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[Osmosis Jones]

The thing is though, the name itself is misleading. Everyone hears 'speed' and assumes that then it only matters when you have things going fast. It doesn't. Basic, basic things like electron energy levels (which govern the chemistry that we see every day, the chemistry that lets us see!) depend on c. The value for it is exceedingly well known. If it was different, life wouldn't exist, at least as we know it.

This isn't that; what it demonstrates is that neutrinos have some method of violating the speed limit, which should be impossible. It says a lot that one of the most sensible theories to explain this (beyond experimental error) is that neutrinos can effectively leave our universe temporarily.

It's unlikely btw that we will actually be able to harness this to travel FTL ourselves, as it seems to be neutrinos only (they don't really stick together). That said, FTL communication may be possible if this is true.

[kaijyuu]

Okay, so, I've got one question about this:
Is it possible that the "speed of light", as we know it, simply... isn't?

What if there IS a maximum speed, and all the things we believe about it hold, but for some reason light can't actually reach it, even in a vacuum?

And Neutrinos, for whatever reason, can either reach it or get closer.

What implications would that have on things? I mean, clearly we have situations where light travels, on average, slower than c - how did we come to decide THIS was the maximum we were seeking?

Here's why we know what C is.

Things accelerate linearly, at least from the perspective of the thing that's accelerating. So, if you're accelerating at 5m/s/s, you'll continue going 5m/s faster forever. (EDIT: I'm ignoring space constricting for the sake of simplicity; it's mathematically identical anyway)
However, from the perspective of an observer, you will eventually appear to be accelerating slower and slower. Soon enough, you look to be accelerating at 4m/s, then 3, then 2, etc.

Extrapolate, and you'll see that things will always appear to stop accelerating at C. That's why it's the "universal speed limit."

[Funk]

so he was right
“Light thinks it travels faster than anything but it is wrong. No matter how fast light travels, it finds the darkness has always got there first, and is waiting for it.”
 Terry Pratchett

[Jay]

the second implies the existence of a 'universal spacetime'.

Uh-huh.  I put it in quotes.

"Universal" = Observer, for all intents and purposes -- we're implying that this entire thing is being observed, by the fact that we're talking about it, so we're using the time relative to US (the observers) as the point of reference.
Universal = Universal

Even so, that doesn't make my statement less correct, it just means you're taking things too literally.

[TheBronzePickle]

Wouldn't breaking c be like breaking mach, but with light instead of sound?

When mach is broken, all of the sound created/reflected after the break hits any observer at the same moment.

If someone broke c, wouldn't that just mean that all of the light created/reflected after the break would hit an observer at the same moment (likely in a blinding flash, if they couldn't just see every point between the break and the moment of "impact"?)

[scriver]

Okay, so, I've got one question about this:
Is it possible that the "speed of light", as we know it, simply... isn't?

What if there IS a maximum speed, and all the things we believe about it hold, but for some reason light can't actually reach it, even in a vacuum?

And Neutrinos, for whatever reason, can either reach it or get closer.

What implications would that have on things? I mean, clearly we have situations where light travels, on average, slower than c - how did we come to decide THIS was the maximum we were seeking?

Here's why we know what C is.

Things accelerate linearly, at least from the perspective of the thing that's accelerating. So, if you're accelerating at 5m/s/s, you'll continue going 5m/s faster forever. (EDIT: I'm ignoring space constricting for the sake of simplicity; it's mathematically identical anyway)
However, from the perspective of an observer, you will eventually appear to be accelerating slower and slower. Soon enough, you look to be accelerating at 4m/s, then 3, then 2, etc.

Extrapolate, and you'll see that things will always appear to stop accelerating at C. That's why it's the "universal speed limit."

...Soo, basically like how we know what the absolute lowest temperature is by measuring the speed of the atom... parts... (Damn language not being sameular to mine) Except with acceleration?

[Osmosis Jones]

The official paper for the experiments is up

http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1109/1109.4897.pdf

I think the final paragraph of their conclusion is also a good point to post

Despite the large significance of the measurement reported here and the stability of the
analysis, the potentially great impact of the result motivates the continuation of our studies in
order to investigate possible still unknown systematic effects that could explain the observed
anomaly. We deliberately do not attempt any theoretical or phenomenological interpretation of
the results.

[LostCosmonaut]

Wouldn't breaking c be like breaking mach, but with light instead of sound?

When mach is broken, all of the sound created/reflected after the break hits any observer at the same moment.

If someone broke c, wouldn't that just mean that all of the light created/reflected after the break would hit an observer at the same moment (likely in a blinding flash, if they couldn't just see every point between the break and the moment of "impact"?)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherenkov_radiation

You're probably thinking of this. It is somewhat analogous to a sonic boom.

[Azkanan]

Picard: Warp 11, ensign. Engage.
Ensign: FFFFUUUUU...

[K41N]

The official paper for the experiments is up

http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1109/1109.4897.pdf

I think the final paragraph of their conclusion is also a good point to post

Can't open your link :-/ Do you have an alternative? :-)

[olemars]

http://arxiv.org/abs/1109.4897

Then use the PDF only link on the right.

[K41N]

I still get this Error:
Fatal Error
connect failed: Operation timed out. No response from server.

:-/

[Il Palazzo]

I still get this Error:
Fatal Error
connect failed: Operation timed out. No response from server.

:-/

It's just all the Trekkies trying to access the article crashed arXiv servers.

Probably never had this much traffic.

[klingon13524]

If you weren't azkaan, I'd think this was spam.

[Virex]

Wouldn't breaking c be like breaking mach, but with light instead of sound?

When mach is broken, all of the sound created/reflected after the break hits any observer at the same moment.

If someone broke c, wouldn't that just mean that all of the light created/reflected after the break would hit an observer at the same moment (likely in a blinding flash, if they couldn't just see every point between the break and the moment of "impact"?)

The sound barrier works like it does because as you speed up, you'll eventually force the air around you to move faster than the speed of sound, which causes the sonic boom. As such, the speed of sound is very dependent on the medium. If we were to stretch this analogy to the speed of light, the C-boom would not be because of the compression of the surrounding light (which would result in a flash) because light doesn't behave as a compressive ambient medium. Instead you'd compress space-time itself and the result would instead be something akin to a gravitational wave.