[quote name='Discount_Flunky' timestamp='1317076118' post='4866247']
For instance many scientists are starting to find proof that humans have a sixth sense.

Humans are painfully predictable and creatures of habit. Google and Facebook are mining all this data to run their own "sixth sense". Gather enough data and you can tell, with 95% confidence what the person will do. "Enough" in this case means web activity. Visa has been able to predict many decisions people make solely from purchasing history for many years now.

Human brain works through pattern matching, much of it is subconscious. While called sixth sense, it's nothing more than learned experience.

In the end, there is nothing mystical about it. Like weather. Gather enough inputs, fit them through some statistical model and you end up with a good enough prediction for next few days. Biggest change in recent years is the availability of computing power and number of sensors. Both have advanced sufficiently to the point where individuals' actions can be predicted in same way as weather.

And over long term, it does mean pre-crime becomes viable. Not through paranormal activity, but through simple math operating on vast amounts of data. Retail will also change. So will jobs. Linkedin has been promising this for a while, but we aren't there yet. Generations born today however will be providing sufficient records through entire life through which the models will be built, and eventually used for their successors. All big companies are using such models already and have been for a while. Not with breakthrough success, but sofficient to notice various trends.
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If you don't know about the material you are talking about you can't dismiss it. What you are talking about is profiling which has nothing to do with a sixth sense if it exists.

It's been a while since I studied relativity, so I've forgotten where the standard value of [font="Courier New"]c[/font] comes from -- have we measured it through observation, or predicted its value from math, or both?

Could it simply be that we've simply been using a slightly incorrect value of [font="Courier New"]c[/font] all this time, and that this new experiment has delivered a more accurate measurement of [font="Courier New"]c[/font] (which is slightly faster than our existing measurements)?

If this true that's what I think it is. Lights probably just faster then we thought it was. Won't change much of anything if it's true.

It's been a while since I studied relativity, so I've forgotten where the standard value of [font="Courier New"]c[/font] comes from -- have we measured it through observation, or predicted its value from math, or both?

Could it simply be that we've simply been using a slightly incorrect value of [font="Courier New"]c[/font] all this time, and that this new experiment has delivered a more accurate measurement of [font="Courier New"]c[/font] (which is slightly faster than our existing measurements)?

It's been measured over and over and over and over again with consistently more refined results. If this would turn out to be the case, it would cast a shadow on generations of physicists in the past.

[font="sans-serif"]After centuries of increasingly precise measurements, in 1975 the speed of light was known to be 299,792,458 m/s with a relative measurement uncertainty of 4 parts per billion (4e-9). [/font][font=sans-serif][size=2] In 1983, the metre was redefined in the International System of Units (SI) as the distance travelled by light in vacuum in[sup]1[/sup]?[sub]299,792,458[/sub] of a second. As a result, the numerical value of c in metres per second is now fixed exactly by the definition of the metre.[/font]
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[quote name='Hodgman' timestamp='1317174802' post='4866661']
It's been a while since I studied relativity, so I've forgotten where the standard value of [font="Courier New"]c[/font] comes from -- have we measured it through observation, or predicted its value from math, or both?

Could it simply be that we've simply been using a slightly incorrect value of [font="Courier New"]c[/font] all this time, and that this new experiment has delivered a more accurate measurement of [font="Courier New"]c[/font] (which is slightly faster than our existing measurements)?

It's been measured over and over and over and over again with consistently more refined results. If this would turn out to be the case, it would cast a shadow on generations of physicists in the past.

[font="sans-serif"]After centuries of increasingly precise measurements, in 1975 the speed of light was known to be 299,792,458 m/s with a relative measurement uncertainty of 4 parts per billion (4e-9). [/font][font="sans-serif"] In 1983, the metre was redefined in the International System of Units (SI) as the distance travelled by light in vacuum in[sup]1[/sup]?[sub]299,792,458[/sub] of a second. As a result, the numerical value of c in metres per second is now fixed exactly by the definition of the metre.[/font]
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If it's changed before it can be changed again. It wouldn't necessarily make scientists of before look bad.

For instance, sending information back (and possibly forth) in time might all of a sudden become a practical problem rather than a theoretical one.

Sorry to take the magic out of it, but that's not the case.

Neutrinos do not travel back in time, no matter how fast it turns out they were moving.

The principles of time-travel in relativity are due to a lack of a single fixed reference frame- which are the same principles that set c as the universal speed limit. It is in the nature of space-time as a single substance.


IF this turns out to be true, it means one (or more) of several things:

Something is effectively reducing the speed at which photons propagate (and perceived passage of time, since the electro-weak force is involved in material processes) that isn't affecting the neutrinos, or is not affecting them as strongly.

Cosmically, neutrinos do travel slower than light (such as from distant super novae); this may be a matter of context.

The neutrinos are not traveling faster than light if you don't factor in the space-time dilation caused by Earth's local gravity field.

That is to say, gravity may be slowing down time for light, but not for neutrinos, thus giving them an apparent relative boost.

The important consequences of that would seem to be that, yes, Einstein would have to be partially wrong.

Special relativity would have to be thrown out, along with the inherent coupling of space and time, because in this case Neutrinos would provide evidence of a special independent frame of reference.

We would then have to offer alternative explanations for gravity, the perceived relativity of light speed, and time dilation.
It's relatively easy to compose working theories that fit the observations based on quantum mechanics, and I could go on to do that, but I'm already a little off topic.


The point is, that with a special frame of reference, space and time are independent of each other, special relativity is wrong, and velocities faster than c do not result in time travel.

Likely all this would do in the near future is give us a more accurate picture of gravity, solve UFT, explain dark matter and other Astronomical quirks, give us an irrefutable model of the start of the universe... which is nothing to sneeze at, but pretty much just academic. I wish I could say it would result in world peace by unifying the belief systems of all people in science... but that's not going to happen any time soon.

I would say, relevant to everyday life, it would probably give us a small leg up in quantum and optical computation resulting in profound annoyance to cryptographers. I'm not sure if this is a good thing or not, yet. Are we ready for post-quantum cryptography?

What I have to wonder, though, is what does quantum computation offer gaming? Maybe better sorting methods? I'm not much of a programmer, so I'm not sure.

Neutrinos moving faster than light in vacuum does not automatically refute the theory of relativity.

• It may be, that relativity still holds, but light itself moves slower than C
• It may be, that neutrinos travel faster than C, but this process does not carry information
• Even if neutrinos can carry information faster than C it may mean, that relativity still holds but causality, as we know it, does not exist in physical world

In any case, relativity, faster-than-light communication and causality do not seem to fit together. I personally hope that the last one will be thrown out and the universe turns out to be perfectly deterministic again


3. Don't worry, the last one is definitely not the case. Violations of causality are prone to logical contradictions. Logic is the only thing we can always assume in any coherent discussion- with out which, the principle of explosion makes the conversation itself meaningless. In so far as we're thinking or talking about anything, logic holds- and so must causality.

2. Neutrinos carry information; that's how they were detected. Neutrino vs. no neutrino is information.

1. This is... extremely unlikely. Like I mentioned in my post above, light may be being slowed down by something, but the only thing that would have been slowing down light in this experiment relative to cosmic observations would be gravity, and if we allow for gravity to slow down one thing, and not another, we have to disassociate space and time, which refutes special relativity by creating a special reference frame (space) independent of the passage of time experienced by different matter/energy in different places.

Why is gravity "the only thing" that could have slowed down light?

How about our theory of light is completely wrong and it never moves with speed C but always slightly slower depending on other factors than gravity? Thus both special and general relativity can still hold (as C being constant in all reference frames but not the speed of light).



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Also gravity itself does not effect light. It can effect space time which in turn effects light, but without mass gravity can't act on it. (Just pointing it out not really a comment towards you)