Can We Have the Enterprise Now?
by wjw on July 25, 2018
If confirmed, the discovery would undermine Albert Einstein’s 1905 theory of special relativity, which says that the speed of light is a “cosmic constant” and that nothing in the universe can travel faster. That assertion, which has withstood over a century of testing, is one of the key elements of the so-called Standard Model of physics, which attempts to describe the way the universe and everything in it works. The totally unexpected finding emerged from research by a physicists working on an experiment dubbed OPERA run jointly by the CERN particle research centre near Geneva and the Gran Sasso Laboratory in central Italy . . .
The findings were such a shock that CERN’s scientists spent months checking their data before making their announcement. But they have asked American and Japanese teams to confirm the results before they are declared an actual discovery. The data will also be put online overnight so that it can be scrutinised by experts across the world.
So I guess we can have starships, if they’re made of neutrinos, and they’d arrive at Alpha Centauri a few seconds ahead of anything traveling at the speed of light.
Now I’m looking with trepidation to the really bad science fiction that’s going to be written around this idea.
In the meantime, Kathy reminded me of this poem by John Updike.
Neutrinos they are very small
They have no charge and have no mass
They do not interact at all
The earth is just a silly ball to them
Through which they simply pass.
Like like dust maids down a drafty hall
Or photons through a sheet of glass.
(There’s more to this poem, I just quoted the good parts.)
c is still c. Maybe neutrinos’ concept of vacuum is different that of photons.
Someone pointed out the date on this story was April 1.
Never mind.
That’s ok. Keeping the dream alive. We’ll show Albert laws are meant to be broken, or at least worked-around.
Turns out it wasn’t an April Fool, but based on an old experiment.
From Brian Borchers:
“This is actually based on an older story from 2011. The experimental results in 2011 ultimately turned out to be the result of a technical error in the setup of the timing equipment.”
Damn it, I trusted you, fool that I am.
I may as well hijack this to ask if you’re going to write that Metropolitan #3. I read them last month, and was surprised to enjoy them (that type of fantasy isn’t really my sort of thing). I remember seeing somewhere here that you’d pitched it to a publisher but that it was during one of those drought periods.
I also thought it was interesting that the main character was basically Sula. 🙂
Let’s just say that Aiah and Sula end up in very different places.
Which you don’t know because neither series has come to an end, but that’s how these things go.
An editor has expressed interest in reprinting the first two along with the new third, but I went and signed two three-book contracts, and I won’t be free for another three years or so. We’ll see if he’s still interested then.
The whole poem is brilliant (though I think Updike’s take on science is wrong).
Updike’s science is correct for the early Sixties, from when he wrote the poem. We’ve learned more about neutrinos since.
Hey, it turns out you weren’t wrong!
https://i.imgur.com/2Zi2s6N.jpg
Aiah did have more of a conscience, sometimes. Thanks, looking forward to the books. 🙂
(Note: the screenshot is, or was before the correction, real, the story is typical Newsweak “journalism”.)
“I won’t be free for another three years or so. We’ll see if he’s still interested then.”
I’ve been interested in a third Metropolitan book for twenty-plus years now, so, “another three years” isn’t really that big a difference…
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