About those faster than light neutrinos... (1 Viewer)

Heh

RT @jeffbohr: @Pogue "We don't allow faster-than-light neutrinos in here," said the bartender. A neutrino walks into a bar.

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Made me laugh.

Sam Posten said:

Heh

RT @jeffbohr: @Pogue "We don't allow faster-than-light neutrinos in here," said the bartender. A neutrino walks into a bar.

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Neutrinos have legs? So after all these years of hearing that there's nothing faster than the speed of light, we find out scientists have been lying?

Some are suspecting faulty computer gear: http://blog.zorinaq.com/?e=58

So after all these years of hearing that there's nothing faster than the speed of light, we find out scientists have been lying?

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It's just one experiment; the paper hasn't been peer reviewed and validated yet. That could take months, if not years. Also, it's speed of light *in a vacuum*; they've known for a while that faster then light speeds are possible in other mediums. (Which is about all I got out of Phys 237.)

The experiment's margin of error covers that factor. These results are -outside- the margin of error by a bigger gap than the margin itself.

Al.Anderson said:

(Which is about all I got out of Phys 237.)

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At lease you got out of Physics 237. I think I had to take it three times and then get a deferral.

Jeff Gatie said:

At lease you got out of Physics 237. I think I had to take it three times and then get a deferral.

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A Penn Stater? Or does everyone have a Phys 237 (standard atomic weight)? If it makes you feel any better, I got out of that alive just in time to drop NucEngr as a major and switch into CmpSc. I finally figured out that in engineering they expected you to be right the first time, but in computer science as long as the program ran by the due date you were home free. Multiple crash and burns (post mortem dumps) and then unqualified success - I had found a home!

You cannot read too much about these kinds of experiments without suddenly finding yourself stuck in the middle of trying to understand special and general realtivity in realtion to the speed of light. Anyway, time differences dependent on the speed you are going is so enthralling to me. I actually had no idea that relativistic effects on time had been verifyed in the 70's: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hafele%e2%80%93Keating_experiment . And on top of it, it is used almost daily in keeping our satellites on earth time, because they experience time differently because of gravity and their speed. I guess it is just hard because we generally see time as a constant and not something that can be experienced differently based on perspective. This experiment caused my wife and I to have a 4 hour debate on relatvistic effects a couple of nights ago. For anyone interested, this visual can be interesting (#4 Time Dilation): http://www.phys.unsw.edu.au/einsteinlight/index.html

This experiment caused my wife and I to have a 4 hour debate on relatvistic effects a couple of nights ago.

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My wife and I have had that same conversation. I say it's been 10 minutes and she says its 4. I tell her she's a space cadet. I work with satellites and we only adjust for clock drift and leap seconds; I've never heard of adjusting for relativistic effects. If you have a pointer to that discussion I'd be interested. Cool link! I'll amuse myself with that over the weekend.

It was specific to GPS satellites as I remember. I will look and see where all I read about it.

Al.Anderson said:

A Penn Stater? Or does everyone have a Phys 237 (standard atomic weight)? If it makes you feel any better, I got out of that alive just in time to drop NucEngr as a major and switch into CmpSc. I finally figured out that in engineering they expected you to be right the first time, but in computer science as long as the program ran by the due date you were home free. Multiple crash and burns (post mortem dumps) and then unqualified success - I had found a home!

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Not Penn State, Northeastern U. It probably wasn't Physics 237, but it was nuclear/astro physics, and covered Einstein. It's funny you should say you switched to Comp Sci. I did the same, finally ending up in Software Engineering, for the exact same reasons. My coworkers who do peripheral engineering know it's time to really start working when I have my new product "up and crashing" on the central system.

CRyan said:

It was specific to GPS satellites as I remember. I will look and see where all I read about it.

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Yes, GPS satellites have a very slight time delay due to Einstein's gravitational effects on time.

They made an obvious error when measuring the speed of those neutrinos. They forgot that the neutrinos had to backfire (so to say) when leaving with that speed (action = reaction). That establishes an error in the measuring tip: the neutrinos aren't moving faster than light at all. Some molecules in the tip of the measuring device however did - in the other direction.


Ha, ha, ha, stupid scientists, doubting Albert Einstein! How dare they.



Cees

Originally Posted by Al.Anderson

So after all these years of hearing that there's nothing faster than the speed of light, we find out scientists have been lying?

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It's just one experiment; the paper hasn't been peer reviewed and validated yet. That could take months, if not years.
Also, it's speed of light *in a vacuum*; they've known for a while that faster then light speeds are possible in other mediums.
(Which is about all I got out of Phys 237.)

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Other mediums, it gets slower.


FTL experiments to date have to do with the funky effects of Group vs Phase Velocity, and don't give FTL photons -- as I understand it. I've not looked at that stuff in years.

The finding has been rejected: http://news.yahoo.com/study-rejects-faster-light-particle-finding-153735840.html

They kept pointing out the issue has to do with the calculated time differential of the satellites that observe. And they keep pointing it out and people keep saying "WOW" even though it's the same answer everytime.

Originally Posted by RobertR

The finding has been rejected:
http://news.yahoo.com/study-rejects-faster-light-particle-finding-153735840.html

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It appears that a study has rejected another study; it's not an absolute, categorical rejection. And given the claims, we can likely expect this to be feuded over for some years, even if it turns out correct.

DaveF said:

It appears that a study has rejected another study; it's not an absolute, categorical rejection. And given the claims, we can likely expect this to be feuded over for some years, even if it turns out correct.

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I don't know that any scientific study can be described as absolute. However, for the "faster than light" idea to be accepted, there would have to be a very strong consensus accepting the results of the study, and this study means it's not happening.

Now comes a report that the whole thing may have been caused by a loose cable: http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/02/23/us-physics-neutrinos-cable-idUSTRE81L2B820120223

bummer, dude =(