Speed of light: Busted.

[icefire]

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/09/22/us-science-light-idUSTRE78L4FH20110922

Not sure how I feel about this...

[softweir]

There is an error in the timing equipment they haven\'t spotted yet? They are talking about a discrepancy of the order of nanoseconds while trying to synchronise equipment placed 500 miles apart - it is very easy to get errors under those circumstances. Unfortunately, finding the source of the errors is NOT so easy!

However, I have a hat here, ready to be eaten if and when they decide that yes, neutrinos are tachyons.

[NovaSilisko]

He was a good speed of light.

What a rotten way to die.

[softweir]

It is an ex lightspeed, it has ceased to be.

[jgjiscool]

If neutrinos can do it, so can Kerbal space... wreckages! Take this as a victory for Kerbin!

[icefire]

There is an error in the timing equipment they haven\'t spotted yet? They are talking about a discrepancy of the order of nanoseconds while trying to synchronise equipment placed 500 miles apart - it is very easy to get errors under those circumstances. Unfortunately, finding the source of the errors is NOT so easy!

However, I have a hat here, ready to be eaten if and when they decide that yes, neutrinos are tachyons.

This isn\'t just some isolated incident from a random experiment, they\'ve been working on it for 3 years. That\'s three years with the same results, and an error margin of only 10 billionths of a second. Consistently.

'When you get such a result you want to make sure you made no mistakes, that there are no nasty things going on you didn\'t think of. We spent months and months doing checks and we have not been able to find any errors.'

They haven\'t claimed anything so far, and have already organized experiments at T2K and MINOS to try and replicate the results, so we\'ll wait and see.

[jgjiscool]

Well spoken! If this were the case... what would happen when Kerbins reach such a speed... If it were true then Harv wouldn\'t be able to (theoretically) limit the craft speed to (ex)light-speed! And he should make some effect because at such a speed that time is accelerated, the G-force would be immense. Hopefully I haven\'t said anything wrong... Even though all of that was hypothetical and imaginary...

[softweir]

This isn\'t just some isolated incident from a random experiment, they\'ve been working on it for 3 years. That\'s three years with the same results, and an error margin of only 10 billionths of a second. Consistently.

I know and understand that - however, that only deals with random error. No number of repetitions of an experiment can rule out systematic error if you don\'t know what the cause of the systematic error is. That is why the team have thrown their observations out to the wider community without formally announcing that neutrinos can exceed lightspeed.

Might I remind you of the story of a team of astronomers who were attempting to detect massive exoplanets by measuring subtle changes in the red shift of stars, looking for regular oscillations in the red shift that might be caused by the slight gravitation wobble such a planet might induce in its parent star. They found a star with a particularly appropriate spectrum, and after considerable time spent observing it were ready to announce that they had, indeed, detected an oscillating red shift with a degree of statistical confidence that put it close to the threshold of 'certainty'. The team leader was due to speak at a conference, and decided to use the occasion to make the announcement. It was only in the hour before he was due to speak that, carefully looking at the data, he noticed a worrying coincidence, and phoned back to the team. 'Guys, did we remember to exclude oscillation of the Earth caused by the moon? It\'s just our oscillation has a 28-day period...'

'Um. No.'

Yes, they had very precisely measured the wobble of the Earth, using the spectrum of a star.

No weight of statistical confidence can overcome that sort of systematic error.

[Phoxtane]

And he should make some effect because at such a speed that time is accelerated, the G-force would be immense.

This is where he adds inertial dampeners to the parts list.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/InertialDampening

This is why we would need it.

[Frederf]

I thought we already had evidence of faster than light information travel in certain experiments?

60 ns was something like 0.0026% of the travel time? That\'s not huge but it\'s not super small as billion dollar experiments go.

[Cannon_Fodder]

It could be their locations. Changes in rock density could mean there is more mass and therefor gravity in one area. It is proven that gravity effects time. Atomic clocks in GPS satellites run faster then identical clocks in the ground stations, GPS satellite should get ahead of ground-based clocks by 45 microseconds per day. An error that if not corrected contently for contently would cause ground receivers to be off by huge amounts. An error of one microsecond (0.000 001 second) corresponds to an error of 300 metres (980 ft).

Until this experiment is tested by others in different locations I will reserve judgement.

[Monger]

As long as there is no consistent theory of the cause of this effect, I consider this Reuters article as misunderstanding.

There are multiple effects where it seems like particles are flowing back in time, although it is just some weird wave effect. You need to examine such phenomenas from different angles in order to make sense of them.

You need more than just a short message from Reuters to reinvent the theory of physics.

[szerszak]

You need more than just a short message from Reuters to reinvent the theory of physics.

You can\'t possibly think that it is Reuters who made that discovery.

If you have doubts to Reuters credibility go to the source.

Here is direct link explaining the CERN experiment.

It\'s a big thing if it\'s found to be true.

[rdfox]

Honestly, if we *do* manage to confirm the results, this would actually explain quite a bit about neutrinos. For one thing, how they can pass through matter without affecting it. (The Lorenz equations say that any superluminal particle would have imaginary mass--one of the main terms of the mass equation is 1/sqrt(c - v), and thus going faster than light, you end up with a negative number under the radical. Which, honestly, is something I suspect that physicists would really rather not deal with, because of how awkward it would be to suddenly have imaginary numbers involved in actual physical phenomena...)

[Herra Tohtori]

They don\'t pass through matter without affecting it - otherwise we couldn\'t observe them.

They are affected by - as far as we know - weak interaction, and gravity (supposedly). When they interact with the water in the neutrino detector tank, a small flash of light is generated and light amplifiers make it detectable.

However, the attenuation factor that normal matter has on neutrinos is extremely small, so for all practical purposes they can be said to (mostly) pass through matter without interacting with it. The only reason we can observe them is because the neutrino flux through everything is ridiculously huge - in fact there is speculation that a lot of the energy in the universe exists as neutrinos - and by the virtue of gargantuan water tanks and really good light amplifiers. The more mass (water) you can observe, the more neutrino flashes you see.

Neutrino pulses are observed simply as spikes in the amount of flashes, which sort of makes me wonder how reliably they can detect the neutrino pulses coming from CERN, and separate them from the background noise. It\'s CERN, though, so I would assume they have done their homework on that and the test configuration isn\'t obviously flawed.

Personally I still suspect that it\'s a measurement error of some sort. 60 nanoseconds corresponds to about 18 metres - I would frankly think that the neutrino detector by itself would be about that scale; however the cited error bars in the paper are +-10 nanoseconds.

I haven\'t gone through the paper myself, so I can\'t make further statements on the test rig. Still, I think a systematic, un-noticed or unknown error is at play here rather than truly superluminal neutrinos.

Consider this - if they were moving faster than light, why would they go at a speed that close to speed of light? Why not two times the speed of light? Why would they always move at same speed? (I\'m assuming here that they can repeat the test and measure consistently same 60 ns of time difference between expected and observed result).

[Wayward son]

I saw that article next week.

[azza]

The interesting tone about this article is that it\'s unlike many of the other 'discoveries' you here from. It isn\'t some big media beat up in order to sell some spin off products or service.

They are purposely opening their findings up to peer review and collaboration. It\'s bit of a 'We observed some crazy shit and have spent a lot of time trying to figure out what we saw was real or if it was just a mistake on our behalf. So far we can\'t find any mistakes, can you try to poke holes in or findings, because this should make sense...'

That\'s why it\'s interesting.

[Ferrit]

It has been said that the great discoveries are not announced with a cry of success but a mutter of 'That\'s odd...'

Of course a lot of mistakes are found the same way! ???

[Sordid]

The interesting tone about this article is that it\'s unlike many of the other 'discoveries' you here from. It isn\'t some big media beat up in order to sell some spin off products or service.

They are purposely opening their findings up to peer review and collaboration. It\'s bit of a 'We observed some crazy shit and have spent a lot of time trying to figure out what we saw was real or if it was just a mistake on our behalf. So far we can\'t find any mistakes, can you try to poke holes in or findings, because this should make sense...'

That\'s why it\'s interesting.

That\'s how all of science works, the only thing different is that the mass media latched onto it because it\'s sexy and they can put the name Einstein in the headline. It\'s kinda like that diamond planet from a while back.

[4 IN 1]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-15034852

And here is Professor Brian Cox (I don\'t think I needed explain who is he, rgr?) comments.

And he actually brings up something interesting, that the discovery might not be busting Albert Einstein theory, but instead find prove that some quantum mechanics theory that can bypass (sort of) Special relativity are true(as quantum mechanics is a different beast of its own compare to Special relativity)

[hachiman]

You guys haven\'t forgotten about time travel, have you?

[Tiberion]

You guys haven\'t forgotten about time travel, have you?

I figure I would know if its gonna happen in my lifetime, since I know future-me would have come back to me before now to let me know.

Oh well.

[GroundHOG2010]

Can people stop saying ex speed of light. Light still goes at that speed, just that there is something that goes faster than that.

Yes there could be a consistant problem, but we won\'t find that out until there pears have done an experiment similar to this one.

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

Albert Einstein

[azza]

That\'s how all of science works, the only thing different is that the mass media latched onto it because it\'s sexy and they can put the name Einstein in the headline. It\'s kinda like that diamond planet from a while back.

Most definitely. That was my point. Unlike most things touted in the main stream media as 'science', this is quite different. Tv and newspapers like latching onto anything like science fiction or miracle cures etc, eventhough they rarely even appear in any credible scientific journals at the very least.

[jgjiscool]

I saw that article next week.

Just because your spacecraft defys the laws of physics...