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

Originally Posted by PaddyX21

I'm afraid it is a little beyond my ability to understand, but here are the results in question: http://static.arxiv.org/pdf/1109.4897.pdf



Yeah, I got the 7.4 ns systematic uncertainty, plus the 18ish ns statistical uncertainty, but only after I had asked the question lol!
And with an n=16111 then it looks pretty compelling.

It would be uber-cool if this can be confirmed.
Not only because of exciting new prospects, but also because we finally have something which can be used to test new theories.
We needed the accelerator in CERN to rule out SUSY. And CERN cost a lot of money.
If we have a verified new observation, new theories can be falsified much quicker (and cheaper).

Still a big 'IF' of course.
Much will hinge on the next couple of months.

All this assumes the stated accuracies are, well, accurate. If there's any variation in timing accuracy that isn't accounted for then things could be far less, or far more, interesting.
It will be interesting to see how this all pans out.

Originally Posted by MickRussell

All this assumes the stated accuracies are, well, accurate. If there's any variation in timing accuracy that isn't accounted for then things could be far less, or far more, interesting.
It will be interesting to see how this all pans out.

Of course.
It's just that hundreds of really smart people have tried for months to explain the difference.
The fact that they didn't find anything means there is nothing 'obvious' left.
the claims are also controversial enough that the hundred of so people who attached their name to the paper would not have done so if they thought it would be easily refuted. After all, noone wants to be linked to another cold fusion style fiasco.

Interesting times indeed.

But since this is indeed highly specific, the data can be argued back and forth indefinitely.
the only thing that will provide answers is reproduction in a different site.

I thought this was another interesting tidbit: Victor Stenger: No Cause to Dispute Einstein

some excerpts:

a big fly in the ointment is the supernova in the Large Magellanic Cloud, which sits just outside our galaxy 168,000 light-years from Earth. It was first seen by the naked eye on February 24, 1987. Three hours before the visible light reached Earth, a handful of neutrinos were detected in three independent underground detectors. If the CERN result is correct, they should have arrived in 1982. So, if I were a wagering man, I would bet the effect will go away because of some systematic error no one has yet been able to think of.

it needs to be made crystal clear that despite what has been reported in the media, superluminal motion in no way contradicts Einstein's theory of special relativity published in 1905.

When you read, "Einstein proved that particles cannot go faster than the speed of light" you have to understand that this was not a consequence of the basic axioms of the theory of special relativity. To prove this he introduced an additional assumption now called the "principle of Einstein causality": cause must always precede effect.

So, if confirmed, the reported result from CERN or any future observation of superluminal motion will not lead to the overthrow of Einstein's theory of relativity. Its significance will be to overthrow the distinction between cause and effect.

Finally, you might want to ponder what effect the demise of causality would have on the notion of God as the ultimate cause of all there is.

Nothing precludes particles from going FTL, as long as they have negative or imaginary mass.
Relativity would not be broken but the impact would be equally enormous and be of significance to validate superstring theories etc.

Besides, causality already does not exist on microscopic scale. The 2 slit refraction experiment itself is enough to destroy our notion of common sense. Current theories surrounding the big bang and the fundamentals of the universe are already limited. Our current theories are the mathematical equivalent of 'It's turtles all the way down'. Another example: take 2 parallel lines. They're perfectly parallel. Yet at infinity they cross. We know they do because it's an axiom which underpins all of trigonometry. And without that axiom, trigonometry -which we know to be correct- falls apart. There is nothing 'reasonable' or 'common sense' about our universe. Physicists just try to lull you into thinking it makes sense.

Our belief in a higher being is in no way being influenced by the result of this experiment.
Either you believe in a higher being which -somehow- caused the universe to be, or you don't.

The whole notion of 'now' is an illusion anyway, invented by our limited mind for the purpose of getting through the day without going insane. If lack of 'sense' in physcis was cause for not believing in God, you wouldn't believe in him already.

So does that mean we can actually blame you for starting this thread?

OPERA Confirms: Neutrinos Travel Faster Than Light!!

the OPERA researchers seem now to stand behind the measurement much more united than they were two months ago

Interesting. So we have certainty it is not a one-off fluke.
If this data will be confirmed from other sources we can celebrate.

Apparently three or four years from now they'll figure out how to use FTL to make neutrinos travel backwards in time, so they sent us some so we'd know how important it was to continue the research.... now it all makes sense!

A couple of bits from Once Again, Physicists Debunk Faster-Than-Light Neutrinos - ScienceInsider

...in February, the OPERA team also discovered that a loose fiber optic cable had introduced a delay in their timing system that explained the effect. A month later, researchers working with the ICARUS particle detector, also housed in Gran Sasso, measured the speed of neutrinos fired from CERN and found that they travel at light speed, as predicted.

Five different teams of physicists have now independently verified that elusive subatomic particles called neutrinos do not travel faster than light.