Thread: It is always darkest before dawn - for neutrinos?

I just noticed it is front page news.
Regardless of whether it turns out bust or not, it is interesting that it is reported in this fashion.

I was speaking with one of the scientists involved with the project and they thought they had it on film. When they slowed down the image, they thought they had isolated the neutrinos.....
Nope, it was Chuck Testa
Sorry, couldn't resist

After being away for few days i just saw this at the local media. It is most interesting but i'm willing to bet a huge bottle of vodka if it appears to be the scientific fact after later researches. One research doesn't prove much. It has to be repeated many times until it becomes a fact.

If it later really appears to be real thing then it also means that there is a lot to be corrected in Einstein theory of relativity (which have been proven to be the fact for zillion times). Our whole world and electronic industries just work based on the theory of relativity. If it happens to be fake, then someone has a lot to explain. Without this theory even mobile phones or GPS satellites wouldn't work.

Maybe too complicated to stress those few neurons i have left. Named them Barbie and Ken. While i leave you fine gents resolving this dilemma i might as well take i beer while waiting for the outcome.

Originally Posted by Sailor

After being away for few days i just saw this at the local media. It is most interesting but i'm willing to bet a huge bottle of vodka if it appears to be the scientific fact after later researches. One research doesn't prove much. It has to be repeated many times until it becomes a fact.

If it later really appears to be real thing then it also means that there is a lot to be corrected in Einstein theory of relativity (which have been proven to be the fact for zillion times). Our whole world and electronic industries just work based on the theory of relativity. If it happens to be fake, then someone has a lot to explain. Without this theory even mobile phones or GPS satellites wouldn't work.

Maybe too complicated to stress those few neurons i have left. Named them Barbie and Ken. While i leave you fine gents resolving this dilemma i might as well take i beer while waiting for the outcome.

Nothing that dramatic.
Yes, special relativity would have to be updated, and even more interestingly, so would electro magnetism, since SR is built around that. But the direct impact would be minor.

Trains, planes, boats and other mechnical things did not suddenly stop working when newtonian physics was proven to be incomplete. Newtonian physics was still accurate within the context in which it was devised. And it is still used today. When engineers design bridges, they use newtonian physics, not relativity.

While I think that this will turn out to be an experimental fluke, the world would not be different tomorrow if it isn't. Relativity would still be valid within the context for which we are using it now. Besides, we already know that relativity has issues. The reason we do is that it becomes completely unusable at quantum level.

Quantum level calculation that take gavity effects into account make both QT and Relativity unusable. Therefore neither theory can be said to be correct. The best explanation I have read is that both (sets of) theories are what you get if you have a theory of everything which is taken to the limit of infinity for gravity, and 0 for the other forces.

And indeed, there are superstring models out of which General relativity emerges as a set of mathematical limits.
Anyway, whether it turns out to be true or false (I am hoping for true but expecting false), it would not change anything in our world tomorrow.

The military would try to make a bomb or a death ray of course

Originally Posted by Bruno

whether it turns out to be true or false (I am hoping for true but expecting false), it would not change anything in our world tomorrow.

Just think of the economic impact if it turns out to be true, with all the anxious textbook publishers ready to shove more xth editions down students' throats. It might even be enough to save Obama's reelection campaign next year! Or am I going too far?

Originally Posted by gugi

Yeah, just another theory like the global warming and the evolution.... You can either keep an open mind and be tossed like the waves of the sea, or believe firmly in something that doesn't change and never waver!

Yee-haw!!!!

Attachment 78770

I LOOOOOVE Dr. Strangelove

Originally Posted by hoglahoo

Just think of the economic impact if it turns out to be true, with all the anxious textbook publishers ready to shove more xth editions down students' throats.

I will simply say that I agree with you for fear of blasting the publishers. Other-wise it would be... Darn greedy publishers...

Originally Posted by hoglahoo

Just think of the economic impact if it turns out to be true, with all the anxious textbook publishers ready to shove more xth editions down students' throats.

I'm sorry to break it to you, but it's not the publishers, it's the class instructors who require their students to use specific edition that are shoving all that edumkeshin down students' throats. Compared to tuition and cheap booze the textbook budget quite small.

Of course, I'm still looking for those students that have even a vague idea what the neutrinos are good for, in fact if they can tell me how far the electrons in my laptop battery move before it needs recharging, they get A+.

I know the answer to that. Apple don't use electrons in their batteries. They are powered by the smug self satisfaction of their user! Triple S battery Lol.

This kind of stuff happens all the time and should be expected. Much like we don't expect a model train to accurately represent a real train, mathematical models of physical phenomena rarely accurately represent those phenomena to the degree people would like them to. The thing you have to watch out for is forgetting that the models are merely a tool and are not themselves "the truth". I think this is particularly apt with what one might call deterministic models. Without sufficient allowance for stochastic effects all such models are doomed to merely describe average behaviors. Even with stochastic elements things are not much better but at least you are able to quantify uncertainty, something that becomes increasingly important once these models are asked to predict at unobserved areas of the model space.

James.

Originally Posted by Jimbo

I know the answer to that. Apple don't use electrons in their batteries. They are powered by the smug self satisfaction of their user!

And by the anguish of the potential users in waiting of their coveted MBP


oh, burn!!! but you've gotta man up, get that asagi honed blue wonder and fight for what is yours!!!!