[Dkavtbek]

Looking past the attention-grabbing title, it seems to me that the really strange, science-fictiony sounding developments coming out of various laboratory's in the last few years is getting wilder and wilder and wilder. I won't even go into the possible faster than light thing going on at CERN!

http://io9.com/5873410/breakthrough-...light-and-time

Forgetting that cloak of invisibility — how about a device that hides you in the very fabric of time? New research published in Nature reveals that scientists have successfully hidden an object in both space and time — even if for only for 40 picoseconds.

Rather than bending light around the object, their technique creates a temporal hole in light beams where an event can be hidden. The technique relies on what's known as a split-time lens to create a temporal hole.

A beam of light is pushed through the lens, which speeds up the travel of the fast moving blue light, and slows down the comparatively sluggish red, leaving a gap in the middle — a gap ripe for exploitation.

The light is recombined on the other side, and for a window of trillionths of a second, whatever goes on in that gap is undetectable. Whatever's in the gap should interact with the light passing through, but it simply...doesn't. The travelling light beam emerges on the other end of the lens unscathed and untouched, completely oblivious to what happened in that undetected picosecond gap.

Say whut?

[Filmania]

cool stuff. it seems a bit useless right now, but as technology gets better I am sure they will exploit it more.

as for the faster than light at cern, I still thing the whole thing is a big error that the scientists made. Personal opinion as to what they did wrong was that they relied on the clocks in the gps satellites to time the particles travel. I dont know the exact numbers, but I do know that due to the whole relativity thing their clocks actually work slower than clocks on earth would. they have to sync the clocks with earth based time everyday or the clocks lose something like 6 minutes a day. I read most of the paper they released, and understood enough to get very confused in the end, but still I dont see how they cant see the flaw in the design of the experiment. I also dont know that they took into account the fact that the particles were moving in an east bound direction while traveling from cern to italy, which due to the rotation of the earth would have caused the particles to travel farther than looking at the distance on a map.

not to mention that if they used a gps to calculate the distance and the time of travel, which I understand they did, that the particles were traveling through the earth, not across the surface of the earth. So unless they release more information on the exact methodology of the experiment who know how many mistakes they could have made. Thats not to say that I believe that the speed of light is the absolute speed limit in the universe, I just dont think this experiment proves anything other than the guys at cern are too smart, and a little stupid at the same time.

[Trientoriciom]

In 1995 someone hacked the gibson.

In 2012 someone hacked the universe.

[AndyScouchek]

cool stuff. it seems a bit useless right now, but as technology gets better I am sure they will exploit it more.

as for the faster than light at cern, I still thing the whole thing is a big error that the scientists made. Personal opinion as to what they did wrong was that they relied on the clocks in the gps satellites to time the particles travel. I dont know the exact numbers, but I do know that due to the whole relativity thing their clocks actually work slower than clocks on earth would. they have to sync the clocks with earth based time everyday or the clocks lose something like 6 minutes a day. I read most of the paper they released, and understood enough to get very confused in the end, but still I dont see how they cant see the flaw in the design of the experiment. I also dont know that they took into account the fact that the particles were moving in an east bound direction while traveling from cern to italy, which due to the rotation of the earth would have caused the particles to travel farther than looking at the distance on a map.

not to mention that if they used a gps to calculate the distance and the time of travel, which I understand they did, that the particles were traveling through the earth, not across the surface of the earth. So unless they release more information on the exact methodology of the experiment who know how many mistakes they could have made. Thats not to say that I believe that the speed of light is the absolute speed limit in the universe, I just dont think this experiment proves anything other than the guys at cern are too smart, and a little stupid at the same time.

My understanding was that they did compensate for other affects along the lines of what you mentioned and still came up with a discrepancy beyond the margin of error.

It was also noted that the discrepancy remained constant through multiple attempts.....

Still could be an error, but the whole reason for releasing the findings was so that they could be double checked. In the interim, I find it almost scarey and a lot exciting that no multiple screams of "Bullshit!!" have been heard yet from the scientific community.

[markphata]

In 1995 someone hacked the gibson.

In 2012 someone hacked the universe.

Did you seriously just make a reference to the movie Hackers?

[hernkingAnank]

Did you seriously just make a reference to the movie Hackers?

Hackers was an OK movie, only cuz Angelina Jolie was beginning to be hot

[Derrida]

Cern Experiment excludes one error in Faster-than-light finding.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/1...n_1101151.html

GENEVA — The chances have risen that Einstein was wrong about a fundamental law of the universe.

Scientists at the world's biggest physics lab said Friday they have ruled out one possible error that could have distorted their startling measurements that appeared to show particles traveling faster than light.

Many physicists reacted with skepticism in September when measurements by French and Italian researchers seemed to show subatomic neutrino particles breaking what Nobel Prize-winning physicist Albert Einstein considered the ultimate speed barrier.

The European Organization for Nuclear Research said more precise testing has now confirmed the accuracy of at least one part of the experiment.

"One key test was to repeat the measurement with very short beam pulses," the Geneva-based organization, known by its French acronym CERN, said in a statement.

The test allowed scientists to check if the starting time for the neutrinos was being measured correctly before they were fired 454 miles (730 kilometers) underground from Geneva to a lab in Italy.

The results matched those from the previous test, "ruling out one potential source of systematic error," said CERN.

Still, scientists stressed that only independent measurements by labs elsewhere would allow them to declare that the results of their experiment were a genuine finding.

"A measurement so delicate and carrying a profound implication on physics requires an extraordinary level of scrutiny," said Fernando Ferroni, president of Italian Institute for Nuclear Physics. "The positive outcome of the test makes us more confident in the result, although a final word can only be said by analogous measurements performed elsewhere in the world."

According to Einstein's 1905 special theory of relativity, nothing is meant to be able to go faster than the speed of light – 186,282 miles per second (299,792 kilometers per second).

But the researchers said in September that their neutrinos traveled 60 nanoseconds faster, when the margin of error in their experiment allowed for just 10 nanoseconds. A nanosecond is one-billionth of a second.

[scewDeasp]

Finally, a technology with real applications for pornography. I will be able to fap in peace!

[Hpdovoxm]

so if i turn my bedside lamp of and on so that theres a gap between light beems I can hide in the lampshade ?

[paydayloanfasters]

Awww man. When i think about the possible things they'll be doing in a hundred or two years time, it makes me sad knowing i wont be here to see it.

[Amoniustauns]

but what we have seen in the last 35 year (short time) are amazing

[dyestymum]

Did you seriously just make a reference to the movie Hackers?

Don't hate.

[SimSlim]

Finally, a technology with real applications for pornography. I will be able to fap in public!

No need to thank me.

[anfuckinggs]

cool stuff. it seems a bit useless right now, but as technology gets better I am sure they will exploit it more.

as for the faster than light at cern, I still thing the whole thing is a big error that the scientists made. Personal opinion as to what they did wrong was that they relied on the clocks in the gps satellites to time the particles travel. I dont know the exact numbers, but I do know that due to the whole relativity thing their clocks actually work slower than clocks on earth would. they have to sync the clocks with earth based time everyday or the clocks lose something like 6 minutes a day. I read most of the paper they released, and understood enough to get very confused in the end, but still I dont see how they cant see the flaw in the design of the experiment. I also dont know that they took into account the fact that the particles were moving in an east bound direction while traveling from cern to italy, which due to the rotation of the earth would have caused the particles to travel farther than looking at the distance on a map.

not to mention that if they used a gps to calculate the distance and the time of travel, which I understand they did, that the particles were traveling through the earth, not across the surface of the earth. So unless they release more information on the exact methodology of the experiment who know how many mistakes they could have made. Thats not to say that I believe that the speed of light is the absolute speed limit in the universe, I just dont think this experiment proves anything other than the guys at cern are too smart, and a little stupid at the same time.

This post tells me why you aren't currently working at CERN [thumbup]

[intifatry]

Did you seriously just make a reference to the movie Hackers?

says the one who got the reference

[RCQDnMp5]

Finally, a technology with real applications for pornography. I will be able to fap in peace!

It hides you, but does it block sound?

Can you just imagine going for a walk and hearing 'fap fap fap" as you walk along the sandy beach with hot bikini girls tanning?

[Aluback]

This post tells me why you aren't currently working at CERN [thumbup]

I never claimed to be a physicist, though I do read a lot of books on theoretical physics. I am actually an electrician who recently became a stay at home dad. Still if they did overlook any of those things it wouldnt be the first time somebody at one of these super colliders thought they had made a major breakthrough only to realize it was sheer stupidity in the end.