Monday, February 6, 2012

Faster than Light Neutrinos revisited

Faster than Light Neutrinos revisited

When CERN reported neutrinos that were goping faster than the speed of light it istantly started speculation that it showed a problem with Special Relativity. However even these results are confirmed it would still does not pose a problem for Special Relativity since in is only particles with a real non zero rest mass that are not able to travel at or faster than the speed of light only applies to. Zero rest mass particle like a photon only travels at the speed of light. Particles that travel faster than
light called tachyons. have a negative imaginary rest mass which gives themt a real non zero mass at speeds above the speed of light. However they aew not capable of decelerating to the speed of light or below it.

Quantum Mechanics provided another possibility and that is that the neutrinos did travel at sub_light speeds through the space they went through but instanly skippedover the
rest of the distance making their average speed faster than light. Quantum Mechanics has several phenomenons like quantum tunneling that allow this to happen. If confirmed this would be strong confirmation of instantaneous quantum phenomenon.

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