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Neutrino Data Could Spell Trouble For Relativity
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."
This isn't trouble, we already know there are problems with the theory, we just don't have any measurements that give us an idea of how to fix it (of course the theory works well enough in most cases). Any measurements like this that give us something unexpected are great things, they can give us a more accurate picture of how the world is, help the theory become more accurate. Always look for the flaws in your theory, for that is where the greatest discoveries are hidden.
Qxe4
It's already widely known that Relativity is just a model... much like the rest of physics. It's extremely accurate and useful for dealing with many areas, but breaks down somewhat when dealing with very very small things. Hence the great desire to develop a more unified theory! So, the summary is a little bit on the sensationalist side of the street.
The research is very important, though!
Ok. I read the article and I'm still confused. I understand why different mass for particles and their antiparticles would violate CPT, which is obviously major. But I don't see how this violates special relativity. Why does this violate special relativity?
Snouty the breakfast pig is fine, its the chemical preservatives thats seems to catch up with people.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
They are wrong on a universal scale. This has been proven, and indeed it is where things like relativity start to come in. We have measured things that go against the predictions that Newton's laws make. That would mean they've been falsified. ...
So why the hell do we still teach them?
Well because on the scale we normally work on, Newton's laws simply and accurately describe how things works. You can go out yourself and test them in any number of ways and you'll find that as accurate as you want to measure, they are dead on accurate. When dealing with the scale of things humans normally do, they are an excellent set of rules for calculations.
Thus more accurately put they aren't wrong, they are just a simplification that works within certain bounds. They do not fully describe motion and gravitation on every level, in every case. They break down for very large and very small scales. However they are an excellent simplification for anything less than, say, a planet in size and anything above the atomic level. That would include basically everything you are ever likely to work with.
So they are very much correct, all you have to do is put a couple constraints on their use.
Simplified models like that are wonderful too. Even if they don't explain everything, they allow for calculations to be done in an easy fashion on things we care about. Some day we may discover a truly complete law for motion, that covers all cases from the smallest to the largest. at all speeds, in all frames of reference and so on. There may be nothing left out. It also may be several pages of dense calculations. Instead of that, when dealing with a normal, human scale, we'll still use Newton's laws, something you can express in a couple characters and work out in your head if you are good. An exceedingly useful and accurate simplification.
A similar example would be the Ideal Gas law. When you look at it, it is clearly wrong. Reason is you plug in numbers for something like H2O at room temperature and the result is not what you actually get. It does not show it becoming a liquid. Yet again we use it. Why? Because so long as the substance you are talking about is a gas in the temperature and pressure range you are working at, the Ideal Gas law gives you a very easy, highly accurate, way to calculate things about it. It is a simplification, hence why it is called "Ideal Gas" instead of "Real Gas". That doesn't mean that it isn't accurate and useful within some constraints.
So I can see the same being true with relativity. While we have already found cases it doesn't explain (see quantum gravitation), that doesn't mean it isn't useful within certain constraints. As our knowledge progresses, we will know precisely what those are.
First, we don't obviously exist. For all I know, I am a figment of my imagination, as are you. Evil demons, brains in vats, etc. We assume we exist.
Cogito, ergo sum. You need to define existence, because you seem to take it as "as I perceive myself right now" whereas most philosophy takes it as "I'm conscious and experience things". Existence, from a philosophical standpoint, isn't really that hard to prove. Explaining it is the hard part.
Second, who says there are infinities in the universe? In the actual physical universe that is. I don't.
Our current theories say there are. And they're obviously flawed, so you're welcome to improve upon them. You'd need to back up your assertions though, which doesn't seem like your strong suit.
Third, what?
Exactly what I was thinking when I read your post. Please, please revisit the philosophical works you read, and read them with an eye to what their authors actually meant, and not what you wanted them to mean.
Then of course we havethe hacked dark matter née aether to make everything work out and match the theory.
Dark matter is no more a "hack" than expolanets around stars with slight wobbles are "hacks". Omigosh, you need a planet there to "match the theory"! Or is the planet a prediction based on observation and an already well-working theory? Yes, that's what it is. We use the theory of gravity to infer the existence of masses.
People have tried to modify the theory to avoid having to infer mass in places where we couldn't directly see any. It nearly worked for a while, until further evidence showed that you couldn't just adjust the magnitude of gravitational attraction and make things work (like MOND), you had to have gravity pointing in completely different directions, for different cases! We've come as close as we probably can to directly seeing the dark matter (if it's WIMPs) via gravitational lensing.
In any event, you're absolutely right that new data that shows weaknesses of existing theory is very exciting, because that's where new physics is discovered.
I'm just sayin', this is basically what's already happened to dark-matter-free theories.
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If the universe contained areas of matter and areas of antimatter, you would see annihilation radiation at the boundaries. I think (not completely sure) that would be detectable for a wide variety of different sized regions. As another poster points out, it would be difficult to explain such a separation without introducing new physics.
If the anti-particle and particle have different masses, the physics will be different.
Science is fantastic in that it assumes that it will eventually be proven wrong. Unlike pseudo-science, there is hardly ever a "scientific consensus" - merely interesting ideas that run counter to accepted teachings.