Einstein Wrong About the Speed of Light?

One should always be careful about wacky claims made by fringe loonies. And when a foundational "truth" that has been the basis for modern physics for the last 100 years is called into question, one is right to be just a little skeptical. Still, CERN scientists are not really fringe loonies. This could get very interesting, very fast.

The Telegraph:

Speed of light 'broken' at CERN, scientists claim

It was Albert Einstein, no less, who proposed more than 100 years ago that nothing could travel faster than the speed of light.

But last night it emerged that the man who laid the foundations for the laws of nature may have been wrong.

The science world was left in shock when workers at the world’s largest physics lab announced they had recorded subatomic particles travelling faster than the speed of light

If the findings are proven to be accurate, they would overturn one of the pillars of the Standard Model of physics, which explains the way the universe and everything within it works.

Einstein’s theory of special relativity, proposed in 1905, states that nothing in the universe can travel faster than the speed of light in a vacuum. But researchers at the CERN lab near Geneva claim they have recorded neutrinos, a type of tiny particle, travelling faster than the barrier of 186,282 miles (299,792 kilometers) per second.

The results have so astounded researchers that American and Japanese scientists have been asked to verify the results before they are confirmed as a discovery.

Antonio Ereditato, spokesman for the researchers, said: “We have high confidence in our results. We have checked and rechecked for anything that could have distorted our measurements but we found nothing.”

Scientists agree if the results are confirmed, that it would force a fundamental rethink of the laws of physics.

John Ellis, a theoretical physicist, said Einstein’s theory underlies “pretty much everything in modern physics”.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/8783011/Speed-of-light-broken-at-CERN-scientists-claim.html

Science Meets Theology

 

"There is a kind of religion in science…. Every event can be explained in a rational way as the product of some previous event…. [but] there is no First Cause. This religious faith of the scientist is violated by the discovery that the world had a beginning… as a product of forces or circumstances he cannot discover. When that happens, the scientist has lost control. If he really examined the implications, he would be traumatized. As usual when faced with trauma, the mind reacts by ignoring the implications – in science this is known as ‘refusing to speculate’ – or trivializing the origin of the world by calling if the Big Bang, as if the universe were a firecracker. Consider the enormity of the problem. Science has proven that the universe exploded into being at a certain moment. It asks, What cause produced this effect? Who or what put the matter and energy into the universe? And science cannot answer these questions.
"

“For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountains of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries.”

                                                               - Robert Jastrow, God and the Astronomers.

"In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth" (Genesis 1:1).

"The Singularity is Near"

TIME February 11, 2011 magazine has intriguing, and terrifying cover article on the moment when computer intelligence eclipses human intelligence.

"Within 30 years, we will have the means to create superhuman intelligence. Shortly after, the human era will be ended"  - Vernor Vinge in The Coming Technological Singularity.
                                             To read click here:

http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,2048138,00.html