Last week I caught an NPR show ( 29 Sept - On Point with Tom Ashbrook) dedicated to the recent CERN measurement that clocked neutrinos traveling faser than the speed of light. The show featured physicists explaining some of the implications if it were found that neutrinos did in fact travel faster than light. Interesting? Sure... relevant to emerging technology, as it relates to the EMIS program? Maybe. After listening to the physicists describe some of the ramifications for relatively as we currently understand it, such as calibration for GPS, the measurements of the universe, and distance to stars, it became clear how intertwined our IT gadgets are intertwined with relativity.
One discussion point point stood out - what else appears to travel faster than light and what happens if something actually does travel faster than light? Time travel - the faster you move, the slower time beats for you. If you were moving fast enough, you could travel back in time. Great - but time travel is a little too "emerging" for our class. What about the speed of information? It was discussed that experiments have shown that information can travel faster than light, but the information is not usable, it is essentially random... "Quantum entanglement." Take that fact and now consider how general and special relativity, along with the study of physics and information intersect. Now start to consider the massive increase in the volume of data and information that is building across the globe. As we look for faster means of analysis, faster means of transmissions, can the fields of information and physics merge to yield a better understanding of our natural world and our ability share and interact with information? What about the connection between information and energy? As we collect and analyze and more and more information, including social information, what types of new technologies can be created to harness or better understand this information with physics rather sociology? What types of breakthroughs are in store? Imagine big data, and the trends the information revelas, are the laws of physics that merge with information? Are their universal laws governing information behavior that we simply haven;t proven yet?
