Half a croissant, on a plate, with a sign in front of it saying '50c'
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Been There, Don't Do That

Short messages to the past
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Now that some evidence has appeared for FTL, time (pun intended) to capitalize by sending some messages to the past, to avoid some really dumb mistakes, and to make some new ones
theircompetitor, Sep 23 2011

FTL Evidence for Neutrinos http://www.guardian...rinos?newsfeed=true
[theircompetitor, Sep 23 2011]

Evidence for non-ftl neutrinos http://io9.com/5843...utrinos-not-so-fast
Yeah, this still isn't a scientific paper, but he makes some logical arguments. [DIYMatt, Sep 23 2011]

Those neutrinos came from her cellphone http://www.youtube....watch?v=HhA6cxtncgY
[theircompetitor, Sep 24 2011]

[link]






       First of all, "send a message to the past" is not a new idea. I think they did it in a movie once.   

       Second, Neutrinos possibly traveling FTL =/= time travel. What you need is a method of manipulating space-time. Of course, the math says this can be done but if you succeeded there would be some causality paradoxes resulting in a tear in space-time and God would probably have to come down from heaven and slap you.   

       Finally, The Guardian? Really? I could not find a single *reputable news source for these "FTL Neutrinos". Wouldn't they be called tachyons?
DIYMatt, Sep 23 2011
  

       If the effect were caused by being in a gravity well then that could explain the lack of precession from the supernova.   

       Don't they teach anything at university these days ?
FlyingToaster, Sep 23 2011
  

       Wouldn't the gravity well have an equal effect on the non-FTL particles, too? The neutrinos would still arrive earlier if they were moving faster than everything else.   

       I was mostly focussing on the part of the article reminding us that under special relativity objects with mass cannot reach the speed of light. Therefore, these neutrinos would have to have negative mass exceed it, and a particle with negative mass would be impossible to detect on any current equipment.
DIYMatt, Sep 23 2011
  

       I was thinking that light would be effectively slower in a gravity well than in deep space, and neutrinos might be immune to spacetime stretching for some reason.   

       So light took a longer curved path and the neutrinos didn't... or ramblings to that effect.
FlyingToaster, Sep 23 2011
  

       // Don't they teach anything at university these days ? //   

       Analysis of a statistically significant* sample of graduates from the 2011 academic year tend to indicate that the principal skills imparted by University education seem to be, in no particular order, "Drinking cheap lager out of cans", "Listening to loud music", "Laughing hysterically at in-jokes that aren't funny even when they've been explained", and "Communicating in grunts".   

       It is also apparent that Universities are no longer teaching subjects such as "Personal hygiene", "Living within your means" and "Being able to write a coherent and meaningful sentence in English, including a subject, verb, and object.", the latter being specially disturbing when the incoherent semi-simian involved has just been awarded an Honours Degree in English.   

       *(non-zero)
8th of 7, Sep 23 2011
  

       //...and a particle with negative mass would be impossible to detect on any current equipment// he said, as he watched the chair disengage from the floor and race upwards into the heavens.
theircompetitor, Sep 23 2011
  

       to the uninitiated and the humorless (not you, 21 Quest), Einstein himself had said this, searching for link...
theircompetitor, Sep 23 2011
  

       Searching in the future, or the past ? It's quite important to be definite… although in fact, there's no actual difference…   

       Dr. Dan Streetmentioner might have something to say on the topic, though.
8th of 7, Sep 23 2011
  

       Surely if the neutrino experimental data were correct, we'd have heard about it before now?
MaxwellBuchanan, Sep 23 2011
  

       You have, it came in an envelope marked, "Reader's Digest Prize Draw" . Did you not get yours …?
8th of 7, Sep 23 2011
  

       Not time travel: parallel universes. If an electron out in Andromeda somewhere zigs both left and right there's a local split but, unless that information is conveyed in some manner, the rest of the universe doesn't bother. If nothing can travel faster than light then c is one of the defining factors.
FlyingToaster, Sep 23 2011
  

       "Note to self: don't announce that your results indicate neutrinos travel FTL - you'll just have assorted idiots demanding time travel and warp drive"
lurch, Sep 23 2011
  

       Tachyons moving much faster than the speed of light (not 0.1e-34x faster) would do wonders for communication and contacting those aliens who could tell us how to actually travel FTL or travel through time, so I guess in a way this does have some impact on time travel.
DIYMatt, Sep 23 2011
  

       [8th_of_7] In the old days there were University- level courses in personal hygeine?
mouseposture, Sep 23 2011
  

       If the recorded neutrino was really capable of FTL travel it would have travelled back in time before reaching it's destination thereby registering a slower time. Therefore it is merely only necessary to record a neutrino travelling at the speed of light or less to prove FTL travel.   

       I'll take my Nobel Prize winnings in tokens for the ward's positive reinforcement vending machine please.
rcarty, Sep 24 2011
  

       But why would going FTL make something travel back in time?
DIYMatt, Sep 24 2011
  

       // there were University- level courses in personal hygeine? //   

       Of course, have you never heard of the University of Bath ?
8th of 7, Sep 24 2011
  

       FTL croissant to [lurch]. But he's already got it; in fact, he had it before I sent it, it's THAT FAST.
theleopard, Sep 24 2011
  

       I feel obliged to insert a reality check: the people at CERN are still leading with the "something may be wrong with our equipment" theory. They don't even know _if_ they've found something, much less what it is.
Alterother, Sep 24 2011
  

       So we don't yet know if we can travel back in time? How did they film those dinosaurs for Terra Nova, then?
theircompetitor, Sep 24 2011
  

       DIYmatt superman proved it in that cold war documentary.
rcarty, Sep 24 2011
  

       //Finally, The Guardian? Really? I could not find a single *reputable news source for these "FTL Neutrinos".//   

       I'm boggling at this. If you can't accept *the guardian* as a generally reputable news source, who can you possibly trust?
Loris, Sep 03 2014
  

       Crochet and Macrame Monthly is generally considered reliable within its own specialised sphere. Apart from that, the National Enquirer is probably your best bet.
8th of 7, Sep 03 2014
  

       The "FTL" neutrinos turned out to be a faulty electrical connection somewhere, giving a slow time signal at the receiving end. No scientists had ever thought there actually was anything to FTL, the folks who were getting the funny results had only asked for help in finding their problem (but they went about it slightly wrong --- I mean, how can anyone else find their faulty connect).   

       Neutrinos as communication would be awful. There was once an article talking about scientific predictions, and how hard it is to say something is impossible --- the thing the article guaranteed would never be built was a wrist-mounted neutrino communicator.   

       Here's my illustration about neutrinos: Hold out your thumb between your eye and the sun, for one second. Six billion or so neutrinos from the sun went through your thumb in that second. Notice, please, that I didn't say to go outside, or even to do this during the day. Even with the entire mass of the earth between you and the sun, there would likely only be one less neutrino during that second. (Your thumb made no difference at all --- chances are that your body will only catch one neutrino in your entire life (we'd throw you a party, but there's no way to detect it happening).)   

       Neutrinos are detected in enormous tanks of clear liquid, by the flickers of light that sometines happen, somewhere in all those atoms. Your bandwidth is going to be very narrow, and your detector very big.
baconbrain, Sep 03 2014
  

       //(but they went about it slightly wrong --- I mean, how can anyone else find their faulty connect)//   

       If they'd known what the problem was, then they probably wouldn't have asked. There were many ways the discrepancy could have arisen.
For all we know, there might have been numerous useful trouble-shooting suggestions in amongst the things they'd already thought of. That they did then find the issues fairly quickly, after having been already searching for over a year suggests so.
Loris, Sep 03 2014
  
      
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