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The Mythical Tunnel Between CERN and Central Italy
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."
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.
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....
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!
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.
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.
Help stamp out iliturcy.