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The Mythical Tunnel Between CERN and Central Italy

Posted by samzenpus on from the just-the-facts-mam dept.

fph il quozientatore writes "Mariastella Gelmini, the Italian minister of Public Education and Scientific Research, complimented the researchers for the recent (supposed) discovery of faster-than-light neutrinos. Her press release mentions that Italy funded the construction of a 'tunnel between the CERN [in Geneva] and Gran Sasso [the labs in Central Italy].' Google maps reports the distance between the two labs as over 900km — but of course once the tunnel is open to traffic the trip will be much faster."

32 of 303 comments (clear)

  1. Future tunnel by goombah99 · · Score: 4, Funny

    He was speaking of the future tunnel that the faster than light neutrino's already know about so they can follow it.

    --
    Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
    1. Re:Future tunnel by SimonTheSoundMan · · Score: 4, Funny

      Bartender "We do not serve neutrinos in here"

      A neutrino walks in to a bar.

    2. Re:Future tunnel by Yohahn · · Score: 4, Funny

      Bartender "We do not serve neutrinos in here"

      A neutrino walks in to a bar.

      and the last line:

      Have you heard the joke about the faster than light neutrino?

    3. Re:Future tunnel by TeknoHog · · Score: 4, Funny

      Did the neutrino have to pay for the drink, or did he get it free of charge?

      --
      Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
    4. Re:Future tunnel by catman · · Score: 2

      ITYM String: I'm a frayed knot!

  2. Faster, yes, but... by dgatwood · · Score: 2

    There's still the problem of all those pesky particles flying at high speed down the center stripe.

    --

    Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.

    1. Re:Faster, yes, but... by dgatwood · · Score: 3, Funny

      There's still the problem of all those pesky particles flying at high speed down the center stripe.

      Oh, and the best part is that you'll never see it coming.

      --

      Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.

    2. Re:Faster, yes, but... by symbolset · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Your argument has some issues. First, the speed of gravity is theoretically c. This can be proved experimentally sometime soon. Or was. I forget. Since entropy is ambiguous in this thread you forgave me I'm sure.

      Neutrinos are believed to have mass of some kind, because they appear to experience time. Neutrinos are believed to cycle over time through electron, muon and tau neutrino flavors - and cycling at some time rate based on energy levels. If the mass of neutrinos is negative it becomes a different theoretical problem with neat solutions. The Neutrinos would be repelled by, rather than attracted by, gravity. Yes, causality remains a problem in this case if the speed of light is truly broken and the observation isn't an error, because of the potential for heavier particles of greater mass and potentially much greater speeds. The actualization of negative masses does help certain other aspects of the theory though. Perhaps the red-shift of neutrinos and their higher-order cousins caused the early FTL expansion of the universe, and they're what's now slowing it down. In that case the missing mass in the universe is the negative mass of the neutrinos that expanded the universe faster than c on their way out and are now opposing the expansion of the universe with their negative mass. That would make the net mass of the universe exactly zero, which would clean up a lot of mess in the math. Energy then becomes the potential between mass and negative mass, the speed of light the dividing line between (which makes sense, as light is massless energy). Energy becomes the attracting force that pulls the negative and positive masses together again in the end. The gravity force becomes the equivalent of energy shifted into the mass dimension. Our entire universe becomes a temporary twitch in higher-order math: a ripple in dimensions beyond our ken - a single bubble in a fleck of foam on the crest of a wave on an endless sea made turbulent by winds beyond our imagining, that blooms once and bursts or shrinks again, absorbed by an uncaring sea. Its duration would be the level of incursion of one higher-order plane on another.

      Since the neutrinos and their higher-order negative mass FTL cousins experience time in what we would consider the reverse then naturally our big bang was their big crunch. Our big crunch will be their big bang. It would make sense that the positive masses exactly equal the negative masses, that the highest density of mass in this negative mass universe is exactly the same magnitude of ours (galactic core black holes with negative mass) and that though from our current view of time their mass inhibits ours by being outside our known universe's perimeter pressing it in, from their point of view we are the negative mass preventing the expansion of their universe, and presently pressing it in toward its end. Time starts and as the masses and negative masses disassociate on their grand loop, time slows until it reaches some apogee prescribed by its cause and stops, and then reverses gaining speed until it meets its opposite mirror and stops. It's grand symmetry, and it would make perfect sense if my perfect mirror were posting this comment on gro.todhsals out there somewhere, though it's not necessary for that to be true for the math to work out.

      This may do away with the the cyclic inversion theory, or "string of beads" because time itself loops back with its opposite and the beginning is also the end. There may be exactly one, which cleans up a lot more math.

      Really, who needs causality anyway? It's getting in the way of a lot of interesting stuff.

      If the mass of neutrinos is an imaginary number, well, things get a little fractal from there as the picture gets more beautiful and more inscrutable.

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      Help stamp out iliturcy.
    3. Re:Faster, yes, but... by werepants · · Score: 2

      Doesn't work with matter-antimatter annihilation (unless we work out what that means in terms of time-anti-time annihilation), but it was an interesting revelation in physics class.

      Sure it does - it's the mass-energy equivalence principle. If you look at matter-antimatter annihilation in reverse, you see two gamma rays colliding and producing an electron and positron. Momentum, energy, charge, and all the important parts are conserved. This idea is what makes particle accelerators work. If you get enough energy together, then any particle can be created, as long as it conserves where it matters.

  3. The tubes were there... by Thruen · · Score: 3, Informative

    I thought they just sent it through the same tubes the internet uses? Aren't neutrinos almost as small as golf balls? They'd fit easy.

  4. sure looks like she was misinterpreted by buddyglass · · Score: 2

    Italy has contributed to the construction of the tunnel between CERN and Gran Sasso Laboratories, through which the experiment took place, with a sum now estimated at around 45 million euros.

    It sounds like she's saying that Italy contributed to the tunnel, through which the experiment took place, by way of contributions from Gran Sasso Labs totalling 45 million euros. Bad translation into English, and possibly bad sentence structure in Italian. (I don't speak Italian so I can't judge.)

    1. Re:sure looks like she was misinterpreted by wes33 · · Score: 2

      so you really think this 900 km tunnel
      exists, do you?

    2. Re:sure looks like she was misinterpreted by buddyglass · · Score: 2

      No, I don't. That was the point of my post. The experiment took place in a "tunnel" at the LHC. She's saying that Italy contributed financially, along with CERN, to the construction of that tunnel.

    3. Re:sure looks like she was misinterpreted by Jeremi · · Score: 2

      I believe in the tunnel. I just believe it's only a few neutrinos wide.

      Or perhaps to put it another way: for a neutrino, everywhere is a tunnel.

      --


      I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
  5. No, it was not... by feranick · · Score: 4, Informative

    As an Italian speaker I can confirm that there is no mistranslation. She really said a tunnel was in place and Italy contributed the money to build it....

    1. Re:No, it was not... by icebike · · Score: 2

      She wouldn't have been the first to assume there was a tunnel.
      Many posters here on slashdott had to be reminded that there was no tunnel in the prior post on this subject.
      Apparently the idea that you can send tiny particles thru the earth itself is a difficult concept to get across.

      --
      Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
    2. Re:No, it was not... by mcelrath · · Score: 2

      Now go back and read her title: "Italian minister of Education and Scientific Research".

      --
      1^2=1; (-1)^2=1; 1^2=(-1)^2; 1=-1; 1=0.
    3. Re:No, it was not... by icebike · · Score: 2

      Translation : a politician.

      If you think that's news, welcome to planet Earth.

      --
      Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
    4. Re:No, it was not... by symbolset · · Score: 2

      There is a tunnel and Italy did contribute the money to build it. They drilled it with neutrinos. It's a very narrow tunnel.

      --
      Help stamp out iliturcy.
  6. Politicians should at least understand economics by jrumney · · Score: 2

    I don't know what is worse. That she believes the tunnel exists, or that she believes that 45 million euro is a significant contribution towards building a 900km long tunnel.

  7. Question by Shortgeek · · Score: 2

    I haven't been following these results too closely, but I gather from the response here that the neutrinos did not travel through a tunnel. So, then, did they just travel through the Earth? I guess this wouldn't cause any or much interference, so I'm assuming that's what was done, but I haven't found this directly stated.

    --
    Note to self: Make a funny sig.
    1. Re:Question by JoshuaZ · · Score: 2

      Correct. The neutrinos traveled through solid rock. Neutrinos don't interact with much so as far as they are concerned solid rock isn't a big deal. And you actually want to have the solid rock there. You wouldn't want an open tunnel- the process that creates the neutrinos creates a lot of other particles of all sorts of different types. But all of those get blocked by the rock. The experimental setup in particular needs to block both the muons and tauons. These particles can normally penetrate a lot o the point where stray muons from cosmic ray collisions are a major nuisance for sensitive neutrino detectors even when the detectors are deep underground. The Japanese big neutrino detector Kamiokande has a lot of special equipment to deal with just this. So in this case, having many kilometers of rock is necessary to let the whole thing work otherwise the stray particles would make it impossible to detect neutrino interactions with all the noise.

    2. Re:Question by Kagura · · Score: 4, Informative

      The common rule of thumb for neutrinos is that it take a sheet of lead one light-year thick in order to stop 50% of the neutrinos directed at it. Wow!

  8. There is a tunnel (kind of) by Egdiroh · · Score: 2

    Well there is a project which is used to send neutrinos and has a decay tunnel. The tunnel just doesn't go all the way, as that's not needed.

    http://public.web.cern.ch/public/en/Research/CNGS-en.html

  9. Re:I must be missing something by FrootLoops · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Things you're missing:
    1. No such tunnel exists.
    2. It would have to be hundreds of miles long, so tens of millions of Euros wouldn't make a dent in construction costs.
    3. Neutrinos interact weakly enough with matter that they can be beamed through solid rock without much trouble, so a tunnel is unnecessary (even undesirable).
    4. Faster than light neutrinos have not been "discovered" per se. The guys published their results in hopes that someone will find an error, or (mmmaaaybbbeee) in hopes that their results will be reproducible.
    5. Faster than light neutrinos would require huge revisions to modern physics. For instance, under special relativity a faster-than-light particle time travels and destroys causality.
    6. In light of (5), extreme caution should be taken in accepting and verifying these results. Congratulating scientists for their amazing discovery now is, to say the least, premature.

  10. Re:Darkies by Lord+Kano · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I'm black and I score at least three standard deviations above the norm on IQ tests.I don't buy the culturally biased bullshit about the tests.
    Unfortunately there's an anti-intellectual theme in much of African American culture. Through peer and societal pressure, black kids learn to under-perform.

    If I'm black and I can do well academically, then others can too. Just pull your damned pants up and read a book.

    LK

    --
    "Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
  11. Re:I'm confused by adamofgreyskull · · Score: 2

    An Italian politician has claimed responsibility for helping to fund a ~750km imaginary tunnel to the tune of 45 million Euro. There is no tunnel. Neutrinos (unlike cars) travel quite happily through the Earth without tunnels.

    Being nice, and giving her the benefit of the doubt, you can forgive her for thinking a "tunnel" between the two places was necessary. Even if she's minister for Science, she is still just a politician. However, even more embarrassing is the failure of common sense that led her to believe that, should you build a 750km long tunnel, 45 million Euros would even begin to cover it. For comparison, the Channel Tunnel, between South-East England and Northern France is around 50 km long. That project came in over-budget at GBP£4650 million in 1986 money. (Around 5400 million Euro). Though, granted, cars are bigger than neutrinos :)

    Secondly, in her eagerness to jump on the bandwagon and accept responsibility for the hard work of the scientists involved, she is being extremely premature in accepting the results of the experiment as absolute fact. "Exceeding the speed of light is an epochal victory for scientific research around the world."

  12. Re:Hi, I'm a faster-than-light nutrino! by jamesh · · Score: 2

    The thing about Slashdot is that you could be a slower-than-stopped particle, and the news would still be old.

    (if you can have a particle that goes faster than light, then a particle that goes slower than stopped is surely possible!)

  13. Yes, there's a tunnel! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    Gran Sasso is a mountain in eastern Italy. About 25 years ago, a tunnel (of the traffic kind) was made underneath the mountain. Physicists saw this as a great opportunity to build a particle physics lab, using the mountain as shielding from cosmic radiation. Usually such experiments (such as dark matter detectors) are placed deep underground in hard-to-get-to mines, but this lab is great since you can literally drive up to it. The lab is comprised of three (very) large sections that are right off of the main road.

    Italy paid for this tunnel and the carving out of the lab space. Maybe she was confused or maybe the translation was poor, but Italy did indeed fund the construction of the tunnel underneath Gran Sasso as well as the laboratories underneath the mountain. So give them credit there.

  14. Re:Darkies by deroby · · Score: 2

    Don't get me wrong, but if you say
    "I don't buy the culturally biased bullshit about the tests." and then add "black kids learn to under-perform."; isn't that kind of contradicting yourself ?

    Personally I'm convinced that *on average* IQ (**) is pretty much equal amongst all people, regardless of their genetic inheritance but that culture (nurture if you like to make the time-line a bit shorter) is a major driver on whether people will score good on these tests.

    (**: if there is such a thing... IMHO most of these tests are unreliable as THE TESTS are culturally biased too... )

    --
    If there is one thing to be learned on slashdot, it has to be sarcasm.
  15. I am Italian. This is the correct meaning. by GhigoRenzulli · · Score: 2

    Our minister Mariastella Gelmini is both totally ignorant and unable to write in italian.

    The original sentence is here:

    http://www.istruzione.it/web/ministero/cs230911

    The correct translation is:

    Italy contributed to the construction of the tunnel between Cern and Gran Sasso laboratory, used for the experiment, giving about 45 million euros.

    The tunnel is used for the experiment. The tunnel was build between Cern and Gran Sasso. There is no other interpretation possible: someone built a 750KM underground tunnel between Ginevra and Gran Sasso, in order to make the experiment.
    And Italy proudly participated to the construction of this tunnel.

    Since after ignorance always follow arrogance, our precious minister Gelmini promptly replied:

    http://www.istruzione.it/web/ministero/cs240911

    The tunnel to which I was referring is the one where protons runs. From protons collisions originates a neutrinos stream that through the earth reaches Gran Sasso.

    It's a ridiculous attempt to fix a very stupid sentence, trying to masking her abyssal ignorance.

    Welcome to Italy!!!

  16. Re:I must be missing something by cc1984_ · · Score: 2

    Not that I disagree with anything you say, but I was just referring to the part

    Neturinos are (mostly) the former, and for all practical purposes [a massless, noninteracting particle].

    If the GGP wants to rename c to "speed of massless, noninteracting particle", by all means, but that particle would not be a neutrino.