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by jxcole 5380 days ago
I have a comment about this. C, as is used in general relativity, is involved in a lot more than just the speed that light travels. It is also relevant to a lot of other equations, like time dilation in a gravitational field. Now, if this experiment resulted in changing our concept of c as the "speed of light" to the "speed of neutrinos", then your probably right. But I have to imagine that c has been verified experimentally in non-light related experiments.

For example, there is a certain speed where if you exceed it you are able to violate causal time relationships. I can't think of any experiments that would validate this. However, there is also the fact that theoretically, if you attempt to accelerate matter to the speed of light it's mass will increase infinitely. So if you accelerate it a little bit it's mass should increase a little bit, and you should be able to confirm the speed of light through an experiment where you measure infinitesimal increases in mass during large acceleration.

So my comment is that if he just broke the speed at which light travels, then everything is fine. But if he broke the speed at which you are able to violate causality, or the speed at which the mass of an object is infinite, then our entire understanding of physics is likely to be invalid.

Related reading - tachyon pistols

http://sheol.org/throopw/tachyon-pistols.html