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[CoccoBill]

http://www.physics-astronomy.org/201...break.html?m=1

MMM, could you put your speculation hat on and explain what, if confirmed, would be the real world consequences of this? Obviously "slight" problems with current theories, but do you see any practical applications?

[MadMojoMonkey]

http://www.physics-astronomy.org/201...break.html?m=1

MMM, could you put your speculation hat on and explain what, if confirmed, would be the real world consequences of this? Obviously "slight" problems with current theories, but do you see any practical applications?

Yeah. It would unhinge causality if anything can move faster than light. It's already true that the order of events is ambiguous, and observer dependent. This is easily demonstrated so long as you accept that light has a finite speed.

If we synchronize 2 clocks in the Einstein way, i.e. we put something exactly in the middle in-between the 2 clocks, it sends out a flash, and the 2 clocks start counting from the moment the flash reaches them. Now, these 2 clocks read the same time if you're at the point where the flash was emitted. At some pre-determined time, the clocks themselves emit a flash. The point in the middle sees these flashes simultaneously, but any observer closer to one clock than the other will see the flashes at different times. QED. The order of events is a matter of perspective.

However, using math, all observers could show that the flash emitted from one clock could not have caused the flash from the other.

If something can move faster than light, then we can no longer say with certainty if event A could not have caused event B.