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CERN Experiment Indicates Faster-Than-Light Neutrinos
intellitech writes "Puzzling results from Cern, home of the LHC, have confounded physicists — because it appears subatomic particles have exceeded the speed of light. Neutrinos sent through the ground from Cern toward the Gran Sasso laboratory 732km away seemed to show up a few billionths of a second early. The results will soon be online to draw closer scrutiny to a result that, if true, would upend a century of physics. The lab's research director called it 'an apparently unbelievable result.'" Also on the AP wire, as carried by PhysOrg, which similarly emphasizes that the data are preliminary.
Update: 09/22 20:43 GMT by T : Reader Curunir_wolf adds a link to the experiment itself, the Oscillation Project with Emulsion-tRacking Apparatus, or OPERA, which "was developed to study the phenomenon of neutrino transmutation (neutrinos changing from one type to another. The speed of the neutrinos, of course, was an entirely unexpected observation."
No kidding, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and this is one mother of an extraordinary claim. Unlike most "fast than c" research that the media distorts, it actually sounds like it would be possible to transmit information using this effect, which essentially upends either relativity or causality. But, these aren't just some cranks doing experiments in their basements, and they are appropriately guarding their choice of words to emphasis the preliminary nature of the research which is a good sign. Hopefully the experiment wasn't too expensive and difficult to perform so we can get some people started on replicated (or refuting) the results.
This was a rational piece without too many sensationalist remarks! How do we show them we appreciate decent scientific writing as opposed to the crap we normally get?
Regardless of how many times you repeat a measurement with a faulty ruler, the measurements are still wrong.
How precisely did they measure the 732km?
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
They must have overlooked this point. Usually only senior/nobel level reasearchers can understand the extremely complicated system of faulty rulers and suspicious measurement results. In my experience, turning the thing OFF and ON again, would have done it.
Was it faster than the speed of light in the given medium or faster than the speed of light in vacuum?
So you're saying there's an 18m wormhole that makes these things get there "faster" than light. Or that they aren't capable of measuring to within 18 meters at that scale? I'd say that isn't very likely and I'd have a hard time imagining it. What I could imagine is that there's a mistake somewhere or equipment issue possibly. But repeated 15k times, and I fully trust the people at CERN OPERA to measure within 18m.
Consensus != universal fact. Consensus == our best understanding of universal fact. There's a difference. Real science is always open to upending.
Yeh, I guess they never thought to check those two variables?
And why would this result be impossible?
It's impossible according to current theories. It's not impossible that current theories are wrong, but very highly improbable to be wrong in this way, given the amount of corroboration we have for the speed of light being an absolute limit and for the time-dilation effects, which would cause faster-than-light particles to violate causality.
Nevertheless, the data is the data, and that's why they're publishing it. Somebody else will find a measurement error (most likely) or we'll get exciting new physics (much less likely, but would be pretty awesome).
Many have posted that the instruments were flawed or the scientists made a mistake, but not too long ago scientists were 100% certain that the world was flat too.
Actually, I'd say that was very long ago. Considering Eratosthenes not only knew that the Earth was round, but was able to calculate the circumference to remarkable accuracy way back in ~200 BC. Note that it wasn't him that decided the Earth was round, that was already common knowledge. He figured out the circumference.
Just because scientists currently believe that nothing can go faster than the speed of light doesn't make it so. Our views of the universe are always changing and saying that a result is "impossible", no matter how unlikely the result, is a bit short sided.
That's true, however as many others have pointed out, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. A single experiment just isn't enough. If we have sufficient confirmation of faster than light effects, scientists will most certainly welcome the result. Unexpected data opens up new opportunities for lots of papers. Scientists live for that, literally. It's what puts food on the table :)
Of course, but these aren't crackpots screaming that modern physics is wrong. They're getting puzzling results, even after doublechecking, so they're asking others to verify. This is the by-the-book scientific process.
the knowledge that is the cornerstone of modern physics, knowledge that has been tested time and time again and found true, is upturned by one experiment?
Well, it's not like it never happened before...
If their finding is correct, it doesn't mean that previous experiments were wrong. It just means that things are more complicated than we thought them to be. It's a darker side of the Occam's Razor - you get rid of unnecessary things, sure, but how do you determine whether they are unnecessary? why, based on your experimental input - you need the simplest model that can explain the results that you see, and predict future results when you test it. Problem is, your experiments might not be covering some edge case, and therefore you didn't see the complete picture - and oversimplified your theory.