theophiles.org - Faster-than-light particle measured?

Written by emperorbr549

Thursday, 22 September 2011 22:59

At The Register:

Only weeks since mathematicians proved it couldn’t be done, CERN boffins have put the smile back on sci-fi fans’ faces everywhere by discovering neutrinos travelling faster than light.
The astonishing results, reported by Reuters and others, came as the result of the OPERA experiment in which 15,000 beams of neutrinos were fired from Geneva to the Gran Sasso in Italy.
While the researchers are still advocating “prudence” in the face of these results, they believe their observations – in which the neutrinos made the 730 km journey 60 nanoseconds faster than light would have done – are accurate.

Comments

laika

|2011-09-23 00:12:47

No reaction yet from Rick Perry.

holmegm - re:

|2011-09-26 09:48:31

laika wrote:

No reaction yet from Rick Perry.

laika - re: re:

|2011-09-27 23:18:23

holmegm wrote:

Just me being silly, homlegm. As if after the Galileo thing, Rick Perry might be expected to regularly comment on science news.

holmegm - re: re: re:

|2011-09-29 15:40:50

laika wrote:

[quote=holmegm]?

Just me being silly, homlegm. As if after the Galileo thing, Rick Perry might be expected to regularly comment on science news.[/quote]

Ah, gotcha :)

Well, I suppose he could lash out at these folks who are questioning "settled science" :)

emperorbma

|2011-09-23 21:50:29

The three scientific possibilities are:
1. It can be explained by observational error.
2. The particle behaves correctly as Relativity predicts it would. i.e. it goes backward in time.
3. Relativity would need to be modified to accommodate the new observation.

The more likely scenario, of course, is #1, despite the lab in question's claim otherwise. The second case was already anticipated by the math. The third case would probably take the form of a revision to Relativity to exclude the neutrino from the particles being affected by normal time-space warping behavior. [which could result in a new field of research]

To demonstrate #2 or #3, the results need to be reproduced consistently.

emperorbma

|2011-11-17 22:32:11

UPDATE: It appears that my first guess was probably the correct answer.

laika

|2011-09-24 11:52:38

emperorbma wrote:

2. The particle behaves correctly as Relativity predicts it would. i.e. it goes backward in time.

If I get to choose, I'll take door #2. A universe that doesn't conform to our intuition has a certain appeal, and it does seem that we exist in such a place.

Anyway, the notion that this article belongs is based on recent discussion that got downright technical regarding the behavior of light.

emperorbma

|2011-09-25 00:14:16

Unfortunately for me that's about as technical as I can get. I'd need to understand a bit more about metric tensors and other math before I could get into explaining it any better.

laika - Faster-than-Light Neutrinos May be Due to Faulty C

|2012-02-22 18:14:09

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/02/neutrino s-faulty-cable/

emperorbma - Myth confirmed

|2012-02-22 21:23:39

Scenario #1, observational error. Myth confirmed. :P

laika - re: Myth confirmed

|2012-02-23 18:21:11

Einstein and the emperor correct again?

emperorbma

|2012-02-23 19:05:08

Just sayin' I called it, but then it's not hard to do when you lay out all the reasonable possibilities... :P

emperorbma

|2012-03-16 15:15:56

Experimental confirmation. I think we can completely put this one to bed now.

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