A need for speed

Mankind has always been fascinated by speed.  Most species can easily outrun us but we try our best to move as fast as we can.  However, there are limits to how fast a human being can move under his or her own power.

At one time it was generally believed that nobody would ever beat the four-minute mile.  Then, in 1954 Roger Bannister broke that barrier when he ran a mile in 3:59.4. The current world record is around three minutes and 45 seconds. Can we expect to move much faster?

You don’t hear much about breaking the sound barrier any more.  Not that long ago it was cutting edge technology and engineers were wondering if they would ever build an aircraft that could fly faster than the speed of sound.  It finally happened when Chuck Yeager became the first supersonic human being. 

He broke the sound barrier on Oct. 14, 1947 by flying at Mach 1 or 768 miles per hour.  At that speed he was covering a mile in about five seconds.  That’s pretty fast but in November 2004 the envelope was pushed to Mach 10 where the record stands today. 
By comparison, the Space Shuttle used to re-enter the atmosphere at a screaming hot Mach 18. When it was orbiting the planet it flew at a respectable Mach 26. 

That’s about 10 times faster than a speeding bullet - quite an accomplishment for the slowest species on earth.

But hold on to your hats folks.  There is yet another speed limit that may have been broken by a group of physicists in Europe.  And compared to the four minute mile or the sound barrier, this speed record could have implications for all creation. 

Years ago another physicist named Albert Einstein proclaimed that the velocity of light was the absolute speed limit in the universe. Nothing could travel faster than light and he had the math to prove it.  This fact has been a cornerstone of scientific thinking for decades.

But a recent announcement by an international group of scientists challenges this theory. They claim to have detected a particle travelling slightly faster than the speed of light. I don’t know how they even noticed a particle moving that quickly but somebody obviously had good eyesight.

This group was not trying to discredit Einstein and they were certainly not trying to break any theoretical speed limits but when they checked the data, there it was. 

Some tiny particles known as neutrinos appeared to travel slightly faster than light.
Over the distance of 1000 kilometres from Geneva, Switzerland to Gran Sasso, Italy a neutrino arrived at the finish line 60 nanoseconds faster than light. 

Neutrinos beat light by a distance of 20 metres.  What a race.  It was neutrino by a nose.

Many scientists are betting that this is merely a miscalculation. The findings are under intense scrutiny because if this turns out to be true it will challenge many of the established laws of physics. 

Einstein was a smart guy but maybe just like the four minute mile and the sound barrier, the speed of light is just another milestone we have yet to reach.

Consider the possibilities. Where would you go for the weekend if you could travel at the speed of light?

It will be some time before these results can be proven or disproven but in the meantime there is wild speculation about the implications.  Even if you aren’t a theoretical physicist, it’s still fun to consider what might be possible if there are no limits to how fast or how far we can travel.

Suddenly the galaxies and the Universe don’t seem so big any more and if we can go faster than light another improbable frontier might be theoretically available to us. 

It’s mostly just science fiction but travelling at the speed of light is one of the obstacles to time travel.  Who will be the one to travel back in time to tell Einstein he was wrong all along?

I don’t know if this discovery will amount to anything or not but there’s something about this story that has captured the imagination of physicists and science enthusiasts around the world.  If there are no speed limits in the universe what other barriers can we overcome? 

Right now there is no practical application for this knowledge.  Faster-than-light vehicles are still just the stuff of dreams and Star Trek.  For now, it will provide rocket fuel for the imagination.