FULL HOUSE: Dario Autiero of the OPERA collaboration announced his team's surprising finding on the speed of neutrinos to a packed auditorium at CERN on September 23.
Image: © CERN
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A few dozen nanoseconds, an imperceptibly slim interval in everyday life, can make all the difference in experimental physics. A European physics collaboration made a stunning announcement September 23, after having clocked elementary particles called neutrinos making the underground journey from a lab in Switzerland to one in Italy. The neutrinos made the trip 60 nanoseconds faster than they would have traveling at light speed, the researchers found. Faster, that is, than the rules of physics as we understand them would allow.
If confirmed, the results from the OPERA (Oscillation Project with Emulsion-tRacking Apparatus) collaboration would be huge, a once-in-a-lifetime revolution in how we understand the universe. But there are plenty of reasons to believe that Albert Einstein's long-reigning theory of relativity will survive this challenge, as it has withstood so many in the past. (Read more about challenges to relativity in this article.)
That is the opinion of a number of physicists we contacted, many of them on Scientific American's board of advisers. Their reactions to the OPERA announcement appear below.
Astrophysicist and cosmologist Martin Rees of the University of Cambridge
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. I think it will be perceived in retrospect as an embarrassment that this claim received so much publicity—the inevitable consequence of posting a preprint on the Web. Neutrinos were observed from SN 1987A more or less coincidentally with the explosion—not four years earlier, as would have been the case if the velocity difference had been the same as is now claimed (though, of course, the energies of the supernova neutrinos are much lower).
Theoretical physicist Steven Weinberg of the University of Texas at Austin, winner of the 1979 Nobel Prize in Physics
The report of this experiment is pretty impressive, but it bothers me that there is plenty of evidence that all sorts of other particles never travel faster than light, while observations of neutrinos are exceptionally difficult.* It is as if someone said that there are fairies in the bottom of their garden, but they can only be seen on dark, foggy nights.
Theoretical physicist Lawrence Krauss of Arizona State University
It is an embarrassment as far as I am concerned. It was not unreasonable for the experimentalists to submit a paper with an unexplained result. But a press conference on a result, which is extremely unlikely to be correct, before the paper has been refereed, is very unfortunate—for CERN and for science. Once it is shown to be wrong, everyone loses credibility. Neutrino experiments are hard, and systematic errors at the limit of resolution can be significant. Moreover, because the experiment appears to violate Lorentz invariance, which is at the heart of so much known physics, one should be skeptical. One should be additionally skeptical because observations of SN 1987A showed, as I wrote in 1998, that neutrinos and photons travel at the same speed to one part in a billion, several orders of magnitude below the claimed effect. Now, the only way out of that is to have some energy-dependent effect, but all the ones that make sense don't wash here.
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129 Comments
Add CommentPhotons have properties such as polarization, making them not primordially simple but in fact compound -- at least dualistic. This gives them dimensionality within spacetime, and also allows (causes) them to interact with matter. It also slows them down slightly when propagated through materials.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOn the other hand, neutrinos, as observed, almost always pass right through matter with hardly any interaction. It may be inferred that they are "zero-dimensional", that is, they behave like pure points of matter-energy. As such, they would not be slowed down by interactions with other particles while passing through matter.
This "dimensionality" (or lack of it) is the key issue between photons and neutrinos. One corollary of this property is that photons actually exist as spirals (a spiral track along a straight space-time axis), whereas neutrinos follow a truly straight line.
Then the question is whether this difference would affect the observed velocity at all. One would suppose that it would.
Another more mysterious implication is that, being zero-dimensional, neutrinos would not be constrained to exist within our physical space-time, but could also appear and move in the realm of "dark matter", too.
WIMPs, dark matter, and neutrinos all seem to be related. Neutrinos themselves are likely a bridge particle between the world of dark matter and the medium of our ordinary tangible matter.
There must be open dimensionality in the dark matter realm, whereas the higher-order dimensions in our physical realm only manifest within the confines of the nucleus of an atom.
With open dimensions stretched out in "space" where dark matter coexists, there is the possibility of "chords" existing as shortcuts across our own physical space-time.
Potentially, neutrinos travel along these linear chords, rather than being constrained to follow curvilinear spacetime as we observe it.
This is all by way of a hypothesis or explanation for how neutrinos might conceivably appear to traverse space-time in shorter intervals than we would expect for photons.
To me, the question is: Will the observation be explained as a simple goof (instrument error, whatever) or as an interesting phenomenon in which nothing goes faster than the speed of light but sometimes you can think it happened because of [___ put interesting thing here ___].
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisEither way, the press conference was probably a bad idea until there is something to put between the brackets.
Here's a comic on the subject of the potential ramifications: http://www.cinemabums.com/?p=131
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSo much speculation.... which is good for creative ideas to explore but which are not factual until they are explored and either proven or disproven.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI want to hear what error resulted in this result, if any can be identified. If an error cannot be identified, then speculations may give us some additional avenues to explore. Until this is either confirmed or disproved, we must patiently wait for the experts to go over the data and get back to us.
On my view, if there is no any systematic error of that experiment, then the ultra high energy to create and accelerate the neutrinoes might caused a space's curvature at the surrounding area including the path to detector. The neutrinoes reached the detector by a fifth-dimension path which is shoter than the actual path i.e. it is a shortcut. As such, the actual speed of the neutrinoes was not faster than light.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisA 13 secong 'burst' of 24 anti-neutrinos was detected by multiple facilities a few hours before the light from the 1987 Magellanic Cloud supernova was detected (the suggestion is that the light took hours longer to reach the surface of the star). The supernova was about 168,000 light years away. If neutrinos move about 20 parts per million faster than light (as suggested bu the CERN results), then we might expect the neutrino pulse to have arrived about (168,000 * 20 / 1,000,000) = 3.36 years before the light. Neutrino observatory records could be checked for anomalous pulses around then, in case some classes of neutrinos do move 20 parts per million faster. I'll keep my eyes open for more results, but I'm betting they simply measured the distance the CERN neutrinos travelled wrong by a bit.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisConfirming the validity of these results is interesting. The little voice in the back of my head says 'just because it does not seem to be correct does not mean that it is not'.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe questions that I have are reasonably basic regarding the measurements themsleves: (1) how accurate is the measurement of the travel time and (2) how accurate is the source to receiver distance?
I have no idea on the first but some simple math indicates that if the source to receiver has to be off by about 18 meters to make that a possible source of the error. I would assume that the distance is a known quantity and while it seems like pretty straight forward measurement it is not.
In any case I am interested to see how this plays out.
I'm not sure faster than light particles even bends Einstein's theory. The perception that faster than light travel is impossible is based on the fact that the denominator for the mass equation approaches zero as the velocity of light is approached leading to infinite mass and therefore infinite power requirements. However Einstein's most famous equation e=mc(squared) shows that mass is converted to light, and therefore losses its mass at some point. What exactly happens during this transition? It's quite possible that an intermediary zero mass state of matter could exist during the transition of matter to energy which would not violate either equation.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf this law is true:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNothing that starts out at or below the speed of light can ever go faster than the speed of light, then
This is also true:
Anything traveling above the speed of light cannot go (read: survive) below the speed of light.
It's a big idea, a multidimensional idea that limited 3D creatures like us have no business trying to grasp; it's like the roof - it's over our heads.
In response to B.T. See's comment, this is something like what I am proposing. We know there are additional dimensions, but we haven't seen them impinging on our four-dimensional reality on a macroscopic scale.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisReplying to Mr. Karl Johansen, a difference here which might account for that is that the photons and neutrinos from the supernova traveled essentially through "empty" space, without significant space-time curvature (except at the origin of the blast), in which case there should not be any difference in their observed travel time. However, when propagating through substantial matter, we already know that photons are slowed down (i.e., take a longer path), whereas neutrinos make a beeline regardless of the intervening material.
This may explain why no delay is observed in the case of the supernova explosion, but a measurable difference (supposedly) appeared in the case of the underground experiment.
Is this an evolutionary step for mans understanding of the cosmos? It is really cool to think about what new technologies are possible. Is this the discovery that unlocks mans access to the universe? I think every Trekkie at heart is rooting for this, but chances are it will be explained.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAssuming for a moment that the phenomenon is indeed real and not just a misinterpreted measurement error (which is a VERY BIG assumption...)
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisEinstein's laws apply to electromagnetic (EM) entities. Light is an EM phenomenon. Charged particles (electrons, protons and their antiparticles) have EM components due to their charge. Even neutrons contain charged quarks, and so are subservient to EM fields and limits.
But what if the speed of light is nothing more than just a kind of "speed of sound" within an EM field? If this were true, then anything not involved with electromagnetic forces won't necessarily be subject to EM-derived limits.
If neutrinos (and/or other types of particles) had no EM component whatsoever, then perhaps they might travel faster than light without violating or otherwise altering the laws that apply to energy and matter entities that do have EM properties. This won't violate causality within the EM subset, any more so than the fact that light travels faster than sound in the atmosphere should somehow violate the causality of atmospheric hydrodynamics.
I used to be a space scientist. I am waiting for other labs to repeat the similar experiments. My gut feeling tells me that it is unlikely. However, there are other things (information/field?) travel faster than speed of light and we don't have a clue yet - quantum entanglement.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn this particular experiment the straight-line distance between the endpoints cannot even be directly measured, but instead were derived indirectly. Granted, the experimenters went to extraordinary lengths to make their derivation accurate, but the results remain suspect so long as they also do not correlate with SN1987A. Even direct measurement of the pathway may be insufficient to firmly establish the accuracy of the result. Unless and until the same results can be achieved over a path in which photons can also be fired, so that there can be a direct comparison, these results should remain suspect no matter how many times the measurement derivations may be checked.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThen, in consequence, an illuminating experiment I would propose would be to accurately measure the propagation velocities of neutrinos and photons in the presence of very powerful gravitational fields (i.e., causing space-time warping), and also electromagnetic fields as an extra experimental condition. One place to find such strong spacetime curvature would be in the close vicinity of black holes -- one could measure the difference in curvature of photon rays and neutrino rays as they pass a black hole in the cosmos. This is similar to an early test of Einstein's theory of the curvature of light by checking the bending of light around the sun during a total eclipse.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisA funny cartoon about netrinos:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://acartoonaday.blogspot.com/2011/09/neutrinos.html
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI'm all for CERN and their rather brave stance. I really hope that they aren't wrong, and even if they are, I appreciate that they have 'overturned the apple cart' to the degree that they have.
Personally, I'm sick and tired of people insisting that Einstein is correct. Anyone who has studied the history of science knows that Einstein's theory is simply another paradigm which replaced Newtonian mechanics. Inevitably,
Relativity will be proven to have flaws... I'm rather certain that Relativity's denial of the existence of faster-than-light information transmission is also incorrect. Science may never actually capture or fully describe the truth, but it will incrementally, mostly asymptotically approach the "limit" of truth as more and more discoveries and solutions are developed.
People aren't in an uproar when somebody points out that Newton wasn't entirely correct in his theory of gravity, which is still a cornerstone of physics. Instead, they accept that Newton's theory has been improved upon by Einstein. People should anticipate that Einstein may one day be viewed the same way as people view Newton, as a great advancement in human knowledge, but not really a final solution to the baffling mysteries of the Universe.
Meanwhile, I'm rooting for CERN!
Please note, the Neutrinos that did NOT change flavor travel AT the speed of light. The Neutrinos that DID change flavor arrived an extremely small amount faster. If the distance is the Plank Length or less, then I propose that the NEW flavor of Neutrino left the Plank Length area of the transition at the SAME time the OLD flavor of Neutrino arrived. A Virtual Particle allows the Neutrino to Jump a Plank's Length.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_particle
Happens all the time when electrons tunnel through semiconductors. How many millions of transistors using tunneling electrons are in that computer on your desk, or lap? And tunneling electrons 2 billion times a second GHz?
FermiLab reported a "bump" in the results for a similar experiment, in this month's magazine.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSame thing?
If, in fact, neutrinos travel faster then the speed of light in a vacuum, then notions of a fated universe come into play. Present knowledge of future events has traditionally fallen into the realm of prophets, visionaries, and crackpots. If CERN’s observations prove to be valid, then science will have inadvertently leant credence to the “occult” claim that there is no fundamental difference between tachyons and tea leaves.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBreaking the Cosmic Speed limit! Suppose that a neutrino oscillates between this universe and an adjacent universe which allows it to break our universe's speed limit. My guess is that there is no dark mater. Our perception is distorted by speed limit breakers. I am not a physicist but I did spend a night at the Holiday Inn Express.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisA FRESH INTERPRETATION OF EINSTEIN’S MASS –ENERGY EQUIVALENCE supports the Italian experiment OPERA unveiling evidence that “fundamental particles known as neutrinos can travel faster than light” as CORRECT. There have been similar situations where X-rays travelling faster than light. (1. Solar flare on April 21, 2002 has shown strong, localized bursts of high energy X-rays coming from the base of the flaring region well before the initial brightening in the EUV. http://www.gsfc.nasa.gov/topstory/20020605rhessi.html 2. " the X-ray emissions of flares are followed, an hour or two later, by a pulse of extreme ultraviolet containing three times more energy than the initial X-ray burst". http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100724/full/news.2010.374.html “The observed delay in EUV emission to the X-rays has been attributed to X-rays traveling faster than EUV, against the traditional wisdom the X-rays and EUV travel at the same speed C". http://www.angelfire.com/sc3/1010/Solarfission.html
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe famous Einstein's mass--energy equivalence widely used for sub-atomic particles such as electron having a mass cannot be directly applied to neutrino with near-zero rest-mass or for gamma or X-ray having zero rest mass. Since gamma, X-ray or light photon are said to have no mass, all these photons are assumed to have negligible but equal mass. When m is given a value 1, E equals to the square of light velocity C. On replacing C with V, which represents relative velocity, energy E of a gamma, X-ray or light photon equals to square of Velocity (V). If this modified formula is really true, 40 keV X-ray photon goes 100 times faster than 4 eV light photon. Similarly EUV photon can go faster than an infrared photon. Basically, this formula justifies X-rays travelling faster than a light photon from cosmic sources. On similar lines one can understand why neutrinos can travel faster than light, when neutrino’s near-zero rest-mass is considered somewhat close to X-ray’s zero rest mass. For accuracy, the above formula may need further modifications for applying to neutrino in view of it’s near-zero rest-mass.
M.A.Padmanabha Rao, PhD (A.I.I.M.S)
Former Professor of Medical Physics, India
The simple fact that the differences between relativity and quantum phisics have not yet been rectified tells me that something like neutrinos going faster than light is going to be discovered. I believe this is only the beginning of a new branch of physics studying faster than light objects.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt will not debunk relativity but will be exceptions to it much as relativity is an exception to classical physics of Newton. In a few hundred years it will all be just an exception or addition to the physics of a complex universe.
SN1987A implies neutrinos and photons travel at the same speed within 1 part in 10^9.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI realize the new measurements are in material media and not vacuum but nevertheless I strongly suspect, with an intuitive probability of say 99% plus, an error in these new measurements.
However, if real; it is fantastic. It means, sooner or later, new physics.
If real, perhaps it is some type of inflation near the point of creation of the neutrinos; after 15 meters or so, the neutrinos are again going the speed of light; some sort of transient phenomena.
I also believe the 1987a observation need to be taken at face value and that points to something about travelling through matter vs travelling through void.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFTL does invalidate SR if we are to keep causality (no time travel backwards). I yearn for a simpler time when aether was pursued. Something tells me nature is not as tidy and pretty as we make it out to be in our mathematical models.
Aether type theories, which are being develop usually trivially account for FTL. It also does away with most of the mythical space-time.
I hope the result holds if anything because I can't stand SR intellectually (although I never had a problem with GR). It is exciting but something tells me SR will not go away easily.
So what are they proposing to call these things - tachyons?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThanks very much for your support :) Mr William Stoertz.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf neutrinos accelerate when traveling in matter because they acquire negative mass then the mystery is solved without violating relativity. Particles with negative mass can go faster than light.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisA researcher at Cern told me, some years ago, that he believed "more firmly than I believe that the sun will rise tomorrow" that lightspeed could not be exceeded. Sounded like a statement of religion, not science and perhaps displayed a stolid (and understandable) determination not to look beyond current understanding.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI think, as others, that we'd best wait until this has been properly peer-reviewed before jumping to any conclusions (particularly the dafter speculations about enabling time-travel which I saw in the Sunday Times in the UK this weekend!). If it does, indeed, imply a rethink of much of Physics, how exciting that will be!
There is NO such a thing as fixed space-time continuum. Note that neutrino has no charge. Hawkins is wrong that charge is irreducible. Yes, it is. And Yes, it is possible to travel above speed of light only and only when matter/antimatter interference is a function of a definite interference of particles/strings/waves.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisok heres my take (im just a science enthusiast)... light travels either as a particle or a wave but recently i saw a show depicting an experiment where it clearly showed that light travels as both at the same time rather than 1 or the other. I believe that the nutrinos ride on the front 'crest' of the wave just infront of the particle/photon and thus looks as though its arriving first. My question is, when measuring the light speed, was the 'time' that the nutrino left the 'gun' measured? or was it when the 'Photon' left the gun... reason being if you measured when the photon left the gun and then compared when you saw the nutrino arrive you are comparing apples to oranges.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMy theory is that if you measure the actual nutrino leaving the gun and then measure its 'arrival' you WILL see that it does not infact travel faster than the speed of light but AT the speed of light, it just simply leaves a second earlier because its in front of the photon on the leading crest of the wave.
my 2 bits but sometimes thinking outside the box (and from a non trained scientific mind) can lead to answers.
Jonathan
Krauss showed that neutrinos have a very slight rest mass because they arrived 3 hr after the light did from the 1987 supernovae event. But this was before neutrino oscillations were discovered. Neutrino oscillation accounts for approx. 1/2 of the "MISSING" neutrino flux from our sun (discovered 1998) because they were spontaneously changing (electron v ->mu v->tau v etc.) The very slight rest mass combined with an even slighter difference in rest mass between the 3 generations of neutrinos involved in oscillation provides a very very small difference in energy (dE). So by Heisenberg uncertainty: (dE)(dt)>=h/4pi, the delta time is significant. This means that they can actually measure this time difference accurately; to wit, 60ns in this case. So here is a case where you can actually measure how much "time was running backwards" in the Feynman diagram. This can't be done for the positron (an "electron going backwards in time")because annihilation precludes time measurements because of the very much larger energy difference. (Also electron/positrons have charge whereas neutrinos do no. Neutrinos are their own antiparticle (Majorana fermion). But more importantly, the energy difference with positron/electron is significantly high, so the very small delta time cannot be actually measured. The real question we should be asking is whether CPT symmetry is also violated. We know CPT violations automatically mean Lorentz violations but the converse is not necessarily true. Since neutrinos are their own anti-particle, the charge issue is dispensed since minus zero is zero. Time is reversed-OK. But only left handed (chiral)neutrinos are observed in our universe. But this is because of the asymmetry of the vacuum through spontaneous symmetry breaking (there is a fixed vector field pervading all space). So since no right-handed neutrinos can exist in this universe, parity is violated. This means CPT symmetry is violated. This means that their is yet another field which breaks the symmetry of the vacuum. Now we can form direct products of these two fields (actually their duals)and deal with them as mathematicians Time to punt to the string theorists who have spent the last 20 years trying to get rid of the very thing that was discovered last Friday - those pesky TACHYONS. It is time for physicists to start believing in the mathematics they have before them - tachyons are not like negative square roots. TACHYONS ARE NOT MATHEMATICAL ANOMALIES ANYMORE - THEY EXIST! Accept it, deal with it, and move on!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHere is a simple argument indicating neutrinos are tachyons.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this1) All neutrinos are left-handed, and all anti-neutrinos are right-handed.
(Reference C. S. Wu at Columbia University)
2) Since a change of velocity frame does not change the chirality, neutrinos
must be luminal or superluminal. This is important. (No right hand neutrinos
was initially accepted as luminal neutrino speed.)
3) With neutrino flavor oscillations come imaginary mass terms, similar to
particle decay lifetimes. Mass not equal to zero excludes luminal speeds.
Imaginary component for mass implies tachyons. (Reference Sudarshan)
I believe this argument comes from Chodos.
Physicist Michio Kaku calls it “the biggest challenge to relativity in 100 years“ and he’s correct! Going faster than light is something that is seemingly not possible, according to Einstein’s 1905 special theory of relativity, for the speed of light at 186,282 miles per second has long been considered the absolute cosmic speed limit ~ but I maintain, and have clearly demonstrated, that a Unified Field of Love and soul consciousness is the absolute cosmic speed limit or universal constant because within it there is no time and space.See http://www.veteranstoday.com/2011/09/26/its-really-quite-simple-its-all-about-love/
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisA neutrino is an electrically neutral, weakly interacting elementary subatomic particle with a small but non-zero mass. Being electrically neutral, it is able to pass through ordinary matter almost unaffected, "like a bullet passing through a bank of fog". The neutrino (meaning "small neutral one") is denoted by the Greek letter ν (nu).
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNeutrinos do not carry electric charge, which means that they are not affected by the electromagnetic forces that act on electrons. Neutrinos are affected only by the weak sub-atomic force, of much shorter range than electromagnetism, and are therefore able to travel great distances through matter without being affected by it. Neutrinos also interact gravitationally with other particles.
Neutrinos are created as a result of certain types of radioactive decay, or nuclear reactions such as those that take place in the Sun, in nuclear reactors, or when cosmic rays hit atoms. There are three types, or "flavors", of neutrinos: electron neutrinos, muon neutrinos and tau neutrinos. Each type also has a corresponding antiparticle, called an antineutrino. Electron neutrinos (or antineutrinos) result when protons decay, through beta decay, to neutrons, or vice versa. Interactions involving neutrinos are mediated by the weak interaction.
Most neutrinos passing through the Earth emanate from the Sun. About 65 billion (6.5×1010) solar neutrinos per second pass through every square centimeter perpendicular to the direction of the Sun in the region of the Earth.
What do you think about this idea? Photons travel through matter continuously being absorbed and reemitted from charges in the matter. That delay reduces their speed which is assumed to be 186,000 miles per second in between the charged particles. What if that finite speed of 186,000 miles per second is due to the photons being absorbed and reemitted by the virtual particle antiparticle pairs bubbling out of the vacuum for a short time due to the uncertainty principle and that the real limiting speed were a little bit higher. The neutrinos which don't get absorbed much by anything would not be slowed by any absorption/reemission and would travel at a slightly faster speed. Why there is a limiting speed is still a mystery in this interpretation, but maybe there isn't a limiting speed for gravitons (gravitation) if inertia is really the instantaneous effect of gravitation from the entire universe according to an idea by Mach indicated by the violation of Bell's Inequality by John Clauser et. al., a friend of mine from Columbia University grad school days. It would seem that instantaneous gravitational interaction would severely limit multiple universe ideas, foam, etc.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisLove'll smack you upside the head harder than any neutrino can!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI agree but i think, the gravitation of the universe haven t make this, because the earth haven t one strong gravity and the scientist discovery this.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnother planets have one different gravity maybe more strong! There the neutrinos are slow!
This fast have one another reason.
Maybe i m wrong.
The universe have one type of matter who this "walk" fast.
I think the dark mater is the answer por the neutrinos!
What do you think about this?
The neutrino oscillation experiment showing supra-luminal speeds prove TACHYONS EXIST. Not only is Lorentz symmetry broken, but CPT SYMMETRY IS BROKEN as well. Here is why: (1) neutrinos have no electric charge (not referring to weak isopin), so they are their own anti-particle; (2) Time is reversed because of the supraluminal velocity, and (3) There are no right handed (chiral) neutrinos in our already broken symmetry universe, so parity symmetry is broken. Therefore CPT symmetry is broken. So now the symmetry of our vacuum is broken by two separate fixed fields. We can now form mathematical direct products of these two fields (actually their duals)and deal with them as mathematicians - tensor them, mod their non-abelian Lie group representations out by their commutators etc to produce corresponding Hilbert space representations as Lie algebras, determine their invariant subspaces by the spectral theorem, etc..Opps, non-unitary transformations pop up between observer and observed - sorry, no inverses. Time to punt to the string theorists who have spent the last 20 years trying to get rid of the very thing (TACHYONS)that was discovered by OPERA last Friday!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisReply to Mr Newman
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThere are many neutrinos out there from the Big Bang. There could be a universe wide coherent effect going on. I don't know that relativity has been checked at all for neutrinos. Relativity is mainly derived from electromagnetism, even though there are many examples of strongly interacting particles reaching a limiting velocity (the speed of light) as their energy gets higher and higher (factors of 10, 100, 1000 higher). Are you suggesting that the rate of movement of a neutrino is faster in dark matter? Sort of a different kind of space curvature for neutrinos caused by dark matter fields from the curvature for hadrons and electrons caused by gravitational fields? The mass (inertia) of a particle is essentially determined to make conservation of energy and momentum work, at least for observable particles. You know that the signature for the CERN/Gran Sasso experiment is a tau lepton generated by a tau neutrino which morphed over from a muon neutrino. There are many theoretical assumptions involved in that experiment besides the experimental facts. Does a tau neutrino, a muon neutrino, or a electron neutrino have mass? Only if you make a long string of assumptions which you can be comfortable with or not. Neutrinos obey conservation of energy and momentum as far as I know which means that they have the same kind of inertia just like everything else we know. However, this experiment cannot connect a particular start and stop of a single neutrino flying from one point to another which is the classical way to measure speed. Even though nobody I know agrees with me, they haven't explained why not so I have fun with the idea that the photons are slowed down by jumping from one virtual pair to another in the vacuum while the neutrino isn't.
I speak in dark mater because in your constitution have 4% of barium matter and proton inside. I suppose the neutrino have one negative charge he move fast.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYes, i read anything about the Work of Cern. I haven ´t scientific facts. Maybe i speculate this. Is my opinion.
I think this is one begining to know the all structure of antmater. this is the balance of the mater/antimater.
What you think about this?
thank you by explanation.
The neutrino appeared to reach faster because it actually traveled a shorter distance. Remember when a neutrino reaches the speed of light its mass increases. The increase in mass causes space-time to compress/pinch around it. so in essence the neutrino travels a much shorter distance than the photon does. In other words, a photon traveling 100 miles would travel 100 miles. BUT a neutrino traveling at the speed of light would compress that 100 miles to approximately 99.9998 miles because its increase in mass would cause a pinch or curvature in space-time.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisand that's why it "seems" to arrive at its destination so quickly. it's just traveling a shorter distance because it's velocity curved/pinched the space(distance) around it slightly.
I propose a simple explanation why the neutrinos at CERN seem to travel faster than light. The physicists are measuring the resultant velocity of the neutrinos. The resultant velocity is a product of two components: the tangential velocity of the neutrino, which is the geodesic between two points, and the radial velocity of the neutrino, which is due to earth's gravity.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe tangential velocity is slightly less than the speed of light, and the radial velocity is positive. When you sum the two components, the resultant velocity may be slightly more than light speed. None of the two components is faster than light.
The resultant velocity seems faster than light because it is the speed of the neutrino along its path which is not a geodesic. The shortest distance between two points (geodesic) is the path of the tangential velocity.
Note that physicists will not observe this effect when measuring neutrinos from outer space because their resultant velocity is the same as their radial velocity. They have no tangential component.
the neutrino exist since the beginning of universe.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhem the big bang happen this mater exist. I belive this is one first mater.
Exist one balance between mater/anti mater and this is the key of all.
The small particle are "invisible" because we haven t technology for see this.
Einstein don t know about this.
The neutrino run 730 km and 60 nanoseconds!
Reverse this: 1/299.792.458 = 0,0000000033356409519815 seconds. This is the time that the velocity of light of the light to spend to walk one metre!
If they run 730.000 metres then they spend 0,0024350178949465 seconds from beginning to end.
Less 60 nanoseconds 0,0024350178949465 – 0,00006 = 0,0023750178949465 are record from beginning to end.
Which the different? 0,0024350178949465 (predicted)/0,0023750178949465 (Calculated)= 1,025262967545494.
this is 102,5262967545494% expect and signify that become one velocity of
307.366.105 metre for second.
This is the new velocity of light. They will be 307,3 mil Km/s
I wondered about the effect of the mass increase also, having some effect.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIs our understanding of the speed of light 100% accurate? I am a novice on physics but i believe to have understood that light is influenced by gravity. Einstein did proof such with an experiment looking at stars which were in a direct line of sight hidden by the moon but could be observed due to its gravity bending them. If so could it be that our measured perception of C (speed-of-light) is just very little under and makes an approx of almost that speed. Ie, we always measure within gravitational environments. Could it be that the neutrinos where i am reading about which seemed to have exeeded our understanding of C (speed-of-light) just make the real or significant better approximation to C (speed-of-light)?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf such is the case then i can imagine the experiment found a particle going faster then light.
-- Wim ten Have.
whaveten@gmail.com
wtenhave@sybase.com
I am astonished as everybody else about the results.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI have a proposed theory about the speed of light theory and Einstein’s relativity theory which would give new aspects to it.
Just looking for someone to publish it.
So the great "Luminaries" of physics have weighed in and voiced their doubts about CERN's observation of Faster Than Light (FTL) muon-neutrinos. More than one has expressed the view that this CERN observation will prove to be an "embarrassment". Others on the web believe this is the new cold fusion. And everybody has suddenly become an expert on neutrinos, GPS, and underground measurement techniques.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI would like to go a different route. Let's assume the observation of FTL muon-neutrinos by CERN is valid and the explanation is straight forward - the muon-neutrinos really are moving faster than light. Given this assumption I propose the following:
1) The electron-neutrino, like the photon, has zero rest mass. The muon and tau neutrinos have small (non-zero) rest mass.
2) Mass increases with velocity but deviates from the Einstein equation at high energy such that as v goes to c mass is a high multiple (not infinity) of the rest mass. In other words FTL velocities are possible - given enough energy.(Sorry AL, but you did have a good run for 106 years).
Given these assumptions we would expect the following:
1) Electron-neutrinos from Super-Nova 1987A would arrive along with the photons from the explosion - just as was observed - because both the electron-neutrinos and the photons truly have zero rest mass and travel at c upon formation.
2) CERN's 17 GeV FTL muon-neutrinos have enough energy (i.e. a high enough multiple of their rest mass)such that their velocity is greater than c (if only by a little).
3) Given enough energy, not just muon-neutrinos, but electrons, protons and everything else with non-zero rest mass can be accelerated to v greater than c.
Indeed, if we knew the rest mass of the muon-neutrino (which, sadly we do not) we could derive a light-speed transition energy factor. For example, if the muon-neutrino had a rest mass of say 1 KeV and assuming CERN's 17 GeV transition to FTL, we would have a light-speed transition factor of 17 GeV/1 KeV = 1.7x10^7. It would then take 5.11x10^5 eV (1.7x10^7) = 8.7x10^12 eV = 8.7 TeV to accelerate an electron beyond c, and 1.6x10^16 = 16 PeV to accelerate a proton beyond c. These particle energies are beyond our current means, but this would explain why we have not observed FTL effects with these particles - we have not yet pumped enough energy into them.
So drone on you brain-washed worshipers of Einstein - the cat is out of the bag, and your days are numbered!
Let me suggest a mechanism for distorting the speed measurement. It's very common for an instrument which is set to catch an event to be blind for an instant afterwards. Think of the retrace time on an oscilloscope. Counters have a maximum count rate -- hit them twice too quickly and they will miss the second event. The effect is trivial when looking for simple signal amplitudes but when extracting the timing of signal like this it could be important since the masked event is always the later one. This would shift the timing of the observed waveform forward. I simply do not know if any of the equipment they are using has this issue, but I offer this as something to check.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI like your hypotheses a lot. I wonder whether it matters or not how those Neutrino particles are launched in order for them to go faster than light?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisComments:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this1. Contrary to popular belief Special Relativity does not forbid particles which travel faster than light. The equations of Special Relativity only say that a particle cannot be accelerated up to or past the speed of light. The equations do allow for particles which always travel faster than light, called tachyons, that, contrary to normal matter, cannot be slowed down to the speed of light. Tachyons, if they exist, effectively "live" on the other side of the speed of light.
2. General relativity allows for two inertial observers to move apart from one another at greater than the speed of light if the spacetime between them is expanding at a rapid enough rate. But in this case they are not moving "relative to space" at faster than the speed of light. In their own local inertial reference frames Special Relativity rules and the speed of light is the limiting speed. This is obviously not what is happening in the recent neutrino experiment.
3. To be tachyonic the square of the particles mass must be negative. The "Standard Model" of particle physics requires the use of "spontaneous symmetry breaking" which is implemented by replacing the mass squared, m^2, of the Higgs field by -m^2 in the equations and hence, before the field variables are redefined to "absorb" the -m^2 the Higgs field is formally tachyonic, although this not often discussed or even mentioned.
5. This is not the first time that measured data has implied that the neutrino is a tachyon. A paper published the journal Physics Letters B, vol 105, in 1985 analyzed the data available back then and came to the conclusion that the neutrino is a tachyon, to a 2 sigma level of confidence which comes from analyzing the variations in the input data.
I just want to clarify something, time travel is not possible. If something can travel faster than the speed of light it still can't travel back in time. You can't see the rock until it has been thrown, however if you travel faster than the speed of light you will be able to see the rock in a fast-forward fashion. Other than to travel faster, travelling faster than the speed of light only means you will arrive before the video of your actions arrive.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this1.Some particles|rays|matter affected by magnetic|gravitations|other|etc. fields more than others, so, some particles|rays flying in within space-time in more `strait` line compare to others.(that's all)
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this1.1.Light moves with a different speed in different medias(vaccuum,glass,water,etc.),we know this for a very long time, so, why is so much fazz about it?!
2.Time-Machine is NOT possible.(period)
fields in the vacuum or anywhere do not indicate the loss of time.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thiswhat is a particle or wave or field that it can supercede.
I just hope they didn't do anything stupid like measure the distance over the curved surface while the neutrinos traveled a shorter distance along a straight line between CERN and their facility. That would be embarrassing as hell.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe last time I saw an announcement like this hit the media rather than a journal was the "discovery" of cold fusion. Color me skeptical. I'll wait for more data and possible confirmation.
It is obvious that we don't know everything. This is neither devastating nor surprising. It is a call for a redoubled effort to review our previous assumptions to ensure we understand. Einstein would be the first to say that if facts present themselves our theories must accommodate them!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou can travel forward in time. It's called time dilation in special relativity theory. You experience that every time you accelerate to non-zero velocity but the effect of time dilation is too small to measure unless your velocity is like 10% of the speed of light or more.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisActually time dilation is measurable even at slower speed. For example, GPS satellites need time adjustments to correct for the effect of time dilation, which is a forward travel in time.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNeutrino's have spin and a magnetic moment, but I think the best argument is that we should be seeing neutrino events well separated from light events at cosmological scale.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt's possible to have a object (or message) move faster than light speed without a causality violation.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisExample: Let's say you can send a message to Alpha Centauri in one second. Then the reply would take only one second, a 2 second round trip time.
As long as the REPLY does not come BEFORE the message is sent, there is NO causality violation.
I should add here that comparing arrival times between two observers that far apart is just about impossible. There is no common time reference.
as we know,gravity curves the space.so distances that we measure in the earth are not really straight.because they are a little curved by gravity of earth,sun,etc.and light has to take this curved path.but neutrinos don't interact by matter.so maybe they don't have to take the curved path by gravity,and they take quite straight way to move.so they may look a little faster than light,because of taking the shorter way than light dose.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI wonder if the rotation of the earth could "shorten" the distance the neutrino has to move? That is, if the earth is rotating towards (normal to) the direction of the neutrino, the distance the neutrino must travel is shorter and therefore, the apparent speed is faster.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI've got some more data on the idea that the dead-time after one neutrino is detected could affect the results. It's unlikely. There might or might not be some dead time caused by reading the FPGA, depending on whether they used a FIFO to buffer it. (They probably did.) However, the detection rate is incredibly low. Using previously published intensity per extraction of 2.4E13 and the currently published 1E20 protons used, there were 4.167 million extractions (bursts) resulting in only 16111 neutrinos being detected. The odds of catching one neutrino in a burst are only about one in 259 and the odds of two interfering even if the hardware was imperfect drop to roughly one in 67,000. That's not going to skew the results -- and the chances are that the hardware doesn't have that defect anyway. They look way more competent at this than I am.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe above numbers come from separate documents so they are surely carried to too many decimal places, but the point is made. I'm believing that their measurement is accurate.
These numbers do show just how difficult the measurement was, with way less than a single neutrino caught per burst. I'm extremely impressed.
Aren't we seeing too much of this kind of publicity seeking in Science already? I'm not a physicist and instead rely on what the majority of physicists say about some physics topic. Here's the majority saying this report has little or no chance being correct and NO way it should have been broadcast via news conference.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis publicity stunt thing started with paleontologists claiming various "firsts" O
I do not think the report of the observation of faster than light muon-neutrinos by CERN is a "publicity stunt". This is a serious observation based on several years of data, and meticulous attention to all kinds of factors that might contribute to the result - with a heart felt plea for the rest of the physics community to weigh in - not with opinion - but with a repeat of this experiment. In short this is PHYSICS - and experimental results trump everything - even the opinions of the so called "luminaries" not one of whom could point to anything specific as being in error with this observation (other than it violates Einstein's Special Relativity of course). That's the key Buck, and even when they don't say it - they say it. Yet every theory has its limits, even Einstein's. That is the danger of hero worship for them, and that may be the price you pay for listening to the majority in this case - being wrong.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOh, one more thing Buck, if future experiments confirm these CERN FTL muon-neutrino observations you will still see these guys writing books and on TV - except they will be saying "told you so"!
Thanks Dino, A breath of fresh air! There is so much stale, crowd-following, conservative inertia in what is called a 'scientific community'. We should be seeing a joyful celebration that at last real science has exposed assumptions that are holding back progress.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisRe-evaluating everything held 'holy and sacred' may be scary but is the only way we shake off 100years of narrow thinking, mathematically controlled, non-laboratory mysticism. It has clouded generations of potential Galileos by blinkering them to gravity and c's limitations. Perhaps now the neutrino will become the foundation of zero/low-mass ether experiments? Perhaps too we will see the sheer nonsense of discounting the presence of electric currents in space?
How does Einstein's equation say that matter is turned into light? It equates matter with energy, but I have never heard anybody relate the relation between these two to the conversion of matter to light. The C squared does not imply conversion of matter (or of energy) into light, but is, as I understand it, a proportionality constant, plain and simple. It does not imply any conversion into light, rather, matter being completed converted into energy can be converted into many forms of energy, light being just one of them. Please correct me if I am missing the point.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhy not? Einstein never measured the speed of the wavefront for light but only made an assumption that it was the same as lambda nu. In fact, the only reference frame we have is the planet earth, there is no certainty on the velocity of the wavefront from distant stars. We assume it is C because lambda nu is C. This may express the energy in the wave but not the wavefront.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn fact it has been shown with the red-shift that we are either moving away from the source or toward it. This does not prove that because we are moving into or away from the front that our relative motion relative to the wavefront is a constant.
In fact for Einstein to make such a claim should have been questioned long ago.
Your analysis is incorrect. You cannot just put 1 as the mass in E=MCsquared just because you are using particles with zero rest mass. The mass is zero. If they had mass, they would be unable to travel at the speed of light, indeed, they would not be light as we know it. The energy of light is not related to it's speed, but rather the wavelength of the particular photon (I believe it is something like E = h x lambda, with lambda being the wavelength or frequency, I can't remember which, and h being Planck's constant . X-rays are light, just not visible light, and thus the travel at the speed of light. All photons travel at the speed of light, and differ only in their frequency and direction of polarization. I understand your reasoning, and where you made you misstep in reasoning, and that is in applying E=MCsquared to massless particles (rest mass, that is).
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe electron neutrinos arriving from the super nova would not have remained electron neutrinos during their entire flight time. Neutrinos oscillate between their three families, from electron, to muon, to lepton, and back again. So the electron neutrinos arriving from the supernova would have spent two thirds of their time travelling as non-electron neutrino's.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHow would this fact fit in with your hypothesis?
That is a good point kebil. I know that our current theory maintains that neutrinos oscillate between their three families. I'm not sure that this is what is actually going on. No other particle does this - the parent particles associated with their neutrinos -electrons don't oscillate into muons and taus. Though it isn't often discussed oscllation theory breaks electron, muon, and tau family conservation laws. By these laws for example a muon is allowed to decay (not oscillate) into an electron, electron anti-neutrino and a muon neutrino. But a muon is never seen to change (oscillate) into just an electron. But at the same time I know that the oscillation theory does nicely explain the neutrino flux from the sun for example.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHowever, even given the oscillation theory, we have the fact that the energy of the neutrinos (be they electron, muon, or tau) from SuperNova 1987A was only 10 MeV, far less than the 17 GeV neutrinos in the CERN experiment and thus far less than the energy required for transition to v > c (i.e far less than the than the light-speed transition energy factor of 1.7x10^7 that I proposed as an example in the post you reference).
The paper released by the research group is very clear and very credible. The techniques used for synchronising the two stations in the experiment is a standard one. They claim synchronisation to 1 nano second, in fact the technique has been demonstrated by previous workers to be good to 0.1 nano seconds at similar distances. The GPS technique for measuring the locations is also well used by others and the accuracy provided is in the centimetric range as claimed.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI predict that a future experiment using the much higher energy Cosmic Rays will not only confirm this result of faster than light neutrinos but will also show much higher speeds at these higher energy.
The Cosmic Rays are up to hundreds of millions of times the energy of the protons in the LHC but are far fewer in number. This later fact will potentially cause some problems. The use of a large cosmic ray air shower detector will help this since the many interactions that take place as the energy from the Cosmic ray proton is transferred to the particles that make up the atoms in the air. This will result in many neutrinos hitting the neutrino detector that would be deep underground below the air shower detector.
The resulting spectrum of neutrino energies will give a wide spread of superluminal speeds if the effect is real.
Placing such a Cosmic Ray air shower detector array above the neutrino detectors, such as the one used in Italy and in Japan, should be a priority for the scientific community.
Makes you wonder how many superluminal speeds have been clocked, but disregarded as 'experimental error' because they do not agree with the current paradigm!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSame as Michelson-Morley, et al, who disregarded a perfectly consistent 9~11km/s ether effect - because they were looking for an incorrect 30km/s speed. We blinker our view with convention. Please view a talk on the subject at this site: w^3.archive.org/details/EvidenceForTheAnisotropyOfTheSpeedOfLight.
This does not change the apperent speed of light. The speed is relative to the observer of the object. If you accelerate towards and object that is traveling the speed of light towards you then the speed will not increase only the phase will shift towards the violet and the relative mass will increase. The length in the direction of travel will decrease also. The only way for an object to appear to travel faster than light is for it to tunnel through space taking a shorter path.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPerhaps the neutrinos are tunnelling though our dimensions and moving through another axis seemingly traveling faster than light. They are not moving the distance that we think they are. This velocity of the neutrinos does not disprove any of Einstein’s equations. It simply means we have a square root of -1 (imaginary operator) in them. Usually if this happens in an equation then it points to there being another axis available.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisGord: "If you accelerate towards and object that is traveling the speed of light towards you then the speed will not increase only the phase will shift towards the violet and the relative mass will increase.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"
If you follow Bob's talk (above) then Petr Beckman's proposal makes a lot more sense. In other words "c is constant wrt the LOCALLY DOMINANT FIELD not wrt the observer". And in the non-vaccuum of space that field is the local em field. The maths gets exceeding easier when you take into account the passage of an em wave thru, what we now know is plasma (99.99% of the universe) NOT 'curved space'.
From what I understand, the researchers send their neutrinos thru several hundreds of KM of solid rock. This surely doesn't qualify as "vacuum" and a lightspeed of 300,000KM/sec is thru a vacuum. I am reasonably comfortable with the idea, that thru all that rock, a neutrino could outrun a photon.I understand that a neurino interacts farless with matter (if at all) than a photon.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnd even if we're talking about neutrinos going faster than 300000KM/sec, so what? Interesting, certainly, but we're not made of neutrinos, so it's nog going to make any difference to us, is it? It would, in any case, not justify all this talk about timetravel etc. etc. etc.
Let's await validation of the results first and then we'll see.
"It is an embarrassment as far as I am concerned." Lawrence Krauss.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn the counselling field we teach that it is not the event that is significant, it is the meaning we attach to it. Perhaps the findings are erroneous, yet the issue captures the public's attention, raises awareness, and curiosity.
A curious, aware, and attentive public can only help advance the cause of science.
Embrace the buzz!
Firstly, a disclaimer, I am not highly educated in this particular subject matter (But I do like to make predictions at the fringes on my knowledge). Under the three assumptions that: the speed of light is indeed inviolate, the test results are accurate and confirmable and the experiment did not make a groundbreaking discovery in multidimensionality, then I am left with only two possible conclusions. Since the neutrinos moved through dense matter for the majority of their trip and were sampled very quickly after their emergence, this must either have had the effect of some propagating new neutrinos ahead of themselves or the neutrinos lengthened. I'm aware of similar phenomena occurring in photons but not familiar enough with the math to know if the existing framework would apply to neutrinos. There are very few other explanations that do not bend space radically or require a rework of high speed movement through mass-affected (bent) space. One test that could be performed is to look for cases where photons and neutrinos have both passed through massive clouds on their way to earth.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDid they also measure the vertical distance traveled by the neutrinos? If this is computed rather than measured, it could be a source of error since earth's gravitational field varies along the earth's surface. The neutrino's radial velocity is affected by the gravitational field.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt should be noted that superluminal speeds need not entail causality violations, that is back in time signaling. What it would require is a preferred frame.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSee here:
Newsgroups: sci.physics.relativity, sci.physics, sci.astro, sci.math
From: Robert Clark <rgregorycl...@yahoo.com>
Date: Sun, 2 Oct 2011 06:27:24 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: On causality and superluminal speeds.
http://groups.google.com/group/sci.physics.relativity/msg/675fa9a3cca68825?hl=en
Bob Clark
Doubts! I wonder if the Nobel-prize 2011 in Physics will not be questioned? An accelerating expanding Universe seems to be not in line with particles that can travel faster than light. If the Cern´s findings are correct, may it be that the Universe is not expanding at all. Particles that travel faster than light means that the Universe look different than it was. Concludently, the prize-winning theori may be based on wrong facts
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBased on charts illustrating the numbers of proton and neutrino detections (see Fig. 11 in the official OPERA report: http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1109/1109.4897.pdf ) indicating, in particular, a destabilization of proton and neutrino beam conditions occurring following a peak in detections ~6,000 ns for first extractions and about ~7,000 ns into each second extraction, I strongly recommend that only data representing stable beam conditions prior to those peaks be selected for reanalysis.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn more detailed reports the effects of destabilization are referred to as 'oscillations' which are excluded or filtered ('smoothed') in the proton detection data only. No adjustment is made for the neutrino detection data, which may also be skewed by what may be a harmonic resonance occurring within the proton and resulting neutrino beams.
If final neutrino ToF results produced from selected stable beam data substantially contradicts the analysis of the complete set of extraction duration data, especially if the stable beam data does NOT indicate FTL neutrino flight times, the current FTL conclusion would have to be reconsidered as a product of beam conditions.
If the subset of stable beam data confirmed the FTL conclusion it would be to some extent substantiated.
Since this approach does not require any additional experiments, it can be conducted by reanalyzing selected existing data, producing new results.
every second that passes you travel one second into the future. Other than the past time travel none other is possible. Just because there is a loop does not mean there is no patch...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI NEED A KNOWLEDGEABE PHYSICIST.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSN1987A shows that neutrinos and photons travel through vacuum with the same speed to 1 part in 10^9. If neutrinos are "apparently" FTL, it may have something to do with the material media it is passing through.
40 years ago, for my Master's thesis, I tried to come up with the radius of an electron assuming all the mass was electromagnetic. I came up with 10^-20something meter. I do remember it was very close to the schwartzchild radius calculated for a particle of mass and charge of an electron. So in the back of my mind I have always thought that the electron is possibly somehow a stable black hole.
Now a neutrino goes through mass differently than a photon, which is absorbed and re-emitted. An electron black hole would have a very small radius of influence but the neutrino would pass by an enormously large number of them. This means the neutrino would be passing through curved space at least some of the time. The distance it travels, therefore, would not be the same as the straight line distance. I don't know if it would increase or decrease time of travel. Any physicists here that could answer this question.
Sorry I'm not qualified to help, but IMO when propagating through a massive object (such as the Earth), its gravitational effects should also affect neutrino motion.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTheoretically I Proved this in 2005.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe neutrinos must be passing through a vacuum. Even if there is air, the neutrinos are far smaller than the gas molecules. They will just pass through the empty space between the gas molecules.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe electron is not a black hole. It has a fixed electric charge, mass and radius. You cannot just decrease the radius and turn it into a black hole.
A curvature in spacetime will not alter the measurements since your measuring instruments will also follow the same curvature. But earth's gravitational field can alter the neutrino's radial velocity.
The speed-up might be a one-time delta-t rather than a faster than light neutrino. It's possible that the icons threatened are Heisenberg and Schrödinger, not Einstein.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOf course it's possible that someone substituted a cable that was 3 meters longer somewhere at the source end, after all the timing calibration was done. An equipment rack got moved. That would add the 60.7 nanoseconds. However, with that many physicists signing the document and all of them well aware of the risks to their reputations, I seriously doubt there is an error. (My earlier guess and retraction doesn't bother my reputation too badly -- I'm an outsider who is happy to say "oops.")
Just a prejudice on my side, but if there is an error I would bet on the FPGA doing the time stamps. Hold the reset too long and the counts will be off. It's unlikely, and I think their calibration methods would have either caught it or compensated for it.
It's a shame that the detector timing is only quantized to 10 nanoseconds, since there is a clear fine structure with a 5 nanosecond period in the source beam. It makes very little difference to the results at the 60 ns scale, but the same data could have been sharper if the fine structure could be seen. The pictures line up extremely well anyway -- sharper data isn't needed to make the case that the received pulses are too early.
From this distance (too far) I can suggest possible hardware glitches, but I'm really quite sure they have better vision than I have. I'm betting that the effect is real. However, I am guessing at a one-time jump forward rather than a velocity change. That would reconcile the supernova and accelerator data.
This is an interesting result. The only problem is that a comparable experiment with light is not possible. If one can measure the exact distance using both light and the gps method, and if the results match exactly then only we can say the opera result is correct.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTake two points on earth's surface visible to each other and sufficiently distant from each other( about 300 miles apart). Using a laser measure the distance between these two points. Then using the same gps system as in opera measure the distance between these points. If these measurements don't match exactly then there is an error in the opera experiment.
This cheaper and easier experiment should actually show whether an attempt should be made to relocate the neutrino experiment.
This is an interesting result. The only problem is that a comparable experiment with light is not possible. If one can measure the exact distance using both light and the gps method, and if the results match exactly then only we can say the opera result is correct.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTake two points on earth's surface visible to each other and sufficiently distant from each other( about 300 miles apart). Using a laser measure the distance between these two points. Then using the same gps system as in the opera measure the distance between these points. If these measurements don't match exactly then there is an error in the opera experiment.
This cheaper and easier experiment should actually show whether an attempt should be made to relocate the neutrino experiment.
I missed the remarks on filtering the proton data, but I hope they did filter it a little. There is a strong 5 ns (200 MHz) variation in the proton current from the RF pushing the protons, and that would be masked by the 10 ns resolution of the detector. I would think they would integrate the proton data for 10 ns intervals before doing the correlations. Maybe 5 ns, just to flatten the ripple. Maybe it's not necessary but I would worry about odd effects from correlating with a signal that has such strong high speed ripple on it.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWe have looked at the results of SN-1987A and this experiment and find the obvious difference. One is in space, the other is through earth's crust. If there is a difference to be found, one should look at what lies between the source and target. Then you will find something very interesting.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFaster than light limitation introduced by the velocity addition formula of Lorentz transformation which was based on a mistake. Finally, the mistake is corrected and limitation removed. Proof on: https://www.sderatz.com
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFaster than light limitation introduced by the velocity addition formula of Lorentz transformation which was based on a mistake. Finally, the mistake is corrected and limitation removed. Proof on: https://www.sderatz.com
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNeutrinos move at light speed. Photons move slower. What we call light speed is the ultimate physical speed 1/c = Sqrt[eps_0 mu_0]. Einstein's Special Relativistic formulae remain valid. Photons are bosons consisting of an electron-positron assembly. Physical mass is zero, but the mass of the composing particles not. Therefore a photon is subject to decay, which manifests itself as a slight dispersion of the photon's wave, causing a very tiny reduction of its speed. Light, manifest as photons, is measured by light in the format of photons. Actually light should be measured by neutrinos, which are fermions, not subject to dispersion in its wave front. So, the result of the CERN-scientists is correct: a neutrino is faster than a photon.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe only problem is that a comparable experiment with light is not possible between the same end points. If one can measure the exact distance using both light and the GPS method, and if the results match exactly, then only we can say the opera result is correct.
What I am proposing is an equivalent experiment using light.
Take two points on earth's surface visible to each other and sufficiently distant from each other( order of 100s of miles). Using a laser measure the distance between these two points. Then using the same GPS system and method as in the OPERA experiment measure the distance between these points. The two measurements should match exactly or we have unexplained error.
Paco - let's follow scientific principles here and write on what we know. Your blast that William Stoertz's input was lending credence to the occult's claim that there is no fundamental difference between tachyons and tea leaves is a mean-spirited exaggeration based on ignorance of "the occult". There are so many groups that one might call "the occult" each with such varying "scientific" views that it renders your slam to something similar to an ethnic joke. Until the 15th century, our scientific roots were with what might be called "the occult."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPerhaps it could be analogous to the photon tunneling phenomenon, where light is seen to propagate super-luminously through an opaque barrier.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThere can be no proof for the postulate that nothing can travel faster than light as can't be for Godel's incompleteness theorem however it is comprehensive. Further if I am right relativity can't explain the following problem:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTwo observers A & B are travelling with velocity V between them A sees an object traveling with velocity U in the same direction( or dimension) as V . A & B are continuously communicating. What is the velocity of the object as seen by B. Relativity tells us that it should be U + V (as both length and time dimensions reduce by same amount so velocity should remain unaltered). However for very high values of U approaching the speed of light this is incorrect. Relativity is incomplete and incorrect. Why should people be skeptic of new findings as they have been from time immemorial.
Common guys Einstein is never wrong. According to me its possible implication of Space Time Wrap for the neutrino guys which we have achieved as a consequence of interrupting Dark Substances in accelerator.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOnly about a quarter of the proton detection event data was filtered or excluded - then only to "correct" for inadequately identified significant effects imparted to the data, presumedly by proton beam conditions.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI relied on a large, more detailed, but clearly written 182 page thesis by Giulia Brunetti, which can be found at:
http://operaweb.lngs.infn.it:2080/Opera/ptb/theses/theses/Brunetti-Giulia_phdthesis.pdf
In that thesis, section 8.1, "OPERA Events and Data at CERN" addresses events that effected the proton data. In particular, Fig. 8.4 illustrates the severe oscillation effecting the final about 2,000 ns of all proton extraction detection data.
Of greater concern is the disruptive event occurring about midway through all extraction runs that affects both proton and neutrino detection data collected in 2009 and 2010, at least. All Extraction runs begin with detections gently increasing as the extract proceeds, then a disruptive event occurs (requiring deletion of proton data). From that point on the number of detections levels off or even diminishes through the end of the extraction. This condition al effect is not addressed in the detection data.
A number of commenters have insisted that "Einstein is always right," while others seem intent to prove some aspect of Special or General Relativity Theory wrong.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHere, the crucial point I will examine is WHY Albert Einstein's theory is fundamentally correct, and the philosophical implications of that important tenet.
When we speak of "relativity", we generally think of the relativity of the respective orientations of space-time frameworks between two or more observers and their coordinate systems. This is the classical view.
A second aspect of relativity is the relativity of observed velocities, masses, dimensions, and time intervals. We are basically all familiar with the distortion or stretching of these at high speeds or intense gravitational fields.
Thirdly, we have "relativistic velocities", obtained primarily in stellar jets or in particle accelerators, but observable even with space vehicles.
However, I wish to call attention to the more primordial, fundamental meaning of this phenomenon of "relativity" -- namely, the relativity of "centrality" of individual bodies or entities in the microcosm and macrocosm.
The point here is that each particle, each cell, each organism, each human observer, each social community, and each celestial body is itself the center of the universe.
This fact is not only philosophically true but also cosmically so.
The relationship between particles, beings or bodies, in which "relative centrality" is a primary principle, is manifest mathematically and physically in the relationships of "Relativity" as Einstein with magnificent insight spelled out in his tensor equations.
Einstein's discovery was not merely a phenomenal observation and its ensuant explanation, by way of a "justification" as it were; rather, it is the insight into a most significant, fundamental, and universal truth of our entire universe.
That is, to recoup, each entity is in and of itself both physically and philosophically (and religiously, if you will!) central to the Weltall, the Cosmos, the perceivable universe around him/her/it.
Here we find, if I may extol, a profound basis for democracy, as opposed to the totalitarianism which Einstein himself confronted in his time.
The worldwide struggle for truthful democratic social relationships and philosophically truthful human relationships continues to this very day, as we can all see in the daily newspapers.
Once again, I commend and uphold Einstein and his great theory!
What mankind takes as truth ... is often found to be disproved by yet another source. Take Einstein's special relativity for example. Most of the math is correct ( actually he has ignored some 'imaginary' results ) but to be as blunt as possible ... the ASSUMPTIONS ARE FALSE. For starters ... You don't need the speed of light being fixed to a given velocity to deduce some of his math results ... but that's really not the problem.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe problem is the topology of space(time) chosen by Einstein. Simply put, Euclidean space is fine for describing stationary objects ... but for moving objects ... especially those objects approaching the rate of the speed of 'propagation of information' ... Euclidean space falls flat on its 'face.'
Why so?
Because of the following situation: Suppose Einstein has a really big head. And his eyeballs are 3 light years apart ... like I said ... a big head. Now consider a stationary object blinking on/off ten times a second. Provided the object isn't on the perpendicular line bisecting the line between the two eyeballs ... one eyeball will receive the information before the other eyeball. If the object is 4 light years away from one eye, but say 5 light years away from the other eye ... one eyeball will get the information long before the other eye. For a stationary object ... it doesn't matter which eyeball recieves the infomation first. But for moving objects ... it matters a great deal ... and simply asserts that Euclidean space is nothing but the 'parallax method' of two independent observes ... who use 'angle information' and a known distance seperating each other ... to compute the concept of distance. Since Einstein's theory of relativity ( both special and general ) are based upon Euclidean space measurements ... the computations are complete 'junk' because the space chosen to describe moving objects ... is 'junk.'
And yes, I'm very well aware that in general relativity ... the space(time) of Einstein is 'non Euclidean' ... however ... locally the space is a psuedoRiemann manifold ... which is Euclidean like ... and these Euclidean like spaces are being 'glued together' using the techniques of differential geometry to create Einstein's generally 'special non Euclidean' space(time).
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisActually there's nothing new in the 'big head' paragraph ... the above argument can be attributed to Tesla ... and had Einstein bothered to read Newton's principia carefully ... he would have gathered the notion of 'action at a distance' ... and the arguments describing the 'notion of action at a distance' ... was Newton's way of admitting ... his calculations were only valid for objects moving much less than the speed of light. That's also why Newton went to great lengths to attempt to 'compute the speed of light' using the equipment available to him at the time ( a hill, some mirrors, and a mechanical clock ) ... and after doing so ... assured himself the speed of light ( or information propagation ) was much, much greater than compared to the speed of moving planets.
And finally, those that claim that the Mic-Morley experiment supports the notions of special relativity ... I claim otherwise. The Mic-Morley experiment supports nothing more ... than the failure to measure any of the 'mysterious ether wind' believed to exist. In fact, the experiment might have to be conducted on the scale of 50 light years ( and not fifty meters ) to detect any notion of 'such a wind' and to give an analogy ... just because no current is detected in a river ... doesn't mean your measuring device is not hidden behind a 'rock in the Everglades stream.' Those that believe in the isotrophy of space are sadly mistaken ... as are those who believe Maxwell's equations are correct ... as these calculations are based upon 'flawed' Euclidean space. So yes, objects can move faster than the speed of light ... and yet mankind doubts as such ... for the very same reason that airflight faster than the speed of sound was deemed unlikely.
Is it possible that tunneling is occurring? Superluminal propagation is seen, effectively, in photon tunneling.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhatever the results of all the investigations of Opera, nothing is going to change for any of us in our daily lives.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWe won't be tossing out all of science, and going back to the cave worrying about things that go bump in the night.
If the limit on speeds is in error, then revise the theory.
Big deal.
We will survive.
I'm more than a bit bemused by the sheer emotion in many of the comments. I sense sarcasm, anger, derision. Why? If it's really a stupid mistake, then prove them wrong and have done with it. If you can't prove them wrong, then perhaps they know a bit more than you do or you don't know enough.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisEither way, let's go the scientific way instead of the tabloid way.
Comparing the speeds of the neutrinos from SN1987A and from the CERN experiment has the following fallacy: if indeed extra dimensions are involved then the topology of those extra dimensions may mean that the speed ration light/neutrino may not be constant. See my recent post in sci.physics.foundations for a toy model that illustrates this.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisRyan, Congratulations on bringing some sense to this Einstein-worshipping crowd! I would disagree slightly on your Mic-Morley bit. If you return to the original data, there was a consistent measurement range between 6 and 12km/s of the anistropy of light speed (over 100 years of experiments). In other words there is a directional ether, not the static effect (expected to give 30km/s). A very good paper discusses this in far more detail:w^3.worldsci.org/php/index.php?tab0=Abstracts&tab1=Display&id=6255.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI am not surprised to learn that neutrinos could possibly travel faster than light. It's been known for years now that quantum reality and Einstein's reality refuse to play by the same rules. I have often thought of Einstein's reality as being merely an image projected by the machine that is quantum reality, with a defined set of parameters that quantum reality simply isn't limited to.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisLooks like we have been closing our eyes to the truth for a long time. How often do we gate out 'noise' until we EXPECT to see a signal?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisQuote:"Of greater concern is the disruptive event occurring about midway through all extraction runs... All Extraction runs begin with detections gently increasing as the extract proceeds, then a disruptive event occurs (requiring deletion of proton data). From that point on the number of detections levels off or even diminishes through the end of the extraction. This conditional effect is not addressed in the detection data."
Ralph Sansbury, Connecticut physicist, performed a 1000$ experiment, stopping a laser beam with a fast (Pockel cell) shutter. Only after the required 1 nanosecond/ foot delay did he open the shutter. What did he see..nothing!
Sansbury gives the electron a structure by proposing a number of charged particles (he calls subtrons) orbiting within the classical radius of an electron. A simple calculation gives the surprising result that these subtrons are moving at a speed of 2.5 million light years per second!
Thus any electron or other charged particle accelerated in an electromagnetic field, is distorted from a sphere into an ellipsoid. The more em energy applied to accelerating the particle, the more energy is absorbed by distortion of the particle until, ultimately, at the speed of light, there is an expulsion of the subtrons. Under such conditions, the particle only APPEARS to be gaining mass.
In Sansbury's view, a signal from a light source is received INSTANTLY by a distant detector and the speed of light delay in detecting the signal is due to the time taken for the ACCUMULATED RESPONSE of the subtrons in the detector to result in a threshold signal at the electron level. This is totally at variance with orthodox interpretations which would have the light travelling as a discrete photon or wave packet at the speed of light. See w^3.bearfabrique.org/Catastrophism/Wallsan.txt
In the OPERA experiment , the neutrino seem to be traveling faster than light because the synchronized clocks used in the experiment generate a system in which the time information spreads faster than light.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSo is the Earth which moves in space with a speed of at least 7 km / s (in the north / south line that runs from Switzerland to Italy). Thus the neutrinos are not coming soon in Italy, but Italy that travel to the neutrinos while they are traveling by the Earth.
See the full explanation on:
http://www.atomlig.com.br/poli/Neutrino-IG.pdf
If an emitted light wave was instantaneously presented to a detector but only detected when a complete photon 'packet' was received, how could light emitted billions of years ago be detectable now, by a detector that did not exist when the light was initially emitted?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this...see more below...
Thanks for the link. I have read some more recent research articles proposing a helical physical structure for electrons...
Sansbury's experiment was interesting until I read:
"Now, light is considered to travel as a wavefront or photon at the speed of light. Viewed this way, it covers a distance of about 1 foot per nanosecond. So the laser could be regarded as sending out 10ft long bursts of light every 400ft, at the speed of light. The experiment simply kept the Pockel cell shutter closed during the 400ft of no light and opened to allow the 10ft burst through to the detector."
"What happened?"
"The detector saw nothing!!!"
How could the experiment possibly have been terminated with only that result??? It seems obvious that subsequent experiments should have been conducted varying the shutter opening until a setting were eventually found that allowed detection of the light signal or all possible settings had been exhausted!
I'm not in a position to complete such an experiment, but I would encourage anyone interested to do so. Sansbury's conclusion may or may not have been correct, but his timing assumptions could also have simply been incorrect.
In my view, propagating particles do span physical spacetime as a wave 'packet', but are of wavelength limited distance/duration (somewhat as expected in Sansbury's experiment). If an emitted light wave was instantaneously presented to a detector but only detected when a complete photon 'packet' was received, how could light emitted billions of years ago be detectable now, by a detector that did not exist when the light was initially emitted?
I expect that some variation of shutter timing in Sansbury's experiment would reveal very interesting information about the physical characteristics of light wave propagation.
BTW, it seems to me that in Sansbury's scenario of the instantaneous reception of an emitted light wave with the eventual detection occurring after the accumulated reception of 'subtrons' to assemble a complete particle, Einstein's Solar eclipse experiment producing dynamic movement in the apparent location of background stars would not be possible.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhile the assemblage of particles does seem to occur as the reception of a complete wave 'packet' is accumulated over a specific period of time (I suspect determined by wave length), IMO the physical propagation of a wave front through spacetime is initiated by an energy emission event.
Dear Sir ! I agree with you completely. To be the first who has found this small difference could easely be established via a short note in a scientific paper. There is no question that little difference ( if it existet )would have created the interest it deserves.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDr.Kamlander@aon.at
We can't burn new ideas at the stake anymore so why not put it out there. Just think of what wonders await if this is a new begining. It is worth a look.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWe can't burn new ideas at the stake anymore so why not put it out there. Just think of what wonders await if this is a new begining. It is worth a look.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI would love to see new physics such as tachyonic neutrinos or lines that are straighter than straight because neutrinos do not spiral. Unfortunately, the results are probably due to some uncompensated factor such as GPS location accuracy. It should be noted that GPS managers go to great length to "compensate" for relativistic effects.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this(See http://www.phys.lsu.edu/mog/mog9/node9.html)
Considering that GPS is used to determine the distance between the neutrino source and the OPERA detector that would be one of the places I would look. I have been working on an analytical process to map gravitational inhomogeneities and the geodesic of the Earth using GPS data. The "relativistic corrections" make that difficult.
It would be wonderful if these findings are confirmed but I am not going to hold my breath.
There is a news report in Science indicating that the OPERA Collaboration will conduct a new set of tests as early as next week to eliminate the original statistical process which relied on the fitting of beam 'waveforms' to assign a presumed 'emission time' for detected neutrinos from a 10,500 ns pulse of protons.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe 10,500 ns proton beam pulses will be replaced by a 1-2 ns beam pulse, which should allow a much more definitive identification of a neutrino emission start time with a precision of 1-2 ns.
It's expected that this new short duration test will allow detection of ~12 neutrinos, allowing some confirmation or denial of previous results. Please see: http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2011/10/faster-than-light-result-to-be.html?
IMO, these new tests, if properly implemented, should eliminate the prior FTL claims.
CERN scientists have used microwaves for measuring the speed of neutrinos, and they assumed that microwaves travel at the speed of light (c=300.000km/s), but as we have learned from GPS engineers, The Sagnac correction must be made in order to take care of the earth's rotation, CERN has forgotten to include this effect in the OPERA experiment. In other words, light speed is not c, it is c+/-v (v =earth 's rotation velocity), so
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisspecial relativity (light speed postulate) should not have been used for measuring the speed of neutrinos.
Summerizing these ideas "special relativity has been surely refuted by the OPERA experiment result."
Best regards,
Hartwig Thim
I vaguely remember that in the 1960s at Tech, we were taught in our undergraduate 4th semester physics that neutrinos entering our atmosphere arrived early, faster than they should have. I was therefore surprised at the current degree of uproar. As we advance the field, do we sometimes forget older assertions or findings; or were they wrong both times?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisRichard
There seems to be no mention that the experimenters asked very sincerely for other people to check the data and, better still, _please_ do more experiments. Goof or no goof, there is no cause for embarrassment.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI certainly agree. If the OPERA Collaboration is conducting the revised experiments (see comment 120) using a beam pulse of 1-2 ns rather than the original 10,500 ns pulse this may eliminate the 60 ns FTL original result. Most certainly, if they eventually reverse their preliminary findings they should be roundly applauded for their efforts!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSo the speed of light c is a constant only in a vacuum and is apparently slowed when travelling through substances eg water.Also light is bent by gravity of which there is a lot in underground Europe. So it is possible that the experimenters could not create a perfect vacuum? Also neutrinos are not 'bent" by gravity and do travel in a straight line. So either there is a fault in measurement or a real "worm hole" has been discovered with neutrinos taking a short cut compared to the path of the light?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOPERA did not experimentally determine the speed of light - it was calculated @ 300,000 km/sec. for the estimated ~730 km distance. That calculated time-of-flight was compared to the effectively measured time-of-flight in the recent neutrino retest. The neutrino time-of-flight was 60 ns less than that calculated for light traversing the same distance.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhy do you think that the path of neutrinos would not be gravitationally effected? Photons have zero rest mass while evidence indicates that neutrinos have positive rest mass and interact gravitationally. The actual path taken by relativistic non-zero rest mass neutrinos has not been determined and may be indeterminable.
Otherwise, I agree with you conclusion, disregarding wormholes, but repeating the experiment at an independent laboratory should likely eliminate even that possibility.
The critical issue in this experiment is that the measured propagation time for neutrinos was determined to be 60 ns faster than the calculated time for simulated photons to traverse an approximately equivalent distance in a vacuum.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSince the path and distance actually traversed by neutrinos is not precisely determinable, this result is inconclusive.
As I grudgingly calculate, at 300,000 km/sec., the reported 60 ns discrepancy could be completely accounted for if the neutrino propagation distance was actually 18 m less than the ~730 km estimated distance traversed.
Good Blog
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPhysics is a natural science that involves the study of matter and its motion through spacetime, along with related concepts such as energy and force. More broadly, it is the general analysis of nature, conducted in order to understand how the universe behaves. Post by http://www.howtowritetermpapers.com/
I do not doubt the evidence for a nonosecond as long as the tag they put on this one particular clocked neutrino matched when it made it to the second collector. If not there is still the possibility that even though neutrinos (or groups of them) could become dismayed within the Earth even without +- charges. Not having a magnetic charge does not mean that there is no interaction with other matter when the density is so great. On the tag, they could have been measuring an entirely diferent group of neutrions.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAbout that tag...