E=Mc2

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Singapore 28^th September 2011

Now here is some interesting news from earlier this week. Scientists at CERN, Europe’s Centre for Nuclear Research, have managed to clock a minuscule sub atomic particle going faster than the speed of light! What? Until now the speed of light has always been believed to be the fastest speed obtainable in our universe, courtesy of Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity. The particle, called a “neutrino”, was measured going 60 nano seconds faster then the official speed of light (defined at 299,792 km/sec). And listen to this, the margin for error is stated at only + or – 10 nanoseconds…Understandably many purists point to a probable measuring fault, but apparently the result was confirmed through multiple tests, checking and re-checking. In most science fiction the assumption is if one can travel faster then the speed of light time travel would be possible(!)

I am not sure of the implications, but it maybe the start of a big thing! Right now it is just a marginal increase, but as so often with
records, once a seemingly unbreakable barrier has been broken somehow the floodgates open…in the future Einstein may be regarded in the same way we look back at scientists of the middle ages who claimed the earth was in the centre of the Universe, that the Earth was flat, and so on.

Imagine we could travel back in time in our profession as lighting designers, we could simply go back and rectify problems and mistakes in the lighting design and installation process, avoid or correct unsuccesful lighting concepts (not everything always works !), most of all with the “hindsight” knowledge we could go back to make our fee proposals just “right”. A bit like knowing the outcome of the Lotto…Or what about going to a meeting in time travel mode, back before you even left! If we can transmit signals faster then the speed of light could we save energy by switching of light so fast that lights would still be emitting eventhough it is already switched off?

I leave you all to ponder on the many things that time travel and transmissions faster then the speed of light could bring in our lifes… 🙂

In Light Watch today some pictures from places where we Earthlings from this day and time will probably never go, views from the Moon and Mars. As well as a pic from the CERN globe building in Geneva.