This article is one of the most well read Physics Articles on this website, 1000 times. Thats compared to the most well read article which was read 17.8 K times, a mere less than 6%. But the well written Physics based articles do have a viral tendency. mdashf readership wants more of what they want to read, and thats one of the long term goals of this website, to organize the website, to reflect the latest demands.
[scaled word-press readership data to flag-counter data, by a factor of 1.65, which is average efficiency of stat counter from word-press, of all data available, so actual readership will vary but not the average. Its is only to give an account of how popular or not popular something have been. ]
Much of this article was reviewed and updated today, the: (07 January 2014). It has become more interesting, less confusing and more clarifying. Its totally worth reading this article, I would say. (since the cork that was creating confusion is out)
Please note that some of the speculations turned out to be factually not valid, that is neutrino can’t move faster than a photon. This article is from more than 2 years ago when OPERA experiment had startled the world by saying neutrinos move faster than photons, and I was explaining from simplistic view points, as to why that would be so, if that is indeed true. But OPERA experiment’s explanation of this invalidity IS their wire was loose. My painstaking analysis was NO, the explanation IS, Compton wavelength of neutrino. That analysis will be linked here when more edits and reviews have been done on such articles, written by me, yes there was more than 50 articles, as far as I recall, but 3 major problems of physics were addressed and answers found. Here is a summarized view though.
What is the latest development in Physics?
Here are some of my views on such a question which can be as wide ranging as asking “what are the life forms in an ocean”. Clearly enough thats not the purview with which this article is written. It is only to give an idea of what are some basic ideas that are being addressed in some way or other in taking up the recently (September 2011 ) occurring botheration in fundamental physics, the speed of light.
The Latest. No one has possibly told you of this. Except in essence this is what is bogging the top minds around the world.
And as edited, today, 07 January 2014, above, there are tons of other fundamental issues that have been thrown out in the open from their firmly established regime of Einstein’s Relativity. Also I must add this problem has taken its conclusive rest although the real issues haven’t been addressed by world media of science.
Unfortunately enough the 50 or so articles in this website, on this problem, are well researched in this website and its an ongoing effort to bring the final words in as much as they can be final, or open, depending on again how they shall be assimilated, its a process of science in action, and better be said, needs more corroboration than just my statements, but then my not saying something also does not change the situation in a positive direction, towards enlightenment of light issues. So I am talking about it with that in purview.
I start here:What is the latest development in Physics?
A cone. A cone is a stack of circles. From below zero to a possible infinite.
Each circle has their radii and this makes each of them to be defined with a unique circumference. All masses and mass-less particles *1* at rest, reside on the “exact” same circle.
A man of weight 140 kg and a car of weight 1400 kg, when they are each, not moving, that is they are in quasi rest, even in a macroscopic scale, reside on the same circle. That is because, irrespective of their masses, they have the same “kinetic energy” frame of reference (F.O.R in short). They do not have the same total energy, nor the same rest-energy or same kinetic energy, their masses being different. They are on the same circle of kinetic energy or should I say kinetic energy scale *2, 3* !!
Now the man goes into the car and the car moves at 100 kms/hour, they are still on the same circle although this time a much bigger circle than the circle they sat on when they were at rest, because they have a bigger kinetic energy (and there is no more a confusion of a frame of reference, read below). The man can sit in the car and the car moves at a speed, they both enjoy the same speed, hence all observers in the car have the same relativistic view of the world.
BELOW, you have to read 3 clarifying notes, before any more can be understood clearly.
*1* A better description would be “all energy” and NOT “all masses” or “all mass-less” objects correspond to such circles, hence such understanding may not incur any problems as such, on this description. Also I must add that a mass-less particle such as a photon does not have a rest frame. That would be an utterly fallacious position we can often carry into literature and I have carried as well, until I realized and corrected so, I am linking to the article.
*2*weight is different from mass, or gravitational mass or inertial mass but for each mass and weight, there is an unique 1-1 relation, if we do not change the gravitational field, or change the frame of reference, the latter amounts to changing the the acceleration of the frame. Like a frame of reference is defined from an object, whats central is the speed and acceleration of that object, hence as long as we do not change the object, or some other important parameters such as gravitational field etc, which are extraneous parameters as far as a Physics Problem might be concerned, we are safe from the onslaught of inconsistency.
So when two objects with same speed and acceleration, come along, the masses and kinetic energy are still different from each other although the energy scale may or may not be same. All in all; we should avoid inconsistency because we can’t see all situations, wrt Laws of Nature or Laws of Physics. These latter, the laws, are the final words on how to understand a particular situation and have been worked out almost completely as far as we know and so far as we know. We as Physicists, are merely trying to grasp the laws of physics and calling it laws of nature. So far as good an objection does not come from God, but its believers, who have failed to grasp and/or provide a clear cut non pervasive, non interfering definition of such. So what we are merely doing is focusing on the good laws of physics. Which are merely bonafide constraints on the equations of motion.
The two objects can define two frame of references and welcome total failure to understanding a Physical Problem. So a frame of reference is always defined from only one object and then a tons of other frames can be defined and physical problems become something Physicists and mathematicians have to work out very laboriously to remove inconsistencies and make sense. Such a thing has been done for the OPERA problem, which is the talk of September 2011, by an effort led by Einstein. But seems they were not consulted properly. And I mean properly, in the sense of Relativity.
*3* This you will realize if you do not associate the mass of an object to its frame of reference, a frame of reference is defined from the object’s speed or velocity but not its mass, so in a way from the the kinetic energy, without changing that object’s role in defining the frame, so we should not merely mix two objects into the definition, I am only talking about two objects, therefore two separate frame of reference, of-course their kinetic energy is different from each other but as long as the speed of both are same, the frame of reference are same, but no more the mass or therefore kinetic energy.
Now lets go to another situation, where we have clarified above, the basic notions involved in the motion of two objects such as a man and a car.
Now take the “mass-less” photon. It is moving at the almost same speed always, — but not necessarily in a quantum mechanical view where the speed has an uncertainty inversely proportional to the uncertainty of time, [I have also worked out; a new form of uncertainty, you can check for it’s consistency, it will be linked. **]
Can anyone as big as a car sit on a photon and move at the same speed to view the same relativistic world? NO. Because of, the scale of the photon and the object being so different, while one will move unobstructed, the other will crash against things, of similar scale. The photon is not unobstructed in a dense medium, hence it crashes at a circle much smaller, than it would be crashing, if it were to be moving unobstructed in vacuum.
Naturally photon is not special everywhere.
In vacuum it was arbitrarily thought, like the concept of ether, that, the photon is special in vacuum hence, it goes to the circle on the relativistic cone which has the highest diameter. [In a given time, it can converse a bigger circle than anyone else, as it moves fastest. Although this article is mixed with Relativistic and Classical notions, as long as we do not make inconsistent assumptions we are safe and we would make good sense, and thats the beauty and formalism of unification, the most attractive approach to address a Physics Problem, Remove inconsistency rather than classify: classical, relativistic, quantum mechanical, much more hard work than most would be ready to face]
arbitrary: but so far as of today, 2014, its a firmly established truth of nature (or sound fact of physics) that it has never so far been violated, less so for Physics Logic aka Theoretical Inconsistency or lack thereof, falsifiability or lack thereof.
But nobody was thinking about an object, which does not have the same scale problem, as that of massive objects like a car or a tennis ball, like photon didn’t.
Hell ya, this object didn’t even have the same problems of obstruction in a dense media as that of the photon. So, there was something to learn here. It’s called relativity of relativity.
Whether the photon sits on the neutrino or the neutrino sits on the photon, is a matter of where they lay their eggs on the cone of circles. Can the diameter of a circle of a neutrino, be bigger than the diameter of the circle of the photon? Turns out that the circle of the neutrino can be bigger than the circle of the photon ! It is NOT a result of quantum mechanics. Rather quantum mechanics clears the path for neutrinos to be on a bigger circle than the photon. *4*
It is the kinetic energy *factor* (or you may recognize this as speed, actually) of the neutrino which turns out to be larger than the kinetic energy *factor* of the photon, despite of the fact that the mass of the photon is at-least 2 x 10 (to the power -7) times smaller than the mass of the neutrino. The total energy of the neutrino was such that it already took care of the tiny mass of 2 eV of the neutrino to give it enough kinetic energy factor which is still larger, than the kinetic energy factor of the photon, the latter being as lighter as 2 x 10 (to the power -7) as that of the neutrino mass. This energy of neutrino is at-most as small as ~10 MeV, the more the merrier.
That is, at-least with ~10 MeV energy, the neutrino is slightly more capable than the photon, to sit on a circle bigger than the largest circle photon has ever sat on. Raise the energy and the neutrino just jumps merrily into bigger and bigger circles of ecstasy. That is neutrino moves faster than photon when its energy scale is higher. (although note that this turned out not to be the case for various reasons)
From a slightly bigger circle, to a much larger circle, the neutrinos have been observed to be traversing on the cone …
This is not a blow to the Theory of Relativity and only the kind of changes the neutrino is allowed to observe from where it is sitting. It is just a blow to few adhoc and arbitrary (as arbitrary as an ether which Einstein theory itself broke) hypothesis which the theory is still carrying to this day. Experiments suggest very emphatically that these adhoc schemes are a mere stopgap that have survived for quite long and it is time that we see they need to be discarded. (again read the definition of arbitrary a few paragraphs above)
The advantages:
1. Quantum Gravity !
plenty of hints of such, because, now, even relativistic quantum mechanics will be more consistent, for the first time, once that has been achieved and chronology notwithstanding a better understanding towards quantum gravity is on the anvil, since gravity theory will also include these tiny and remarkable effects, at-least at the scale achieved in modern Physics of the last few decades, this effect is not tiny.
It is tiny in the smallest scales of distance, *Planck Distance: 10 (to the power -43) meters* and the largest scale of energy *Planck Scale of Energy: ~10 (to the power +18) GeV *.
But it has entered the cupboard of the practical physicists. The scale of mass in the micro-gram region, is connected by calculations, to these tiny distance and colossal energy. The idea in my mind is; the scale at which any mass-object has violated the precincts of Relativity is far far smaller than the micro-gram * 2 eV is far smaller than a micro-gram, convert micro-gram into eV, home-work *.
This says that only something, as energetic as a 10 (to the power 18) GeV object, will move a mass of a micro-gram, to surpass the photon speed emphatically, but such an object, can only be observed given we have a sensitivity to the 10 (to the power -43) meters, distance. For now the distance order involved can be calculated ( — again home-work). Note that, the cosmic energy giants (UHECR) have an energy 10 (to the power -8) smaller, than the energy, that will move micro-grams beyond a photon’s speed.
2. We don’t need more advantages.
Disadvantage: who will work out all the needed calculations. (and any inconsistencies that are entailed in such a scenario?) We don’t even calculate basic physics that we know are valid always (apply this to the OPERA anomaly, wasn’t it that I said something totally valid, before even it was out in the open that OPERA experiment didn’t calculate basic physics?). The idea is; it is feeling like humongous, but it is not. There is a large scale paranoia in the theory world which would be even clearly circumventing the same basic physics they would use for their arguments. Self-falsification.
*4* (Update, 7 Jan 2014) Please note that this turned out to be factually not valid, that neutrino can sit on a bigger circle. than photon, because neutrino has a mass, howsoever tiny, the uncertainty resulting from it is taken care by Quantum Mechanics, although this explanation didn’t come from OPERA Physicists or Sheldon Glashow, but I did find the exact reason as to why, and the analysis are available in this website and discussed, but for one link, I have to edit another article first, thats a tougher job than telling you the end result: The Compton Wavelength of neutrino. (will be linked in future)
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