Scientists may have observed subatomic particles moving faster than the speed of light — and users of social news site Reddit have dissected the news in a flash.
The discovery, announced by researchers at Europe’s CERN laboratory, could force a rewrite of the books on physics and turn Einstein’s theory of relativity on its head. It’s the kind of deeply scientific news that spawns head-scratching amongst laymen.
That’s where Reddit comes in. The link-sharing site’s best content is often found in its discussions, where thousands of pseudonymous users with obscure knowledge congregate in mutually edifying discussions.
The news spread to a half-dozen sections of the social news site. Explanations turned from pedestrian to highly scientific. But many, while contemplating the ramifications of the discovery, came to one conclusion: that whole faster than light thing? It was probably a fluke.
“It’s much easier for me to believe the measurement that fits with all the other measurements we’ve ever made about a universe with a speed of light speed limit than it is to toss it all out for … one experiment,” wrote redditor shavera.
That sentiment seemed to reflect the cautionary attitude of top scientists in interviews with the Associated Press and Science Magazine.
“I suspect that the bulk of the scientific community will not take this as a definitive result unless it can be reproduced by at least one and preferably several experiments,” V. Alan Kostelecky, a theorist at Indiana University at Bloomington, told Science Magazine.
“Until this is verified by another group, it’s flying carpets,” Drew Baden, chairman of the physics department at the University of Maryland, told the Associated Press.
Those thorough dissection of the news shows how social news provides a different way to absorb and enjoy the news. The context provided by scientific professionals in the comments sections delves leagues deeper than the treatment the discovery got in much of the mainstream press.
But what if it’s not a fluke at all? Just what does it mean to our understanding of physics?
At the section r/ExplainLIkeImFive, where redditors try to translate complex issues into well, something a five-year old could understand, sord_n_bored compared the potential revolution in physics to the board game Candyland.
“Imagine you’re playing Candyland, and you memorize all the rules and get pretty good at it. Then, one day, Milton Bradley announces that there’s been a misprint in the Candyland rulebook, and instead of using cards to determine movement you need to roll dice instead. That’s what it’s like, most of what we know and infer about modern physics is based on the idea that the speed of light is the limit to which things can travel in the universe without breaking down or going back in time. If that’s not the case then a lot of how we see the universe will be thrown into question.”
Physics as a children’s board game. You won’t see that in the AP.
Photo by Eyesplash
