Follow Up to : Science As Art

Last September CERN’s physicists announced they had observed neutrinos exceeding the speed of light by about 60 billionths of a second. Theoretically since 1905, light speed, 186,282 miles per second, has been the limit. Enthusiasts claimed this was proving Einstein wrong, but I’m not so sure. I think they forgot something that sci-fi addicts will never forget, once we returned to the planet of the apes only to discover a great deal more time has elapsed on Earth than it did for us while we were gallivanting around in space in our warp-speed vehicle.

In November CERN reported on a repeat of the test with essentially the same result. Questions remain. Might time dilation explain the difference? The receiving site is several hundred miles south of the originating site, at a latitude closer to the Earth’s larger wasteline. As the planet turns on its axis the destination site is traveling at slightly higher speed than is the more northerly origin site, thus creating a minor distortion in measuring the neutrino’s travel time.

My sci-fi question is a little different. At light speed, the hypothetical internal clock of each neutrino runs slower, so, in effect the neutrino is traveling faster than light speed as measured by clocks at either end. Wouldn’t the only way to measure the actual speed of neutrinos moving at or near light speed be to invent a clock that could travel with the neutrino? Probably this is out of reach of currently available technologies. How can Einstein’s limit on light speed be invalidated before someone’s calculation can show the 60 billionths of a second of excess speed is more than the tiny difference in what those stationary and moving clocks would have recorded?

Still, I kind of like the idea that the light speed barrier may have been penetrated, because this opens a door for study of spooky things I’ve experienced, like psycho-kinesis, extra sensory perception, entrained thoughts and images between people separated by great distances, karma and such. Some such things are hinted at in the private writings of quantum physicists as well as the public works of artists.

After all, science is the art of discovering really new things, not just the collection of data on what is already known, isn’t it?