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[Starver]

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

It's been a while since I've seen any TNG/read the technical manuals/discussed this with one particularly fine example of the Trekker oevre...  They were on the revised "Warp 10 equals infinite speed" scale, weren't they?  (Whereas TOS, especially in STIV:tVH still had a continual logarithmic thing...)



Also, I'm pretty much assuming that they've ruled out that they're overestimating the speed of the "we've sent a neutrino your way!" messaging system, right?  While compensating for slow-down in the medium carrying the signal, gravitationally-induced relativistic effects, overlaying the effects of spinward/counter-spinward direction of the Earth, even buffering/latching behaviour in the microelectronics of the transceivers involved meaning it's the second (or later) electron/photon of the signal that heralds the message, etc, etc.  (And if they're synchronising with GPS clocks, and accounting for the mutual delays inherent in that system, accounting for certain atmospheric differences perhaps from the differing altitudes.  And if they moved an atomic clock from one site to the other, account for the accelerating/decelerating frame of reference as well as all the previous.)  They probably did, but there are a load of things that need checking, many of which I know I've forgotten to even think of, even while dragging in some pretty inconsequential other examples.

[olemars]

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

It's been a while since I've seen any TNG/read the technical manuals/discussed this with one particularly fine example of the Trekker oevre...  They were on the revised "Warp 10 equals infinite speed" scale, weren't they?  (Whereas TOS, especially in STIV:tVH still had a continual logarithmic thing...)

According to canon, if you pass warp 10 you turn into a horny prehistoric lizard.

Also, I'm pretty much assuming that they've ruled out that they're overestimating the speed of the "we've sent a neutrino your way!" messaging system, right?  While compensating for slow-down in the medium carrying the signal, gravitationally-induced relativistic effects, overlaying the effects of spinward/counter-spinward direction of the Earth, even buffering/latching behaviour in the microelectronics of the transceivers involved meaning it's the second (or later) electron/photon of the signal that heralds the message, etc, etc.  (And if they're synchronising with GPS clocks, and accounting for the mutual delays inherent in that system, accounting for certain atmospheric differences perhaps from the differing altitudes.  And if they moved an atomic clock from one site to the other, account for the accelerating/decelerating frame of reference as well as all the previous.)  They probably did, but there are a load of things that need checking, many of which I know I've forgotten to even think of, even while dragging in some pretty inconsequential other examples.

A large portion of their article is devoted to uncertainty analysis of the experimental results, and it looks like they've been quite thorough. The whole purpose of announcing their results now is probably to find out if there's something they have forgotten. I bet the scientists behind this experiment have pretty mixed feelings right now. The co-author list is pretty long, safety in numbers I guess (and distribution of blame).

[Aqizzar]

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

It's been a while since I've seen any TNG/read the technical manuals/discussed this with one particularly fine example of the Trekker oevre...  They were on the revised "Warp 10 equals infinite speed" scale, weren't they?  (Whereas TOS, especially in STIV:tVH still had a continual logarithmic thing...)

It changed within TNG even.  I remember in the last episode, the hospital ship travels at "Warp 13" and no one bats an eye.  Maybe they got tired of sticking extra 9's after the 9.99, and decided to just reorder the numbers on the speedometer.

[RedKing]

The obvious solution now is to build a neutrino detector on the moon. If the speed differential was 20 nanoseconds over a ~750km distance, it should be far more noticeable (and thus more easily removed from the realm of measurement error) over a distance of 384,000km.

[612DwarfAvenue]

Whatever hits the hardest gets hurt the least, and something with rest mass going the speed of light has A LOT (ie, infinite) energy propelling it. It'll obliterate anything it touches and be pretty much undamaged itself.

I don't know, hitting a cow with your car tends to cause more damage to the car.

In any case, i hope this turns out to be real. The possibilities of FTL aside, it'll be good because it'll make the other scientists realize "Holy derp, turns out we don't know for a fact how the universe works, we should do some more actual research instead of sitting on our assess thinking the current information is true".

[Virex]

You don't know many scientists, do you?

The obvious solution now is to build a neutrino detector on the moon. If the speed differential was 20 nanoseconds over a ~750km distance, it should be far more noticeable (and thus more easily removed from the realm of measurement error) over a distance of 384,000km.

Except that detecting neutrinos is really fucking hard. They tend to fly through everything without even noticing. A neutrino detector is basically an insulated vat of water with the volume of a sky scraper and they occasionally catch a glimpse of a really bright neutron source such as the sun or a nearby nuclear reactor. If you want to detect neutrinos from a terrestrial source on the moon you either need to build a HUGE detector (on the moon of all places) or you need to step up the neutrino production on Earth (good luck producing more neutrinos than the guys at CERN).

[Urist Imiknorris]

And suddenly xkcd.

[RedKing]

New jobs program: Once they figure out if this is legit or not, and what it means for c, they're gonna need a few million people to go back and double-check the math on every physics paper ever. There you go, train all these unemployed people in higher math and particle physics. You solve the science problem and the economic problem in one fell swoop, and wind up with a much better-educated workforce to boot.

You're welcome. 

[Urist Imiknorris]

And I (physics major) will be poised to enter a workforce that suddenly has need of physicists, so I win too.

[Heliman]

I'm going to have to ask my anxious chemistry teacher about this and see if he flips his shit. We've been all about quantum numbers the past week.

[612DwarfAvenue]

New jobs program: Once they figure out if this is legit or not, and what it means for c, they're gonna need a few million people to go back and double-check the math on every physics paper ever. There you go, train all these unemployed people in higher math and particle physics. You solve the science problem and the economic problem in one fell swoop, and wind up with a much better-educated workforce to boot.

You're welcome. 

This.

[RedKing]

Question for the more physics-minded folks out there:

Breaking c seems relatively simple in a relative frame. You send one observer at 0.55c in one direction. You send another observer at 0.55c in the opposite direction. To each observer's relative frame, the other is moving at 1.1c, correct?

For one, I always wondered what the hell that would look like. Would they be seeing an after-image? Would it be like a Doppler shift from hell?
Second, I haven't read the paper, but did they account in any way for the Earth's orbital/rotational motion and Sol's movement? Maybe neutrinos operate somehow so as to be outside the relative observer frame? If that even makes sense....

[612DwarfAvenue]

They'd have to make pretty damn sure they get every single thing possible accounted for, so i'd say yes. They're double-checking everything just in case, but they get paid to not fuck it up like that.

[G-Flex]

Question for the more physics-minded folks out there:

Breaking c seems relatively simple in a relative frame. You send one observer at 0.55c in one direction. You send another observer at 0.55c in the opposite direction. To each observer's relative frame, the other is moving at 1.1c, correct?

Consider time dilation and spatial contraction and all that, that is almost certainly accounted for. It's probably an often-asked question.

[scriver]

Question for the more physics-minded folks out there:

Breaking c seems relatively simple in a relative frame. You send one observer at 0.55c in one direction. You send another observer at 0.55c in the opposite direction. To each observer's relative frame, the other is moving at 1.1c, correct?

For one, I always wondered what the hell that would look like. Would they be seeing an after-image? Would it be like a Doppler shift from hell?

Wouldn't the one observer X appear to the other Y as not having left the starting point until just after Y stopped?
...Wait, did you mean sending them away from each other or against each other? Because I was thinking away.