- Neutrinos - Earth shattering???

Continuation of the last post - below


Particles found to break speed of light
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/09/22/us-science-light-idUSTRE78L4FH20110922


submitted: 23 Sep.'11 at 9:58am (PDT)

I submitted a comment yesterday but apparently it is not being posted - perhaps they thought I was making 'light' of such an 'Earth-shattering' experiment.

(you may read my comment at: cicblog.com/comments.html
"- Little Known or Understood Exception to the Speed of Light")


To dispel such impressions I would like to add:

If I recall my Prof from my 1st year Physics class (UofT '72 - that's 1972) explaining that Einstein's Special Theory implied that it would take an infinite amount of energy to raise an object (with mass) to the speed of light. This, of course, is a simple application of the Lorentz factor:

γ = (1 − v2/c2)−1/2 (i.e. power -1/2)

Vis.:
e=γmc2

where m is the rest mass.

He went on to point out, quite rightly, that this inferred prohibition was based on the assumption that the object had 'rest mass' and was going less than the speed of light and so did not apply to either objects without 'rest mass' or objects with 'rest mass' but whose speed was not less than the speed of light - obviously since light travels at the speed of light and has mass (apparently). If I recall he mentioned something about neutrinos - but that was a long time ago and I would have to review my notes to confirm.

Basically, the mass equation above has a singularity at v=c and as we know, in physics it can not be assumed that the theory extends to this point or beyond.

As we also know this equation has only been verified for speeds less than the speed of light and only within experimental accuracy. It is meaningless to the theory to say it has been verified for speeds up to .9999999c due to the general principle in Physics (and life generally: a miss is as near as a mile - i.e. you give me a degree of accuracy and I am confident that I could find - well I used to be able to do that kind of thing anyway - an equation that will approximate the Lorentz equation to within existing experimental accuracies but that does not have the speed of light as a singularity)

It seems to me that what is Earth-shattering about this experiment is not the neutrinos - which as we 'know' (ha ha ha, little joke) do not shatter Earth - is that the technology of measurements has advanced to such a degree that they have the technical ability to measure these events and of such short periods of time. It reminds me of the Michelson- Morley experiment in the late 1800's that concluded that the speed of light was constant, which of course set everything off. One must always be skeptical of the conclusion that the speed of light is constant, of course, but the fact that they were able to make such measurements was absolutely 'Earth-shattering', at the time.

Personally, I am not convinced that neutrino's are no more than a figment of our imaginations but then, in the immortal words of the Sage himself:
“Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand.”
Albert Einstein

Lloyd MacILquham cicblog.com/comments.html