People think "snail mail" is slow. Light is a real slowpoke when it comes to sending information across cosmic distances. Even just the hint that something might be able to go faster than light is quite exciting. Possibly a historic moment. Who knows what it could mean for civilization in another 50 years. Another 25 years? Providing we ever find other civilizations out in the cosmos, we might not have to wait thousands, or millions of years for the emails to get back and forth.
Particles faster than light, revolution or mistake?.
I learned about this about a day after it was announced, but didn't get around to writing this to my blog till today. At least I didn't wait 5,000 years. Imagine if the blog server was 5,000 light years away.
Andromeda Galaxy is said to be 2 million light years away; time it takes for light to travel there. Shorter distances within our Milky Way Galaxy are still mostly measured in thousands and thousands of years.
Turns out this result was based on a mistake in the measurement. Nothing yet found to be faster than the speed of light after all.
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