Nothing can be faster than light. The law of physics is woven into the very fabric of Einstein’s special theory of relativity. The faster something goes, the closer it gets to a time period of numbness.
Go faster still and you run into the events of the past, messing with the notions of causality.
But researchers from the University of Warsaw in Poland and the National University of Singapore have already pushed the limits of relativity to come up with a system that doesn’t contradict existing physics and could even point the way to new theories.
What they came up with is an “extension of special relation” that combines three dimensions with a single space dimension (“1+3 space-time”), as opposed to the three spatial dimensions and one time dimension that we’re all used to.
Rather than creating any major logical inconsistencies, this new study adds more evidence to the idea that objects may well be approaching faster than light without completely breaking the laws of our physics.
“There is no fundamental reason why observers in relation to physical systems described as moving at speeds greater than the speed of light should not be subjected to it,” physicist Andrzej Dragan, from the University of Warsaw in Poland.
This new study builds on previous work by some of the same researchers, who postulates that superluminal perspectives could tie together as much mechanics as Einstein’s special theory of relativity – two branches of physics that cannot currently be reconciled into a single theory describing gravity. In the same way we explain other powers.
Particles can no longer be represented as points under this framework, as we could in a more mundane (more time-consuming) 3D universe perspective.
But in order for observers to see and understand how the superluminal particle behaves, it is necessary to turn to species field theories that undermine quantum physics.
From this new model, superluminal objects would look like a particle expanding like a bubble through space—not unlike a wave through a field. But the sublime object of speed was ‘experimented’ at several different times.
Thus, the speed of light in a vacuum would remain constant even for observers faster than that, which preserves one of Einstein’s fundamental principles – a principle that previously only thought about the relationship of observers slower than the speed of light. (like all of us).
“This new definition preserves the requirement of the constancy of the speed of light in vacuum or superluminal observers,” says Dragan.
“That’s why our extended special relativity doesn’t seem like a particularly outlandish idea.”
But the researchers acknowledge that changing the model to a 1+3 time frame raises some new questions, even while it answers others. They suggest that a special theory of relativity is needed to incorporate faster-than-light relativity.
What can be borrowed from quantum field theory: a combination of concepts from special relativity, quantum mechanics, and classical theory (which aims to predict how physical fields interact with each other).
If the physicists are correct, the particles of the universe all have extraordinary properties in extended special relativity.
One of the questions raised by the research is whether we will ever be able to observe this extended behavior – but the answer is that it will require a lot of time and a lot more scientists.
“The mere experimental discovery of a new fundamental particle is worthy of a Nobel Prize and feasible in large research teams using new experimental techniques,” scientist Krzysztof Turzyński, from the University of Warsaw.
“However, we hope to apply our results to a better understanding of the phenomenon of spontaneous symmetry breaking, which is associated with the mass of the Higgs particle and other particles in the standard model, especially in the early universe.”
The research was published in Classical and Quantum Gravity.
#study #shows #Universe #broke #speed #light #weird
