# WTF?! Particles recorded moving faster than light: CERN



## editor (Sep 22, 2011)

Well, there goes Einstein's theory then...



> An international team of scientists has recorded neutrino particles traveling faster than the speed of light, a spokesman for the researchers said on Thursday -- in what could be a challenge to one of the fundamental rules of physics.
> 
> Antonio Ereditato, who works at the CERN particle physics center on the Franco-Swiss border, told Reuters that measurements over three years showed the neutrinos moving 60 nanoseconds quicker than light over a distance of 730 km between Geneva and Gran Sasso, Italy.
> 
> ...


Surely Star Trek warp speed travel can't be too far away now?

*later thread merged


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## Bernie Gunther (Sep 22, 2011)

> The big question is whether OPERA researchers have discovered particles going faster than light, or whether they have been misled by an unidentified "systematic error" in their experiment that's making the time look artificially short. Chang Kee Jung, a neutrino physicist at Stony Brook University in New York, says he'd wager that the result is the product of a systematic error. "I wouldn't bet my wife and kids because they'd get mad," he says. "But I'd bet my house."



http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2011/09/neutrinos-travel-faster-than-lig.html


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## butchersapron (Sep 22, 2011)

Speed-of-light experiments yield baffling result at LHC



> Puzzling results from Cern, home of the LHC, have confounded physicists - because it appears subatomic particles have exceeded the speed of light. Neutrinos sent through the ground from Cern toward the Gran Sasso laboratory 732km away seemed to show up a tiny fraction of a second early.


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## butchersapron (Sep 22, 2011)

I'm obviously not fast enough!


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## Hocus Eye. (Sep 22, 2011)

Perhaps these clever particles know of a short cut.

Oh dear, I have just had the horrible thought that in the world of quantum physics in some obscure technical theory, my answer is right. It could be something to do with space folding back on itself between the sending station and the receiving station.


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## Maurice Picarda (Sep 22, 2011)

Why is their first thought to ask other scientists to explain away their findings, rather than to rush to the patent office and claim to have invented a neutrino-powered superluminal bike?


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## DotCommunist (Sep 22, 2011)

Because they are scientists and not bread-heads man


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## Maurice Picarda (Sep 22, 2011)

DotCommunist said:


> Because they are scientists and not bread-heads man



And yet, here is a picture of Ereditato.







He certainly looks like the kind of chap who would smuggle the mutant neutrinos home in a blanket and breed them into a new race of superfast neutrinos, then sell them to SPECTRE. Appearances must be deceptive.


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## ATOMIC SUPLEX (Sep 22, 2011)

They probably forgot to carry the 2


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## stuff_it (Sep 22, 2011)

butchersapron said:


> I'm obviously not fast enough!


'Are you sure you want to like this post?'


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## ATOMIC SUPLEX (Sep 22, 2011)

Light bends due to gravity?
Neutrinos don't?

But they are all going round in a big circle aren't they. Oh.


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## Cid (Sep 22, 2011)

I'm guessing this is based on the speed of light constant, i.e light in a vacuum, so unaffected by gravity etc. Perhaps it shows something amazing like light is always slowed by some kind of background field... Weird.


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## Dr Jon (Sep 22, 2011)

> According to the law that energy is equal to mass multiplied by the speed of light squared, or E=mc2, firing an object faster than light would require an * infinite amount of energy*.



Oooh, that'd be useful.
I hope Einstein was right.


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## ferrelhadley (Sep 22, 2011)

ATOMIC SUPLEX said:


> Light bends due to gravity?
> Neutrinos don't?
> 
> But they are all going round in a big circle aren't they. Oh.


Nutrinos are affected by gravity.

However they are not going round in a circle at cern as that is for charged particles, nutrinos are uncharged.

The explanation is almost bound to be equipment failure of some sort.

If its not there may be some gaps in our understanding of what space is.


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## xenon (Sep 22, 2011)

The universe is fucking with us again, isn't it.


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## paolo (Sep 22, 2011)

*stocks up on tinned food*


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## yardbird (Sep 22, 2011)

I don't understand all this, but find it fascinating.
I expect urban to explain this to me. *watches thread*


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## ferrelhadley (Sep 22, 2011)

yardbird said:


> I don't understand all this, but find it fascinating.
> I expect urban to explain this to me. *watches thread*


For the moment world leading physicists cannot explain it.


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## DotCommunist (Sep 22, 2011)

I would love more than anything for this to be a genuine example of FTL, it would make me skip a happy dance and think that humanity might actually one day be able to do more than colonise more than the solar system. It doesn't seem likely though does it, it must be a human error. If it is true, then it changes everything we thought we knew about the universe


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## paolo (Sep 22, 2011)

I don't really understand the LHC, I just hope the discoveries trickle down to improvements on the Circle Line. Victoria to Paddington in 0.000000000000001 milliseconds would be well handy.


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## equationgirl (Sep 23, 2011)

My first thought was some kind of measurement error in the equipment. They have run the experiment 15,000 times over 3 years though.


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## DotCommunist (Sep 23, 2011)

yeah but if there is an error in the initial set up you can run it twelve million times and still show same strange result every time


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## weltweit (Sep 23, 2011)

So faster than light speed travel may well be possible!! yay ..


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## Badgers (Sep 23, 2011)

ferrelhadley said:


> For the moment world leading physicists cannot explain it.



Pfft, Urban can explain it 

Look at Einsten? Where is his theory now eh?


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## Cid (Sep 23, 2011)

DotCommunist said:


> yeah but if there is an error in the initial set up you can run it twelve million times and still show same strange result every time



I imagine they've been pretty thorough over that time though, looking at possible variables and shit rather than just pressing the 'release the neutrinos' button.


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## dylanredefined (Sep 23, 2011)

Well maybe you can change the laws of physics after all?


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## Badgers (Sep 23, 2011)

dylanredefined said:


> Well maybe you can change the laws of physics after all?



We make up the rules. Take Skynet for example.....


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## purves grundy (Sep 23, 2011)

butchersapron said:


> _Puzzling results from Cern, home of the LHC, have confounded physicists - because it appears subatomic particles have exceeded the speed of light. Neutrinos sent through the ground from Cern toward the Gran Sasso laboratory 732km away seemed to show up a tiny fraction of a second early_


what will they think of next?!


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## Lord Camomile (Sep 23, 2011)

yardbird said:


> I don't understand all this, but find it fascinating.
> I expect urban to explain this to me. *watches thread*


Basically, this. I _know_ there's a lot of scepticism to be had first, but it's all rather jolly for a Friday morning


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## cliche guevara (Sep 23, 2011)

DotCommunist said:


> it must be a human error.





equationgirl said:


> My first thought was some kind of measurement error in the equipment. They have run the experiment 15,000 times over 3 years though.


The neutrinos are recorded to have moved at .004% faster than light, and their margin of error is .00025%.


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## ferrelhadley (Sep 23, 2011)

ferrelhadley said:


> Nutrinos are affected by gravity.


Someone was drunk last night. 

Nutrinos are not affected by gravity, nor are photons its space-time that is bent by gravity. Particles travel in straight lines but those are straight lines in space-time curved by gravity.


> If its not there may be some gaps in our understanding of what space is.


Well how it is shaped across this path that is being measured. That would be pretty funky.


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## Hocus Eye. (Sep 23, 2011)

So if the neutrinos have travelled faster than light then they should have gone back in time. according to the man with the wild hair. When they arrived they would be younger than when they left. But they left only a tiny fraction of a second before they arrived. That means that they arrived before they existed.


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## ferrelhadley (Sep 23, 2011)

Hocus Eye. said:


> So if the neutrinos have travelled faster than light then they should have gone back in time.


I am dredging deep into the memory here and should actually do a bit of rereading on this but Feynman reckoned any particle moving backward in time was in effect its anti particle so if the nutrino was moving back in time it is quite likely to have had a rather notable property. 

From the observers perspective you would see the nutrino arrive before it left, but then you would actually see an anti nutrino created in front of you then moving back towards the experiment to see it destrotyed.

Anyone know if Im wrong on this?


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## Hocus Eye. (Sep 23, 2011)

ferrelhadley said:


> I am dredging deep into the memory here and should actually do a bit of rereading on this but Feynman reckoned any particle moving backward in time was in effect its anti particle so if the nutrino was moving back in time it is quite likely to have had a rather notable property.
> 
> From the observers perspective you would see the nutrino arrive before it left, but then you would actually see an anti nutrino created in front of you then moving back towards the experiment to see it destrotyed.
> 
> Anyone know if Im wrong on this?


It might be a tiny bit more difficult than watching a tennis match.


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## Lord Camomile (Sep 23, 2011)

ferrelhadley said:


> Anyone know if Im wrong on this?


I don't even understand what "this" is


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## Hocus Eye. (Sep 23, 2011)

Lord Camomile said:


> I don't even understand what "this" is


If you don't understand anti-matter, it doesn't matter.


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## weltweit (Sep 23, 2011)

What we might have here is a simple failure to synchronize their watches!!


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## ferrelhadley (Sep 23, 2011)

Lord Camomile said:


> I don't even understand what "this" is


Think of a car headed towards you with the headlights on. 
The light of the headlights can only travel at the speed of light.
Now if the car is moving faster than the speed of light the light of the headlights gets to you after the car.
So what you would see is the car arriving, then the light of the headlights getting to you seeming to be from further and further away.
For your perspective the car seems to be traveling back in time.
It seems like the car is moving further away as the light from further away arrives.


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## Lord Camomile (Sep 23, 2011)

But, and I appreciate I could be throwing unnecessary idiocy into this, won't you be unable to see the car too, as you only see the car because of light reflected off it, but if the car is going faster than the light that is reflecting of it then... wha... 

I have to admit, relativity is just one of those things I've always struggled to get my head around. I have a particular problem with the idea that time ins't a constant.


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## Hocus Eye. (Sep 23, 2011)

weltweit said:


> What we might have here is a simple failure to synchronize their watches!!



Surely they wouldn't be using watches. They will have a very accurate clock. Being situated on the Swiss border, it will be a cuckoo clock.


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## weltweit (Sep 23, 2011)

They are probably using Swatch Irony Automatics like mine:




Which require you to move your body to wind them, if you don't move enough, the watch stops!!


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## kained&able (Sep 23, 2011)

bout time someone found a way to take that einstein down a peg.

This is quite exciting, i really really hope its not faulty equipment.

dave


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## weltweit (Sep 23, 2011)

kained&able said:


> This is quite exciting, i really really hope its not faulty equipment.



I agree .. come on lets get Teleporting !


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## Bernie Gunther (Sep 23, 2011)

Nature have picked up the story now. Not surprisingly most of their reader comments lean towards scepticism.

http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110922/full/news.2011.554.html


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## Limejuice (Sep 23, 2011)

So does E still = mc^2 ?

I hope the CERN guys haven't fucked up the most beautiful and pithy equation going.


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## ferrelhadley (Sep 23, 2011)

Lord Camomile said:


> But, and I appreciate I could be throwing unnecessary idiocy into this, won't you be unable to see the car too, as you only see the car because of light reflected off it, but if the car is going faster than the light that is reflecting of it then... wha...


Its a perfectly reasonable point. And says you are thinking about how things travel. This is a thought experiment, so its a way of building a very simple image of the world to think about how one thing affects the world, to do so we leave out loads of real world physics to focus on the simplest way of thinking about things.
So if you can just imagine that the car does not absorb the light, then think about the light of the headlights trailing behind the car and when that the light from the headlights will get to you compared with the car.... lets let a bit of real world physics slip for a few minutes.

For people wanting to understand the anti matter thing with time travel, imagine someone in the car has two magnets. Now they put the magnets close to each other and they move together as they are atttracted. This is what happens in the car. 
But to the observer the magnets are repelled from each other as the car appears to travel back in time. Electrons will appear to act positively charged, and protons negatively charged.
A positivly charged electron is an anti electron. The entire car will appear to be made of anti matter.


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## Limejuice (Sep 23, 2011)

ferrelhadley said:


> The entire car will appear to be made of anti matter.



Apart from the anti-freeze which, presumably, will look like pro-freeze to an observer...


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## Lord Camomile (Sep 23, 2011)

ferrelhadley said:


> Its a perfectly reasonable point. And says you are thinking about how things travel. This is a thought experiment, so its a way of building a very simple image of the world to think about how one thing affects the world, to do so we leave out loads of real world physics to focus on the simplest way of thinking about things.
> So if you can just imagine that the car does not absorb the light, then think about the light of the headlights trailing behind the car and when that the light from the headlights will get to you compared with the car.... lets let a bit of real world physics slip for a few minutes.
> 
> For people wanting to understand the anti matter thing with time travel, imagine someone in the car has two magnets. Now they put the magnets close to each other and they move together as they are atttracted. This is what happens in the car.
> ...


I'm going to need to go away and have a think about this.

And to think, at one stage I wanted to study the philosophy of time travel for my extended essay in my degree


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## eoin_k (Sep 23, 2011)

This reminds me of the astronomical observations made in Newton's lifetime that we inconsistent with his model but that could be explained in terms of curved space-time when Einstein came along.  Because there was no alternative model, it was unclear if the cause was an issue with the 'data' or the 'theory' and Newton's theory was able to explain most other observations, they were effectively put on the shelf for about two centuries. It will be interesting to see how this plays out.

Whatever happens, this is a nice illustration of the limitation of Poppers philosophy of science.  Which isn't to argue thatfalsification isn't part of the scientific process.


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## Kizmet (Sep 23, 2011)

They'll find it much harder to suppress data nowadays then they did then.


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## Gromit (Sep 23, 2011)

weltweit said:


> So faster than light speed travel may well be possible!! yay ..



Possible but not advisable. You won't be able to see where you are going (as you are ahead of light) and so would be turning your steering wheel blindly.


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## weltweit (Sep 23, 2011)

Gromit said:


> Possible but not advisable. You won't be able to see where you are going (as you are ahead of light) and so would be turning your steering wheel blindly.



So, there will be steering wheels ... aha


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## Kizmet (Sep 23, 2011)

Limejuice said:


> So does E still = mc^2 ?
> 
> I hope the CERN guys haven't fucked up the most beautiful and pithy equation going.



We're just collecting them as time goes by... first there was F=ma then E=mc^2... all depends on the size of the problem.


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## Kizmet (Sep 23, 2011)

Gromit said:


> Possible but not advisable. You won't be able to see where you are going (as you are ahead of light) and so would be turning your steering wheel blindly.



You'd have to program your route in first.... a kind of "hold on to your hat"nav.

"What the fuck was that?"nav.


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## Cid (Sep 23, 2011)

Maybe background/vacuum energy has a tiny effect on the speed of light that makes it slow down so what we see as the speed of light in a vacuum is not... or possibly our measurements of light have always been affected by gravity to some extent, although I imagine there are ways of compensating for that. Perhaps it's the Higgs field affecting light while neutrinos ignore it, that would be elegant. Probably something really obvious though.


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## Kizmet (Sep 23, 2011)

Lord Camomile said:


> I'm going to need to go away and have a think about this.



Don't think... feel... it is like a finger - pointing to the moon. Don't look at the finger - or you'll miss all that heavenly glory.

The great scientist Bruce Lee.


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## Kizmet (Sep 23, 2011)

Cid said:


> Maybe background/vacuum energy has a tiny effect on the speed of light that makes it slow down so what we see as the speed of light in a vacuum is not... or possibly our measurements of light have always been affected by gravity to some extent, although I imagine there are ways of compensating for that. Perhaps it's the Higgs field affecting light while neutrinos ignore it, that would be elegant. Probably something really obvious though.



Probably... but the point isn't that it's travelling faster than light, particularly - it's that the signal arrives before it should... against calculated results. But it doesn't seem to be a consistent result. That's the confusion. And the beauty.


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## xenon (Sep 23, 2011)

ferrelhadley said:


> Someone was drunk last night.
> 
> Nutrinos are not affected by gravity, nor are photons its space-time that is bent by gravity. Particles travel in straight lines but those are straight lines in space-time curved by gravity.
> 
> Well how it is shaped across this path that is being measured. That would be pretty funky.



I thought it had been discovered fairly recently though whilst nutrinos are trixy little buggers, (physics speak.) They do actually have some mass. Therefore wouldn't they be effected by gravity, allbeit minimally?


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## Hocus Eye. (Sep 23, 2011)

E = MC^2 probably

That should cover all eventualities.


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## xenon (Sep 23, 2011)

Lord Camomile said:


> But, and I appreciate I could be throwing unnecessary idiocy into this, won't you be unable to see the car too, as you only see the car because of light reflected off it, but if the car is going faster than the light that is reflecting of it then... wha...
> 
> I have to admit, relativity is just one of those things I've always struggled to get my head around. I have a particular problem with the idea that time ins't a constant.



Not that I greally get any of this but if you're interested, Brian Greene's Fabric of the Cosmos is a great acccessable book. Covers the state of cosmology. Well, as known in 2005. Maybe a little out of date by now of course...


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## littlebabyjesus (Sep 23, 2011)

xenon said:


> I thought it had been discovered fairly recently though whilst nutrinos are trixy little buggers, (physics speak.) They do actually have some mass. Therefore wouldn't they be effected by gravity, allbeit minimally?


You don't have to have mass to be affected by gravity. As fh explained, general relativity explains gravity by considering mass to warp the structure of space-time. It's a very good theory in that it has predicted lots of things very very accurately. Best not to throw it out just yet.


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## Kizmet (Sep 23, 2011)

Quantum... the new old physics?


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## Gromit (Sep 23, 2011)

weltweit said:


> So, there will be steering wheels ... aha



As standard on the Toyota Space Cruiser but as an optional extra on the Toyota SpacePrius.


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## xenon (Sep 23, 2011)

littlebabyjesus said:


> You don't have to have mass to be affected by gravity. As fh explained, general relativity explains gravity by considering mass to warp the structure of space-time. It's a very good theory in that it has predicted lots of things very very accurately. Best not to throw it out just yet.



Ah yeah, gravity effects light too of course. What makes nutrinos so weekly interacting then? 

<goes to wiki>

e2a electrically nutral, so no electromagnetic interactions but are effected by gravity and the week nuclear force.


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## Corax (Sep 23, 2011)

xenon said:


> e2a electrically nutral, so no electromagnetic interactions but are effected by gravity and the week nuclear force.


But not on the Sabbath.


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## Corax (Sep 23, 2011)

dp


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## Kizmet (Sep 23, 2011)

littlebabyjesus said:


> It's a very good theory in that it has predicted lots of things very very accurately. Best not to throw it out just yet.



They said the same thing about Newton, probably!


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## ferrelhadley (Sep 23, 2011)

Kizmet said:


> They said the same thing about Newton, probably!


If its not experimental error Id be back that the nature of space-time is involved 100 times over a reworking of special relativity. Something like either its curved in an unanticipated way or there is some kind of effect by curled up dimensions.


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## dilute micro (Sep 23, 2011)

You people just don't get it.


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## Combustible (Sep 23, 2011)

xenon said:


> Ah yeah, gravity effects light too of course. What makes nutrinos so weekly interacting then?
> 
> <goes to wiki>
> 
> e2a electrically nutral, so no electromagnetic interactions but are effected by gravity and the week nuclear force.



Not only are they electrically neutral but they do not interact via the strong nuclear force which is why they are much more weakly interacting than neutrons which are also neutral.


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## Corax (Sep 23, 2011)

Is there really any such thing as a 'perfect' vacuum?  I have no idea, but it just sounds implausible.  And if there isn't, and light is slowed by matter, then any measured speed of light may be a fraction off it's 'true' speed.  Neutrinos on the other hand don't interact with matter.

However, I'm an Eng Lit graduate who's read a couple of books, so I really don't have any idea what I'm saying.


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## ferrelhadley (Sep 23, 2011)

Corax said:


> Is there really any such thing as a 'perfect' vacuum? I have no idea, but it just sounds implausible. And if there isn't, and light is slowed by matter, then any measured speed of light may be a fraction off it's 'true' speed. Neutrinos on the other hand don't interact with matter.
> 
> However, I'm an Eng Lit graduate who's read a couple of books, so I really don't have any idea what I'm saying.


There cannot be a perfect vacuum in this universe, everywhere will be full of energy such as the 3k background microwave radiation as well as virtual particles popping in and out of existance.


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## Corax (Sep 23, 2011)

That's what I was thinking, although probably In a much more woolly way than you.


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## ItWillNeverWork (Sep 23, 2011)

ferrelhadley said:


> ...there may be some gaps in our understanding of what space is.



This might explain why I bumped into that lamp post whilst out drinking last night.


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## Corax (Sep 23, 2011)

Gaps in space?  Is that the bits between the branes then?


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## Chemical needs (Sep 23, 2011)

ferrelhadley said:


> There cannot be a perfect vacuum in this universe, everywhere will be full of energy such as the 3k background microwave radiation as well as virtual particles popping in and out of existance.



_Virtual particles?!?!?_


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## Kizmet (Sep 23, 2011)

Corax said:


> Gaps in space?  Is that the bits between the branes then?



There's a lot of space in between your branes....


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## Kizmet (Sep 23, 2011)

ferrelhadley said:


> If its not experimental error Id be back that the nature of space-time is involved 100 times over a reworking of special relativity. Something like either its curved in an unanticipated way or there is some kind of effect by curled up dimensions.



It won't necessarily mean a reworking. In the same way that mechanics still offer value in the macro scale... relativity offers value in behaviour of space-time.

But that doesn't mean that there are not a whole raft of new thinking needed to deal with the behaviour of quanta in space-time. The randomness of the effect suggests something more than just a facet of the way space-time bends.


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## weltweit (Sep 23, 2011)

A science bod appearing on BBC News was just saying that if this was true, and it may well not be, then there could be free or cheap power in the future.

But why / how?


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## littlebabyjesus (Sep 23, 2011)

Kizmet said:


> But that doesn't mean that there are not a whole raft of new thinking needed to deal with the behaviour of quanta in space-time.


TBF, though, we already knew that. There's a big hole in theoretical physics, and everyone knows it.


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## Corax (Sep 23, 2011)

Kizmet said:


> There's a lot of space in between your branes....


That doesn't even make sense as an insult.


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## ferrelhadley (Sep 23, 2011)

weltweit said:


> A science bod appearing on BBC News was just saying that if this was true, and it may well not be, then there could be free or cheap power in the future.
> 
> But why / how?


In the hugely unlikely circumstances that something is travelling above c, then that is kind of thermodynamics fucked. Massively dependent on the direction of time. faster than c can create time travel from some inertial frames of reference.


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## weltweit (Sep 23, 2011)

ferrelhadley said:


> In the hugely unlikely circumstances that something is travelling above c, then that is kind of thermodynamics fucked. Massively dependent on the direction of time. faster than c can create time travel from some inertial frames of reference.



But can it create plentiful free energy?


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## Pseudopsycho (Sep 23, 2011)

weltweit said:


> A science bod appearing on BBC News was just saying that if this was true, and it may well not be, then there could be free or cheap power in the future.
> 
> But why / how?


They haven't even sorted out hot fusion yet, how are they going to fiddle with quanta?


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## Kizmet (Sep 23, 2011)

ItWillNeverWork said:


> This might explain why I bumped into that lamp post whilst out drinking last night.



Drinking puts gaps in our understanding of how our legs work...


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## Kizmet (Sep 23, 2011)

weltweit said:


> But can it create plentiful free energy?



Theoretically.

Although it's not so much about creating energy as harvesting it from the space around us.


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## Kizmet (Sep 23, 2011)

littlebabyjesus said:


> TBF, though, we already knew that. There's a big hole in theoretical physics, and everyone knows it.



Not everyone knows it... otherwise I wouldn't have had many of the arguments I've had over the years! 

On this subject, though, it does throw an interesting perspective on the existence of the cosmological constant in what is supposed to be an expanding universe. Things are not as they seem!


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## Corax (Sep 24, 2011)

All the statement of 'it can't be true, or..... is fucked'

Aren't they only fucked according to the _current model_?


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## free spirit (Sep 24, 2011)

can I have a tardis yet then?


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## weltweit (Sep 24, 2011)

free spirit said:


> can I have a tardis yet then?



Yes but it will be 750km long!!


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## free spirit (Sep 24, 2011)

weltweit said:


> Yes but it will be 750km long!!


it's ok, I live on an island that's about that length, I doubt anyone would mind me dropping by with my 750km tardis every now and then.

where do I sign?


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## Kid_Eternity (Sep 24, 2011)

Really really hope this is true!


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## Corax (Sep 24, 2011)

Kid_Eternity said:


> Really really hope this is true!


Why?

Gen Q.


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## equationgirl (Sep 24, 2011)

weltweit said:


> But can it create plentiful free energy?


Unlikely. We're getting way ahead of ourselves as nobody knows why this is happening or what it is. When we know that, we can work out what to do with it.


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## Kid_Eternity (Sep 24, 2011)

Corax said:


> Why?
> 
> Gen Q.



Spaceships with ftl drives. The human race being able to explore the galaxy in a matter of years rather than thousands of years.


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## toblerone3 (Sep 24, 2011)

I wonder if they allowed for the natural human reaction time on the stop watch.  Might  be an inaccurate measurement.


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## Corax (Sep 24, 2011)

Kid_Eternity said:


> Spaceships with ftl drives. The human race being able to explore the galaxy in a matter of years rather than thousands of years.


Oh right, okay. That's a fair sized leap from a possible lab result though!


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## dilute micro (Sep 24, 2011)

Corax said:


> Why?
> 
> Gen Q.



cooler sci-fi


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## Kid_Eternity (Sep 24, 2011)

Corax said:


> Oh right, okay. That's a fair sized leap from a possible lab result though!



Well yes hence my post saying I hope this is true. If it is ftl drives will happen a lot sooner for our species which means a jump in evolution.


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## Corax (Sep 24, 2011)

Kid_Eternity said:


> ftl drives will happen a lot sooner for our species which means a jump in evolution.


WTF?  How do FTL drives mean a jump in evolution?

If accurate, these measurements are exciting in many ways, but I'm struggling to understand the logic behind the suggestions for the implications in some cases.


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## DotCommunist (Sep 24, 2011)

Kid_Eternity said:


> Spaceships with ftl drives. The human race being able to explore the galaxy in a matter of years rather than thousands of years.


 
if it is true and exploitable in an engineering capacity.

Fingers crossed.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Sep 24, 2011)

DotCommunist said:


> if it is true and exploitable in an engineering capacity.
> 
> Fingers crossed.



Exactly. Our knowledge of the universe and our ability control it will take a huge shot in the arm. Hence my comment about evolution. This has huge implications if true, truly staggering stuff.


----------



## Corax (Sep 24, 2011)

It does.  That's nothing to do with evolution though.


----------



## DotCommunist (Sep 24, 2011)

He's talking about human evolution as a species whole, which has long been tech focused, you are talking about physical evolution which this if true will not really affect unless 200 years down the line we have spindly freefall adapts born somewhere between here and epsilon eridani who ferry goods and people planetssides but couldn't stand a moment of real G without some sort of frame to support their gracile bones


----------



## Pseudopsycho (Sep 24, 2011)

DotCommunist said:


> He's talking about human evolution as a species whole, which has long been tech focused, you are talking about physical evolution which this if true will not really affect unless 200 years down the line we have spindly freefall adapts born somewhere between here and epsilon eridani who ferry goods and people planetssides but couldn't stand a moment of real G without some sort of frame to support their gracile bones


Well the Japanese are well on the way to developing such suits:







This is a model about to be mass-produced by *Cyberdyne* Inc.


----------



## weltweit (Sep 24, 2011)

Hmm an exosceleton.. just what we need, to copy the insects!!


----------



## Pseudopsycho (Sep 24, 2011)

weltweit said:


> Hmm an exosceleton.. just what we need, to copy the insects!!


Indeed, they are fairly successful 

And at sub-light travel there has been discussion about sending insectile robotic probes out to do most of the exploring of the galaxy for us...


----------



## weltweit (Sep 24, 2011)

Pseudopsycho said:


> Indeed, they are fairly successful



But they don't have .... the wheel!!


----------



## Pseudopsycho (Sep 24, 2011)

weltweit said:


> But they don't have .... the wheel!!


Can you imagine cockroaches on rollerblades?


----------



## ericjarvis (Sep 24, 2011)

There's a whole load of ways this can amount to a small revision of relativity rather than a wholesale change. Firstly there's the dependency of the speed of light on the medium it's travelling through, there's our incomplete understanding of the nature of space-time, and there's the whole problem of actually measuring position and velocity of a neutrino. It's exciting, but not yet earth shattering. Also relativity has been due for some revisions for quite a while.


----------



## Dr Jon (Sep 24, 2011)

Pseudopsycho said:


> ...
> This is a model about to be mass-produced by *Cyberdyne* Inc.



Cyberdyne? ooh 'eck!


----------



## xenon (Sep 24, 2011)

ferrelhadley said:


> In the hugely unlikely circumstances that something is travelling above c, then that is kind of thermodynamics fucked. Massively dependent on the direction of time. faster than c can create time travel from some inertial frames of reference.



have I rememberd this right? You can have 2 of the following 3. General Relativity; Causality; Faster than Light travel;

I kinda really hope it's not just a technical anonamily. Maybe we're stood on the cusp of something truely revolutionary. Like GR was.


----------



## xenon (Sep 24, 2011)

ericjarvis said:


> There's a whole load of ways this can amount to a small revision of relativity rather than a wholesale change. Firstly there's the dependency of the speed of light on the medium it's travelling through, there's our incomplete understanding of the nature of space-time, and there's the whole problem of actually measuring position and velocity of a neutrino. It's exciting, but not yet earth shattering. Also relativity has been due for some revisions for quite a while.



Well then there's this. 

<waits>


----------



## xenon (Sep 24, 2011)

Pseudopsycho said:


> Indeed, they are fairly successful
> 
> And at sub-light travel there has been discussion about sending insectile robotic probes out to do most of the exploring of the galaxy for us...



Von Numan probes. 

Although we'll probably all be long dead before they found anything.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Sep 24, 2011)

DotCommunist said:


> He's talking about human evolution as a species whole, which has long been tech focused, you are talking about physical evolution which this if true will not really affect unless 200 years down the line we have spindly freefall adapts born somewhere between here and epsilon eridani who ferry goods and people planetssides but couldn't stand a moment of real G without some sort of frame to support their gracile bones



Yup evolution is bigger than just what limbs we grow or don't need it's also stuff like making tools, moving from hunter/gatherer to agrarian life etc. This, if true, is a huge step for our species.


----------



## Corax (Sep 24, 2011)

Hmm.  I think of evolution as the theory about genetic mutations and the survival of the fittest.  What you're talking about I'd term 'progress'.


----------



## Stigmata (Sep 24, 2011)

The concept of evolution predates Darwin applying it to biology. Don't be a know-it-all-Norman.


----------



## stuff_it (Sep 24, 2011)

Pseudopsycho said:


> Well the Japanese are well on the way to developing such suits:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


They have named the suit HAL, as well 

http://www.cyberdyne.jp/english/robotsuithal/index.html


----------



## Pseudopsycho (Sep 24, 2011)

"Walk me to the shops please HAL" or seeing as it's only available in Japan "してくださいお店に私を歩く HAL"


----------



## stuff_it (Sep 24, 2011)

Pseudopsycho said:


> "Walk me to the shops please HAL" or seeing as it's only available in Japan "してくださいお店に私を歩く HAL"


"I'm afraid I can't do that, Pseudopsycho"


----------



## eoin_k (Sep 25, 2011)

Kizmet said:


> They'll find it much harder to suppress data nowadays then they did then.



I don't think it is as straight forward as 'suppressing' data.  It may have been more a case of a few observations appearing to be inconsistent with the existing theory that otherwise worked very well. In the absence of an alternative theory that explained these observations, it could be reasonable to put them to one side and focus on fruitful research within the dominant paradigm.  After-all, there might have been a technical problem with the observations or some other explanation that left Newtonian physics intact.  Which isn't to say that scientists understanding of what they do hasn't changed since Newton's time in ways that makes these anomalies a more attractive field for research.


----------



## Mungy (Sep 25, 2011)

with ftl travel the daily mail will be able to ship all the benefit handout scroungers to distant planets. and the feckless too.


----------



## tendril (Sep 25, 2011)

ferrelhadley said:


> there may be some gaps in our understanding of what space is.



D'ya fink???


----------



## magneze (Sep 25, 2011)

"We don't allow faster than light neutrinos in here" said the bartender. A neutrino walks into a bar. (nicked off Twitter)


----------



## Pseudopsycho (Sep 25, 2011)

Mungy said:


> with ftl travel the daily mail will be able to ship all the benefit handout scroungers to distant planets. and the feckless too.


Woo! Terraforming and prospecting here I come. I'm just going no-where near Hadley's Hope


----------



## Mapped (Sep 25, 2011)

To get to the other side. Why did the neutron cross the road?


----------



## Dr Jon (Sep 25, 2011)

Just spotted:
Something is deeply wrong: the minister and the neutrino

No wonder the world's turned to shit, with wankers like this making decisions.
 

Watch thou for the fuckwit - especially in government!


----------



## ferrelhadley (Sep 26, 2011)

I had a thought.
The lorentz einstein transformation.







When v > c gamma resolves to i times some number.
In terms of





The assumption has been that gamma with i as a component would have no meaning, but if these results proved true (highly unlikely) it does produce a rather interesting question as to what p would be.

Makes you think a little.


----------



## goldenecitrone (Sep 26, 2011)

A neutrino who?


----------



## Corax (Sep 26, 2011)

A neutrino


----------



## Kizmet (Sep 26, 2011)

who's there?


----------



## kropotkin (Sep 26, 2011)

.


----------



## ATOMIC SUPLEX (Sep 26, 2011)

Knock knock


----------



## Balbi (Sep 26, 2011)

physics jokes


----------



## Kizmet (Sep 26, 2011)

ferrelhadley said:


> I had a thought.
> The lorentz einstein transformation.
> 
> 
> ...



A little? 

Negative momentum.... my brain hurts.


----------



## krink (Sep 26, 2011)

editor said:


> Well, there goes Einstein's theory then...



have they tried turning it off and then back on again?


----------



## Teepee (Sep 27, 2011)

I was thinking about this. I've come up with the following and I'd appreciate someone who knows about physics to think this through with, as all I know about physics I've got from books and documentaries:


In this diagram, our 3D space is represented by the curved line, and 4D space is the area underneath. The path of the neutrino is marked by the arrow. As it oscillates, it dips into 4D space before emerging back into 3D space, slightly ahead of where it would be had it travelled along the curve of 3D space, therefore appearing to exceed c.






What do the clever people think?


----------



## ferrelhadley (Sep 27, 2011)

Teepee said:


> I was thinking about this. I've come up with the following and I'd appreciate someone who knows about physics to think this through with, as all I know about physics I've got from books and documentaries:
> 
> In this diagram, our 3D space is represented by the curved line, and 4D space is the area underneath. The path of the neutrino is marked by the arrow. As it oscillates, it dips into 4D space before emerging back into 3D space, slightly ahead of where it would be had it travelled along the curve of 3D space, therefore appearing to exceed c.


Something similar has been suggested as the reason for this.M Theory predicts about 11 space dimensions but most of them are rightly wound at the subatomic level so we do not have any awareness of them. The hypothises is that it is passing through these dimensions very briefly the neutrinos are able to exceed c.

The question would then why other particles have not been observed doing this before. That the particles traveled through a couple of hundred miles of the earths crust may have some bearing, the  sheer mass of matter. But experimental error is still the no 1 theory atm.


----------



## Pseudopsycho (Sep 27, 2011)

Is there any other neutrino producing facility that could even attempt to replicate this, or is CERN the only option?


----------



## ferrelhadley (Sep 27, 2011)

Pseudopsycho said:


> Is there any other neutrino producing facility that could even attempt to replicate this, or is CERN the only option?


The Japanese have on IIRC.


----------



## krink (Sep 27, 2011)

Sorry for the aside but in an odd coincidence, I find the music made by the group of the same name is very apt as background noise when I'm reading this thread...


----------



## Lord Camomile (Sep 27, 2011)

ferrelhadley said:


> But experimental error is still the no 1 theory atm.


Maybe amongst the 'science community', but those of us with humanities degrees are eagerly awaiting the arrival of Marty McFly and a rag-tag bunch of mouthy dwarves.


----------



## Pseudopsycho (Sep 27, 2011)

Lord Camomile said:


> Maybe amongst the 'science community', but those of us with humanities degrees are eagerly awaiting the arrival of Marty McFly and a rag-tag bunch of mouthy dwarves.


What about the madman in the blue box?


----------



## ferrelhadley (Sep 27, 2011)

Update from the Swiss on one possible solution.


----------



## Pseudopsycho (Sep 27, 2011)




----------



## jcsd (Sep 29, 2011)

Kizmet said:


> A little?
> 
> Negative momentum.... my brain hurts.



The momentum of a tachyon isn't negative per se, it's just directed in the opposite direction to it's direction of travel. So what this means is, you have to add more kinetic energy to slow it down.


----------



## jcsd (Sep 29, 2011)

I think it is most likely the result of experimental (likely systematic) error. Not going to dismiss the result out of hand, but if you look at all the alternative scenarios, this seems by far the most likely.


----------



## weltweit (Sep 29, 2011)

My 12 year old son is going to put his science teacher on the spot this week q "Can neutrinos travel faster than light?" ... I await feedback


----------



## Corax (Sep 29, 2011)

jcsd said:


> The momentum of a tachyon isn't negative per se, it's just directed in the opposite direction to it's direction of travel.


FFS. And people think that _religion's_ silly!


----------



## Mapped (Sep 29, 2011)

I bet they love you at Parents' Evenings

Edit - to weltwiet


----------



## bi0boy (Sep 29, 2011)

This is the first clear sign of the elves. If we delve any deeper they'll just say 'fuck it' and turn the simulation off.


----------



## Kizmet (Sep 29, 2011)

jcsd said:


> I think it is most likely the result of experimental (likely systematic) error. Not going to dismiss the result out of hand, but if you look at all the alternative scenarios, this seems by far the most likely.



I hope not. Science could do with a kick up the backside... 

Plus I reckon a new way of thinking is required to deal with ftl quanta. It fits with the idea that different approaches are needed to deal with macro, sub lightspeed and ftl objects.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Sep 29, 2011)

Stigmata said:


> The concept of evolution predates Darwin applying it to biology. Don't be a know-it-all-Norman.



Indeed. Evolution is about the stages our species reaches both intellectually and physically. Focusing on biology only gives you a limited understanding of that journey...


----------



## Kizmet (Sep 29, 2011)

I made a similar point about Darwin and his evolution on another thread.


----------



## Pseudopsycho (Sep 30, 2011)

bi0boy said:


> This is the first clear sign of the elves. If we delve any deeper they'll just say 'fuck it' and turn the simulation off.


----------



## Mrs Magpie (Sep 30, 2011)

Has anyone posted this yet?



edited to add. Great video from physicists at Nottingham University discussing this very thread topic.


----------



## newbie (Sep 30, 2011)

jcsd said:


> I think it is most likely the result of experimental (likely systematic) error. Not going to dismiss the result out of hand, but if you look at all the alternative scenarios, this seems by far the most likely.


There's a long history of problems with synchronising timepieces (the Harrison clock, GMT replacing local- sun- time so the railways could run properly and so on).  These days, for most practical purposes, it's not too much of an issue, we can simply use the GPS system or an NNTP server somewhere.

Those are useless in this case, but somehow the team had to synchronise their clocks, knowing that the time it takes for a timing pulse to travel the few hundred kilometers between them is itself under question.  Does anyone know how they did it?  And why, given that their experiment was apparently to measure something else entirely.


----------



## stuff_it (Oct 1, 2011)

Wouldn't you have to have clocks that can't be affected that much by movement and then separate them after synchronisation?


----------



## Bob_the_lost (Oct 1, 2011)

stuff_it said:


> Wouldn't you have to have clocks that can't be affected that much by movement and then separate them after synchronisation?


No such thing.


----------



## stuff_it (Oct 1, 2011)

Bob_the_lost said:


> No such thing.


OK well how do they already measure it? Presumably that's why CERN is a ring then? So the same clock monitors both ends?


----------



## jcsd (Oct 2, 2011)

newbie said:


> There's a long history of problems with synchronising timepieces (the Harrison clock, GMT replacing local- sun- time so the railways could run properly and so on). These days, for most practical purposes, it's not too much of an issue, we can simply use the GPS system or an NNTP server somewhere.
> 
> Those are useless in this case, but somehow the team had to synchronise their clocks, knowing that the time it takes for a timing pulse to travel the few hundred kilometers between them is itself under question. Does anyone know how they did it? And why, given that their experiment was apparently to measure something else entirely.



If you read their paper, they describe how they synchronised the clocks and how they measured the distance to the detector. It wasn't a simple task, but they were very meticulous, even taking in to account such things as how quickly it takes electronic signals to travel in their circuits, the effects of the moon, etc, etc. They also spent a long time checking their measurements before they released the paper.

However, even though it seems unlikely to be the result of any sloppiness on the experminters behalf, the nature of the measurements they needed to make leaves a very large door for a systematic error to creep in, no matter how careful they were. This is why systematic error still remains the favoured explanation (the researchers it seems have delibrately avoided any interpretation of their results in order not be accused of bias) .


----------



## jcsd (Oct 2, 2011)

Bob_the_lost said:


> No such thing.


Yep, the one of the basic results of relativity.


----------



## jcsd (Oct 2, 2011)

stuff_it said:


> OK well how do they already measure it? Presumably that's why CERN is a ring then? So the same clock monitors both ends?



The LHC is a ring because, if you want to accelerate particles to very high velocities, they need a very big 'run-up'. When designing a particle accelerator you can have a long straight tunnel (and indeed the earlier there are linear accelerators in operation at the moment) , which is in some ways easier than a ring-like configuration as you don't need to bend the paths of the particles in to a ring using BFMs (big fuck-off magnets). However the faster you want your particles to go the more of a 'run-up' they need and at a certain point linear accelerators just become impractically long., whereas in circular accelerators you can accelerate the particles through multiple laps.


----------



## newbie (Oct 2, 2011)

jcsd said:


> If you read their paper,



the things I do first thing on a bright sunny sunday morning 

thanks for proving me wrong though , they do rely on 'common view' GPS for timing. And for distance measurement. No point in me speculating any further then.

Except that I presume those noises are other teams busily digging holes to repeat this using a longer baseline distance.


----------



## stuff_it (Oct 2, 2011)

jcsd said:


> The LHC is a ring because, if you want to accelerate particles to very high velocities, they need a very big 'run-up'. When designing a particle accelerator you can have a long straight tunnel (and indeed the earlier there are linear accelerators in operation at the moment) , which is in some ways easier than a ring-like configuration as you don't need to bend the paths of the particles in to a ring using BFMs (big fuck-off magnets). However the faster you want your particles to go the more of a 'run-up' they need and at a certain point linear accelerators just become impractically long., whereas in circular accelerators you can accelerate the particles through multiple laps.


ok, sorry, one of the reasons - I do know about the distance thing, but presumably using the same clock to measure both 'ends' of an experiment would sidestep the synchronisation problem?


----------



## jcsd (Oct 2, 2011)

stuff_it said:


> ok, sorry, one of the reasons - I do know about the distance thing, but presumably using the same clock to measure both 'ends' of an experiment would sidestep the synchronisation problem?


It might be a fringe benefit for some experiments, but it's not so much how long the particles take to get there, it's more what state (i.e. a high energy state) that they're in when they arrive. The physics that the researchers are interested in is what happens when these high energy particles collide with other particles, so the details of how long they took to accelerate are just a matter of practicalities.


----------



## stuff_it (Oct 2, 2011)

jcsd said:


> It might be a fringe benefit for some experiments, but it's not so much how long the particles take to get there, it's more what state (i.e. a high energy state) that they're in when they arrive. The physics that the researchers are interested in is what happens when these high energy particles collide with other particles, so the details of how long they took to accelerate are just a matter of practicalities.


It was in response to the clock synchronisation question, I know how a particle accelerator works.


----------



## Corax (Oct 2, 2011)

I imagine it's like a big catapult with *really* springy elastic.


----------



## jcsd (Oct 2, 2011)

stuff_it said:


> It was in response to the clock synchronisation question, I know how a particle accelerator works.



Like I said it may have fringe benefits for some experiments, but it's difficult to imagine what these would necessarily be.

Taking the OPERA experiment were clock synchornization is important the actual detector was located in central Italy, 455 miles away from CERN which is in Geneva.


----------



## stuff_it (Oct 2, 2011)

jcsd said:


> Like I said it may have fringe benefits for some experiments, but it's difficult to imagine what these would necessarily be.
> 
> Taking the OPERA experiment were clock synchornization is important the actual detector was located in central Italy, 455 miles away from CERN which is in Geneva.


So how do they synchronise them then?


----------



## Corax (Oct 2, 2011)

1,2,3, *NOW*!


----------



## jcsd (Oct 2, 2011)

stuff_it said:


> So how do they synchronise them then?



They used a souped-up GPS receivers and 2 atomic clocks, thiugh they don't go in to a great amount of detail about how they actually calibrated the two clocks. Though relativity says that relative movement will put two identical clocks out of sync, it does also define synchornised clocks within certain limits.


----------



## bi0boy (Oct 2, 2011)

So who's currently trying to replicate it?


----------



## newbie (Oct 3, 2011)

like this

with a claimed time difference ebtween the stations of 2.3nS +/-0.9nS.


----------



## kabbes (Oct 3, 2011)

What makes me proud is the way that the internet is full of people that once read A Brief History of Time all trying to provide the explanation for this phenomenon that lies on the frontier of physics.  Well done, internets.


----------



## jcsd (Oct 3, 2011)

bi0boy said:


> So who's currently trying to replicate it?


Probably anyone with the right set-up. I don't know how many places could feasibly recreate this (I'm no expert), I heard the Tevatron at Fermilab mentioned, but that ceased operating permanently just a few days ago.


----------



## jcsd (Oct 3, 2011)

kabbes said:


> What makes me proud is the way that the internet is full of people that once read A Brief History of Time all trying to provide the explanation for this phenomenon that lies on the frontier of physics. Well done, internets.



I some ways there aren't really that many good explanations, but possible explanations (in order of sensibleness):

1) Systematic error

2) Lorentz violation

3) Neutrinos travelling through extra dimensions

4) Tachyons

Option 1) always remians the most likely explanation, option 2) has been discounted by Cohen and Glashow, I doubt opiton 3) is completely independent of option 2) and to many it shows that there are so many string-like theories about you can always find one that may possibly be able to explain any anomaly and the consequences of option 4) are just a little too bizarre.

If we exclude option 1), I don't think anyone has come up with a great explanation just yet. Except me, who did indeed read A Brief History of Time as an eleven year old about 20 years ago. I think neutrinos are quanta of 'love' and whilst you can travel fastre than the speed of light, nothing travels faster than the speed of love.


----------



## Kizmet (Oct 3, 2011)

except moonpig.com.


----------



## bi0boy (Oct 3, 2011)

I read Fermilab are going to try and replicate it but it will take them until 2014 as they need to upgrade their neutrino equipment. There's also a facility in Japan going to have a go but I'm not sure of their timescale.


----------



## alsoknownas (Oct 3, 2011)

kabbes said:


> What makes me proud is the way that the internet is full of people that once read A Brief History of Time all trying to provide the explanation for this phenomenon that lies on the frontier of physics. Well done, internets.


I know, that has been making me giggle a bit too.  I wouldn't have it any other way mind.


----------



## butchersapron (Oct 14, 2011)

Faster-Than-Light Neutrino Puzzle Claimed Solved by Special Relativity 



> [...]
> 
> If it stands up, this episode will be laden with irony. Far from breaking Einstein's theory of relatively, the faster-than-light measurement will turn out to be another confirmation of it.


----------



## ferrelhadley (Oct 28, 2011)

Faster-than-light neutrino experiment to be run again


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Oct 28, 2011)

Woohoo!


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Nov 18, 2011)

Another test has shown them still moving faster than light!


----------



## Lord Camomile (Nov 18, 2011)

Shurrup!


----------



## magneze (Nov 18, 2011)

Link?


----------



## Corax (Nov 18, 2011)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2011/nov/18/neutrinos-still-faster-than-light?INTCMP=SRCH


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Nov 18, 2011)

This is great news!


----------



## 8ball (Nov 18, 2011)

Hmmm.

I'm beginning to wonder if they synchronised their clocks at the 'send' point, and drove the second clock very quickly to the 'receive' point...


----------



## Jon-of-arc (Nov 18, 2011)

So how much of modern science is now wrong?  Which bits?


----------



## TruXta (Nov 18, 2011)

Jon-of-arc said:


> So how much of modern science is now wrong? Which bits?



Nothing yet. Time-travel in a very limited context is still within the bounds of special relativity. Besides there's no proper evidence in yet. There are tantalizing indications, but that's it for now.


----------



## Lord Camomile (Nov 18, 2011)

Evolution, but that was only ever a theory anyway.


----------



## TruXta (Nov 18, 2011)

Lord Camomile said:


> Evolution, but that was only ever a theory anyway.



Oh, you're funny.


----------



## Jon-of-arc (Nov 18, 2011)

TruXta said:


> Nothing yet. Time-travel in a very limited context is still within the bounds of special relativity. Besides there's no proper evidence in yet. There are tantalizing indications, but that's it for now.



Phew!  When the BBC said that these results undermine all of modern physics, I thought these results might mean that bridges didn't work any more or something.


----------



## Lord Camomile (Nov 18, 2011)

TruXta said:


> Oh, you're funny.


Noel Coward funny or Mock the Week funny?

Oh, and I just remembered, a mate down the pub () was saying that it's ok if they started at the speed of light, the problem is they can't accelerate past the speed of light. Thinking about it that makes no sense, but it's possible I'm not remembering it quite right.

Is there any way any of the above could make sense?


----------



## Jon-of-arc (Nov 18, 2011)

Lord Camomile said:


> Noel Coward funny or Mock the Week funny?
> 
> Oh, and I just remembered, a mate down the pub () was saying that it's ok if they started at the speed of light, the problem is they can't accelerate past the speed of light. Thinking about it that makes no sense, but it's possible I'm not remembering it quite right.
> 
> Is there any way any of the above could make sense?



Sounds like your mate down the pub has solved the riddle!


----------



## TruXta (Nov 18, 2011)

Dunno. And nope.


----------



## editor (Nov 18, 2011)

It's getting interesting:


> Scientists are becoming more confident that they will be able to contradict Einstein's assertion that nothing can travel faster than light, after carrying out another test.
> Italian physicists first made the startling claim in September but have now repeated an adapted version of their experiment, which produced the same result.
> The test suggests that sub-atomic particles called neutrinos can break the barrier. If such tests can be repeated, they would challenge one of the fundamental assumptions of modern physics.
> Scientists have submitted their latest findings to the Journal of High Energy Physics for consideration. They said that they had waited until now to submit the paper to take into account suggestions from other scientists and carry out a new test.
> ...


----------



## Jon-of-arc (Nov 18, 2011)

So does this change anything else? Any other important theories? Make the universe more/less understood? If correct.


----------



## twentythreedom (Nov 18, 2011)

What are the possible implications for science if these results are verified? Like, beyond there being a flurry of research papers etc, what, if anything, will change (or potentially be changed?).

It's a pretty fucking major thing, faster than light travel, but if it's proved to be the case (assuming these experiments are validated), well..... what next?

eta: looks like me and jon are wondering the same things - I guess it can be broken down to the basic question: so what?


----------



## gabi (Nov 18, 2011)

Well, time travel's the obvious one


----------



## Jon-of-arc (Nov 18, 2011)

gabi said:


> Well, time travel's the obvious one



yeah, but time travel may have still been possible through port-holes and shit, even if faster than light travel hadn't been the way it was done.


----------



## gabi (Nov 18, 2011)

Also, C4 might have to finally stop showing re-runs of the big bang theory as Sheldon will look hopelessly misinformed


----------



## Jon-of-arc (Nov 18, 2011)

c'mon Urban - I thought you lot were clever or something?


----------



## free spirit (Nov 18, 2011)

Jon-of-arc said:


> yeah, but time travel may have still been possible through *port-holes* and shit, even if faster than light travel hadn't been the way it was done.









yeah, but then we'd just end up like a time travelling human sausage.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Nov 18, 2011)

twentythreedom said:


> What are the possible implications for science if these results are verified? Like, beyond there being a flurry of research papers etc, what, if anything, will change (or potentially be changed?).
> 
> It's a pretty fucking major thing, faster than light travel, but if it's proved to be the case (assuming these experiments are validated), well..... what next?
> 
> eta: looks like me and jon are wondering the same things - I guess it can be broken down to the basic question: so what?



Space exploration is one that interests me most. Being able to travel vast distances across the galaxy to check out all those earth like planets would be very interesting...


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## kabbes (Nov 18, 2011)

Kid_Eternity said:


> Space exploration is one that interests me most. Being able to travel vast distances across the galaxy to check out all those earth like planets would be very interesting...


Probably getting just a _bit_ ahead of yourself there!


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## free spirit (Nov 18, 2011)

kabbes said:


> Probably getting just a _bit_ ahead of yourself there!


bit like that there neutrino


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## kabbes (Nov 18, 2011)

free spirit said:


> bit like that there neutrino


hey!
Way​


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## Kid_Eternity (Nov 18, 2011)

kabbes said:


> Probably getting just a _bit_ ahead of yourself there!



Heh well I aint saying we'll see that this time next year but reckon if this breakthrough holds we'll see it by the end of the century.


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## TruXta (Nov 18, 2011)

It changes nothing. Get used to it.


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## stuff_it (Nov 18, 2011)

Kid_Eternity said:


> Heh well I aint saying we'll see that this time next year but reckon if this breakthrough holds we'll see it by the end of the century.


I'm still waiting for my flying car.


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## Kid_Eternity (Nov 18, 2011)

TruXta said:


> It changes nothing. Get used to it.



Haha! If this is proved correct it changes EVERYTHING.


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## Corax (Nov 19, 2011)

Kid_Eternity said:


> Haha! If this is proved correct it changes EVERYTHING.


_*heart-rending comment about babies somewhere still starving* _


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## Kid_Eternity (Nov 19, 2011)

Corax said:


> _*hear-rending comment about babies somewhere still starving* _



We're talking about the nature of reality not what happens in it. But I see your point...


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## Pseudopsycho (Nov 19, 2011)

Corax said:


> _*heart-rending comment about babies somewhere still starving* _


If it brings forward fusion reactors by a few years we should be able to do something about that


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## TruXta (Nov 19, 2011)

Kid_Eternity said:


> Haha! If this is proved correct it changes EVERYTHING.



Nah, time-travelling particles are within the remit of SR. FTL however are not.


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## gabi (Nov 19, 2011)

Kid_Eternity said:


> Haha! If this is proved correct it changes EVERYTHING.



Yes. Totally.

Must be fucking cool to be at CERN at the mo. Some seriously hard-core geeky arguments going down. A physicist's equivalent of being told that Santa doesn't exist


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## gabi (Nov 19, 2011)

incidentally, just checked their website.

http://public.web.cern.ch/public/

it's just fabulously shit. from a design perspective. i love scientists.


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## TruXta (Nov 19, 2011)

gabi said:


> incidentally, just checked their website.
> 
> http://public.web.cern.ch/public/
> 
> it's just fabulously shit. from a design perspective. i love scientists.



Create WWW. Don't give a fuck about design.


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## gabi (Nov 19, 2011)

this bit's particularly good

http://user.web.cern.ch/user/Welcome.asp

i assume if you've got an IQ of 150 it makes sense


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## Corax (Nov 19, 2011)

TruXta said:


> Create WWW. Don't give a fuck about design.


?????
Profit?


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## gabi (Nov 19, 2011)

I don't think you get into science for the money 

I love how absent-minded about anything sartorial, visual etc most scientists i've met are. their brains are just floatin on a different wavelength to mine. i used to drink in the imperial college bar (£1 a pint).. met some proper lovely weirdos in there. ask them to explain this particle the LHC is searching for, fine - ask them what their favourite band is.. silence


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## Jon-of-arc (Nov 19, 2011)

Corax said:


> ?????
> Profit?



Where does that

"perform specified task
?????
Profit"

thingy come from?  I looked it up on google once, but I didnt get any results, despite having seen it all over the web...


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## Corax (Nov 19, 2011)

4chan I expect, like everything else.


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## smmudge (Nov 19, 2011)

south park isn't it? The underpants stealing elves.


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## Kid_Eternity (Nov 19, 2011)

TruXta said:


> Nah, time-travelling particles are within the remit of SR. FTL however are not.



And pure research has never led to all kinda of practical usage in the past...


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## Kid_Eternity (Nov 19, 2011)

gabi said:


> Yes. Totally.
> 
> Must be fucking cool to be at CERN at the mo. Some seriously hard-core geeky arguments going down. A physicist's equivalent of being told that Santa doesn't exist



Hehe!


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## kabbes (Nov 19, 2011)

smmudge said:


> south park isn't it? The underpants stealing elves.


Gnomes.  It was underpants-stealing gnomes.

1. Steal underpants
2. ?????
3. Profit.


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## Corax (Nov 20, 2011)

kabbes said:


> Gnomes. It was underpants-stealing gnomes.
> 
> 1. Steal underpants
> 2. ?????
> 3. Profit.


Fuck, I remember that episode now! 

Would never have placed it though.


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## Pseudopsycho (Nov 20, 2011)

Gnome!


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## Corax (Nov 21, 2011)

Meeep.


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## Jon-of-arc (Nov 21, 2011)

Jon-of-arc said:


> So does this officially mean that time travel is actually possible?



It appears so...


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## Jon-of-arc (Nov 21, 2011)

So does this officially mean that time travel is actually possible?


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## laptop (Nov 22, 2011)

Jon-of-arc said:


> Where does that
> 
> "perform specified task
> ?????
> ...



Slashdot, wasn't it?


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## Kid_Eternity (Nov 22, 2011)

Jon-of-arc said:


> It appears so...



So what is it? Only joking...


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## Maggot (Jun 10, 2012)

So it turns out the results were a mistake. A result of faulty wiring.  

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2012/jun/08/neutrino-researchers-einstein-right 


I'm very happy for Einstein.


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## Greebo (Jun 10, 2012)

Maggot said:


> So it turns out the results were a mistake. A result of faulty wiring.
> 
> http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2012/jun/08/neutrino-researchers-einstein-right
> 
> ...


For now....


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## 8ball (Jun 12, 2012)

Maggot said:


> So it turns out the results were a mistake. A result of faulty wiring.


 
I think aside from the meeja, everyone figured that was what it was all along.


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