Monday 24 October 2011

Today's controversy

Neutrinos have been discovered travelling faster than the speed of light. Was Einstein wrong? No, not in this case anyway. C = the speed of light in a vacuum. There never is a vacuum even in deep space – how deep is space, stupid expression, space stretches to infinity, or back on itself in every direction. Quantum theory suggests that positron / electron pairs are popping into existence and then cancelling each other out all the time so there is always something in a vacuum, quantum froth.
 This something will slow particles to less than ‘the speed of light ‘ depending on their mass. Light has a wave / particle duality. If you have an observer then they will be ‘seen’ as the quantum particle equivalent of the wave which is packets of light called photons. Photons must have mass because they have energy because they are always moving - it is a non question to ask, 'what is the mass of a photon at rest?', so they will be slowed by particles in a vacuum. Neutrinos will be the same in that they will be slowed by any particles in their way. So, if neutrinos are observed to be travelling faster than ‘ the speed of light’, it just means that their mass is less than that of photons. Einstein has not been mocked. He was probably playing dice with god at the time.

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