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Neutrino Data Could Spell Trouble For Relativity

Posted by kdawson on from the stay-put-will-you dept.

Science News has an exploration of the deeper implications of neutrino oscillation, one experimental confirmation of which we discussed last month. "The new findings could even signal a tiny breakdown of Einstein's theory of special relativity. ... MINOS [for Main Injector Neutrino Oscillation Search] found that during a 735-kilometer journey from Fermilab to the Soudan Underground Laboratory in Minnesota, about 37 percent of muon antineutrinos disappeared — presumably morphing into one of the other neutrino types — compared with just 19 percent of muon neutrinos. ... That difference in transformation rates suggests a difference in mass between antineutrinos and neutrinos. ... With the amount of data collected so far, there's just a 5% probability that the two types of particles weigh the same."

6 of 279 comments (clear)

  1. So basically... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Let me try to find a lay-person analogy.

    A chef theorized that there was a counter-part to bacon. We'll call it turkey bacon. We traditionally thought that Turkey Bacon was the direct opposite of Pig Bacon. Where Pig Bacon was delicious, Turkey Bacon was healthy. We decided to do some research on how Turkey bacon and pig bacon is received by the consumer. Recent taste test show that turkey bacon is not, in fact equally as healthy as pig bacon is tasty. This ruins the grand unified theorem of HTB (healthy tasty breakfast).

    The only remaining explanation is there might, in fact, be a third type of bacon... i.e. a cow bacon or chicken bacon. If we discover this new type of bacon, it might completely revolutionize the Bacon Lettuce Tomato sandwich.

    amirite?

    1. Re:So basically... by Hognoxious · · Score: 5, Funny

      The car analogy works as a reasonble approximation at vehicular scales but breaks down at the edible level.

      --
      Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
  2. So... by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 5, Funny

    Should I be preparing for Unforeseen Consequences?

  3. Cloaking device malfunction?! by SOOPRcow · · Score: 5, Funny

    I think we need to reroute power through the main deflector dish to correctly mask the neutrino particle dispersion.

  4. Re:CPT = Lorentz Invariance by JSBiff · · Score: 5, Funny

    Well, you see, the modder had to preserve Slashdot CRM ( Correctness, Relevance, Modding) Invariance which states that Comment Correctness, Comment Relevance, and Comment Modding, when assigned a boolean value (e.g if the Comment is factually correct, it is assigned the value of 1, else 0) of 1 or 0, then multiplied together, must never be 1. So, since we had a correct, relevant comment, the modding must be incorrect to preserve the Invariance.

  5. Re:Relativity is just a model by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Sorry, but I'm a mathematician... so everything you physicists do is just a model to me.

    An instant link to xkcd is required here. I hate doing this (linking to xkcd), but you brought it on yourself :)