They are obviously oscillating into the rare Boobies flavor of the neutrino.

Does this mean Einstein was wrong?
I never did trust those bagels...

Great, now my brother is going to show up again and ask me to explain this once more - never mind that some of the smartest people on the planet are "workin' on it" and aren't sure yet - but because he heard about it on RUSH, I'm suposed to have all the answers because I'm the science-guy in the family.

Warp speed Mr Sulu.

oldernell: Not a physicist, but wouldn't it make sense that if the universe expanded faster than the speed of light during the first moments after the big bang, wouldn't some of those particles still be around, and only slowed down when they joined with other particles?

The way the universe supposedly expanded faster than the speed of light is through an actual expansion of space, not through velocity of particles. It's like if you have a balloon and draw two dots on it, then inflate it. The dots have a velocity of zero, but are still moving apart.

Plait is saying they used the same timing apparatus, so still some questions.

I've got my theories...

1. GPS timing like this is incredibly difficult. Even the smallest error can add significant uncertainty. I think this is the likely culprit.

2. Half lives of particle decays may not be as well known as stated. I'm working on a paper for a conference where updated yield values for radium 226's gamma decay from the 1980s to modern values made a problem with elevated radium in sample reuslts go away. I'm not sure how decay time factors in to their equations though, so this may be a non issue. As a correlary, if they used decay half life instead of mean life, their measurements would be off by 44% of the particle half life, so a couple nanoseconds. This seems too trivial to miss though...

3. Just a shot in the dark on this, but there may be more contribution from tuneling effects than known? But given that tunneling is a statistical effect and they repeated their measurements thousands of times, this seems unlikely...

4. Aliens.

error 303: I've got my theories...

1. GPS timing like this is incredibly difficult. Even the smallest error can add significant uncertainty. I think this is the likely culprit.

2. Half lives of particle decays may not be as well known as stated. I'm working on a paper for a conference where updated yield values for radium 226's gamma decay from the 1980s to modern values made a problem with elevated radium in sample reuslts go away. I'm not sure how decay time factors in to their equations though, so this may be a non issue. As a correlary, if they used decay half life instead of mean life, their measurements would be off by 44% of the particle half life, so a couple nanoseconds. This seems too trivial to miss though...

3. Just a shot in the dark on this, but there may be more contribution from tuneling effects than known? But given that tunneling is a statistical effect and they repeated their measurements thousands of times, this seems unlikely...

4. Aliens.

I'm with you. Extraordinary claims and all that- two experiments is interesting but not compelling.

error 303: I've got my theories...

1. GPS timing like this is incredibly difficult. Even the smallest error can add significant uncertainty. I think this is the likely culprit.

2. Half lives of particle decays may not be as well known as stated. I'm working on a paper for a conference where updated yield values for radium 226's gamma decay from the 1980s to modern values made a problem with elevated radium in sample reuslts go away. I'm not sure how decay time factors in to their equations though, so this may be a non issue. As a correlary, if they used decay half life instead of mean life, their measurements would be off by 44% of the particle half life, so a couple nanoseconds. This seems too trivial to miss though...

3. Just a shot in the dark on this, but there may be more contribution from tuneling effects than known? But given that tunneling is a statistical effect and they repeated their measurements thousands of times, this seems unlikely...

4. Aliens.

Or they've accurately confirmed a previous result.

error 303: 4. Aliens.

Finally someone talks some sense in this thread.

/favorited as "Not afraid to tell it like it is science guy"

Fizpez: never mind that some of the smartest people on the planet are "workin' on it" and aren't sure yet

Well, to be fair, most of those fart smellas have thus far been busy discrediting original finding with shaky assumptions about the quality/calibration of the equipment and even the character of the scientists involved. They may now be "workin' on it", but it's still going to be with a pretty heavy helping of confirmation bias.

More to the point of the article, the best course of action now is to wait and see if other teams can replicate the results.

I think this is a good test for strings as the "theory of everything." Are there any models that predict this?

Cern internal update:

OPERA experiment update 18 November 2011

Following the OPERA collaboration's presentation at CERN on 23 September, inviting scrutiny of their neutrino time-of-flight measurement from the broader particle physics community, the collaboration has rechecked many aspects of its analysis and taken into account valuable suggestions from a wide range of sources. One key test was to repeat the measurement with very short beam pulses from CERN. This allowed the extraction time of the protons that ultimately lead to the neutrino beam to be measured more precisely.

The beam sent from CERN consisted of pulses three nanoseconds long separated by up to 524 nanoseconds. Some 20 clean neutrino events were measured at the Gran Sasso Laboratory, and precisely associated with the pulse leaving CERN. This test confirms the accuracy of OPERA's timing measurement, ruling out one potential source of systematic error. The new measurements do not change the initial conclusion. Nevertheless, the observed anomaly in the neutrinos' time of flight from CERN to Gran Sasso still needs further scrutiny and independent measurement before it can be refuted or confirmed.

On 17 November, the collaboration submitted a paper on this measurement to the peer reviewed journal JHEP. This paper is also available on the ArXiv preprint server."

Mad_Radhu: They are obviously oscillating into the rare Boobies flavor of the neutrino.

If this does prove to be true, and is confirmed by other labs, yes, he is wrong. Those are some big ifs.

That being said, Einstein proved that Newton is wrong, altough Netowian physics works very well in 'normal' life. I would imagine that much the same would hold for Einstien's physics.

And there would be no problem with this. You find new stuff and adjust accordingly.

ANd how the hell did i quote the wrong guy? Must have been faster than light mouse clicks combined with a crappy Internet circuit...

Angry Buddha: error 303: 4. Aliens.

Finally someone talks some sense in this thread.

/favorited as "Not afraid to tell it like it is science guy"

Indeed, someone needs to talk about the controversy!

http://troll.me/images/ancient-aliens-guy/its-not-aliens-its-aliens.j p g

/actually excited for further data

Wouldn't FTL violate causality?

They made a change in the basic setup to reduce one possible cause of error. Didn't make any difference. But, confirmation on a completely different system is the best approach.

Fermilab saw similar results in 2007, but it was within the error bars for the data.

wingnut396: That being said, Einstein proved that Newton is wrong, altough Netowian physics works very well in 'normal' life. I would imagine that much the same would hold for Einstien's physics.

the speed of light might be the limit for particles traveling through space-time in a certain way, which these neutrinos are not. or any number of other things...

einstein could be right with an asterisk, much like newton (particles at very low speed).

BalugaJoe: Wouldn't FTL violate causality?

We discussed this next week. Keep up.

Is there any explanation why the SN 1987A neutrinos were so much slower than the ones CERN is measuring?

Monnock: Is there any explanation why the SN 1987A neutrinos were so much slower than the ones CERN is measuring?

Because nothing beats the performance of European neutrinos?

error 303: 1. GPS timing like this is incredibly difficult. Even the smallest error can add significant uncertainty. I think this is the likely culprit.

I reckon think that everyone involved in this thinks there's an error, but the problem is that they can't see anything wrong with the experiment, which is puzzling. What the study may end up doing is showing that Einstein is wrong, but that other things can affect measurements. Either way, we get some more science.

Out of curiosity, what is the mechanism by which neutrinos are detected? What is being measured?

Monnock:
Is there any explanation why the SN 1987A neutrinos were so much slower than the ones CERN is measuring?

Possibly there was some unknown lensing between here and the exploding star that the neutrinos got caught in and the light didn't, the supernova was one data point, it could have unknown errors.

Any chance that we just don't have c nailed down to the accuracy we thought? Maybe neutrino speeds are the upper limit and all photons previously studied were actually retarded somehow?

/not a physicist

If the neutrino is somehow bending space time around it, it could appear to move faster than c without technically violating relativity. Space can expand faster than the speed of light. Right now, there are entire galaxies somewhere way out there that are moving away from us faster than the speed of light, without violating relativity.

Reminds me of the Pioneer anomoly.

Monnock: Is there any explanation why the SN 1987A neutrinos were so much slower than the ones CERN is measuring?

Here's what I don't fully get. At 60 nanoseconds faster over 730 kilometers, you get a value for c of 299,799,832 m/s raqther than 299,792,458. So a neutrino speed of 1.0000246c. I know the 730km measurement isn't as precicse as it could be, but it factors in only slightly here...

SN 1987A occured 168,000 light years away. So neutrinos should have gotten here 168,000/1.0000246 years before photons. Which would be a little over four years prior. So 1983. We didn't have a good neutrino detector in 1983 as Kamiokande-II wasn't up and running until 1985. So I don't really have a good answer?

Ha! Take that, Einstein! You stupid Jew!

error 303: I've got my theories...

1. GPS timing like this is incredibly difficult. Even the smallest error can add significant uncertainty. I think this is the likely culprit.

2. Half lives of particle decays may not be as well known as stated. I'm working on a paper for a conference where updated yield values for radium 226's gamma decay from the 1980s to modern values made a problem with elevated radium in sample reuslts go away. I'm not sure how decay time factors in to their equations though, so this may be a non issue. As a correlary, if they used decay half life instead of mean life, their measurements would be off by 44% of the particle half life, so a couple nanoseconds. This seems too trivial to miss though...

3. Just a shot in the dark on this, but there may be more contribution from tuneling effects than known? But given that tunneling is a statistical effect and they repeated their measurements thousands of times, this seems unlikely...

4. Aliens.

Nerd-o loves his booky- wooks!

error 303: I've got my theories...

1. GPS timing like this is incredibly difficult. Even the smallest error can add significant uncertainty. I think this is the likely culprit.



Yeah, that was the most complete criticism of the first experiment that I have seen. The adjusted calculation in the criticism resulted in a time shift due to satellite motion that equaled the perceived added speed of the neutrino. I don't see that CERN addressed this.

t3knomanser: I'm with you. Extraordinary claims and all that- two experiments is interesting but not compelling.


Well, it is an extraordinary claim which is why - to their credit - the scientists involved are wisely being very very cautious about this. It has been tested a LOT though, I think the original results were based off of 15,000 tests. So now that a second team has confirmed those results independently it might not be time to start running through the streets of Geneva stripping off clothes and screaming about how physics as we know it has just changed....... but I think it probably is ok to start getting a little excited about it.

This has already been explained using Einstein's own theories. Accounting for the difference in the relative rate of time between a stationary object on earth and a GPS satellite orbiting the earth covers the 60 nanosecond difference almost perfectly.

http://dvice.com/archives/2011/10/speedy-neutrino.php (new window)

mrmyxolodian: Does this mean Einstein was wrong?
I never did trust those bagels...

No, he wasn't

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

They're now at the stage where their measurements are very accurate, and they have to start checking their measuring stick.

However, just like when I buy a lottery ticket, I shall remain irrationally hopeful of a big win until proven otherwise - I just won't plan my life on it.

LewDux: "Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." Albert Einstein .

That's why when the lid stuck on a jar won't open on the first twist, I simply put it down and walk away forever.

/sane

Fizpez: Great, now my brother is going to show up again and ask me to explain this once more - never mind that some of the smartest people on the planet are "workin' on it" and aren't sure yet - but because he heard about it on RUSH, I'm suposed to have all the answers because I'm the science-guy in the family.

Dear God, they've know this whole time!

FOOLS!

They changed the outcome by measuring it.