I emailed my friend and this was his reply to anyone that's interested. He even dumbed down the speed of light talk for me. And he included a link to a comic.
Folows:
As for the neutrinos going faster than light, the beam from Geneva to
Italy claimed they saw this, then they let rumours leak (but no details)
that it was mistaken - a loose cable was an excuse: it's hard to imagine
how that would create a delay, but possible. Would love for them to act
like scientists and actually explain their observations in detail.
We've been busting butt trying to make the measurement with our beam
(Chicago->MN) and have to have an answer of some sort out by the big
neutrino conference beginning of June in Kyoto So, Real Soon Now
we'll have a measurement of neutrino speed we can trust, nothing like
doing the job yourself
I'd be really suprised if they did ring in faster than light, but it
would be way cool.
As for catching radio waves while going fast: no problem. You jump in a
spaceship and get cranking really fast (assuming you're not a neutrino
you're not going equal to or faster than light: this is true for
everything else we've measured, and we measure this a lot). You'll
still see the radio waves coming in at "c". That's Einstein's bit: no
matter where you are or wht you're doing, everyone sees light moving at
the same speed (186,000 miles/sec).
Which is weird. How does it all add up? The answer is that space and
time change based on how fast you're going (velocity = distance/time) to
fudge things out so it all adds up in the end.
So: you're headed off in a 0.9c Dauntless off to intercept my carrier
("slow but deadly" my ass). You'll see my radio signals calling for
some air cover: they'll hit your radio at "c". You will see them
doppler shifted: they'll appear to be much higher frequency as you plow
into the waves (the old "blue shift/red shift" thing).
I see you coming in fast. I'll hear your taunts on the radio hit my
antenna at the same "c". They will be also blueshifted as you zoom in.
The really weird thing: I'll see your time slow down. From my
perspective, your clock ticks more slowly. Note that to you, we're
still closing at 0.9c, and you see exactly the same thing: my carrier's
clock is ticking too slow too.
(fun games with this: look up the "twin paradox").
This really does happen. We can't get planes and people that fast, but
we can get subatomic particles cranked up to within a gnat's ass of
"c". If we use unstable particles, say a muon, we know that they're
unstable and have a half-life of 2.2 microseconds. However, fling them
around at high speed, and they last longer. Change the speed they move,
and their lifetime tracks the calculations of clock change vs. speed
exacly as the calculations predict.
The GPS system has to take all this into account: the satellites and you
are all flying around space, and it turns out gravity itself does the
same time-slowing trick, so where things are in relation to the earth
has to be figured in. If we didn't have the satellites and the
receivers programmed with the relativity calculations, the timing that
lets people figure out where they are would be completely off.
One of the ways we're timing our neutrino beam is with a bunch of really
cool GPS's and atomic clocks on loan from NIST and USNO (they're in
charge of the nation's clocks). It's been a really fun project, getting
to play with a lot of cool new toys!
And here is the Link:
http://xkcd.com/955/
Hope you enjoy!
I studied nuclear stuff in the Navy. Just put a knife through my head and it would be more comfortable than understanding the stuf in this thread!