Poll, is Einstein wrong?

[pete_l]

if the neutrino has mass, and it reached 100% of the speed of light it would of used all the energy/mass in the universe just to get there as per e=mc2

A quick correction, if I might be so bold E = mc² relates a particles mass to it's energy. The equation relating the energy of a particle to its velocity (v) is

and as we can see, as its velocity approaches the speed of light ©, the bottom term approaches zero, so the energy of the particle approaches infinity.

All the equation says is that v cannot equal c - it doesn't say that v can't be larger than c. However, it's tricky to know how to interpret that condition in the universe as we perceive it. Or how you'd get from v < c to v > c without passing through the equality condition.

[Ptarmigan]

and as we can see, as its velocity approaches the speed of light ©, the bottom term approaches zero,

Isnt that when you get the error message "division by zero" swiftly followed by the blue screen of death.

I hope those guys at the LHC know what they are doing ,,, errr,,,

[Stephen]

No because I think experimental error (or possibility thereof) will invalidate this before it's published.

[Ptarmigan]

While it is difficult to find individual mass values (I think experimental progress is being made), there is considerable experimental evidence for different masses, and thus they all can't be zero.

I also had thought that the neutrino(s) had zero rest mass but I was corrected earlier in the thread, so I googled a bit and found this interesting read :

"Direct measurements of the absolute neutrino mass impose the upper bounds: < 2.2 ev, < 190 kev, and < 18.2 Mev."

on this site :Neutrino Mass

facinating, there is several years worth of cloudy nights reading on all sorts there !

EDIT PS it seems to be all the fault of this (yet to be found) Higgs boson again!