the secret to longevity will be disappointed.

The effect is so small that it would add just 90 billionths of a second to a 79 year life span.

The extraordinary experiment – published today in the respected journal Science – demonstrates one of the strangest consequences of Einstein’s theories of relativity.

Einstein’s work famously showed that time is relative.  In 1907 his General Theory of Relativity showed that clocks run more quickly at higher altitudes because they experience a weaker gravitational force than clocks on the surface of the Earth.

It also means that your head ages more quickly than your feet, that people living on the top floor of a tower block age more quickly than those on the first floor – and that time passes more slowly for people living at sea level than it does for those on mountains.

Or maybe not: my head is about 25 but my feet and the rest of me are…. well, older.