Superluminal Neutrinos, Take Two

Coisiche writes "To address the many responses to their original findings, the OPERA team who reported the detection of faster-than-light neutrinos is starting a new and improved version of their experiment. 'The neutrinos that emerge at Gran Sasso start off as a beam of proton particles at CERN. Through a series of complex interactions, neutrino particles are generated from this beam and stream through the Earth's crust to Italy. Originally, CERN fired the protons in a long pulse lasting 10 microseconds (10 millionths of a second). ... [In the new experiment], protons are sent in a series of short bursts — lasting just one or two nanoseconds, thousands of times shorter — with a large gap (roughly 500 nanoseconds) in between each burst. This system, says Dr Bertolucci, is more efficient: "For every neutrino event at Gran Sasso, you can connect it unambiguously with the batch of protons at CERN," he explained.'"

Comments

Congrats to the Opera team

[Anonymous Coward]

I knew browsers were getting fast, but faster than light?

Re:Congrats to the Opera team

[lpp]

It's not for general use, rather it's primarily a development tool. As has been shown time and time again, the earlier you catch bugs, the lower the cost required to fix them. Now, with faster than light browsing, you can see the bugs on your website before you've even coded it. As a result, you simply don't code the bug in the first place and save a lot of time rewriting poor CSS and markup.

The only thing to arrive early in Italy

[captainpanic]

... is a neutrino.

Oblig and not even so related xkcd: http://xkcd.com/282/

Re:Applied particle physics?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm disappointed that people are so vehemently against nuclear reactors these days that Germany is shutting some of them down.

Yeah? Just wait until Germany gets hit with a tsunami, like Japan did. That decision won't seem so dumb then.

Re:Helpful but not that helpful

[jfengel]

This could be the Michelson–Morley experiment of our error

There's a Freudian slip for ya.

How can they be sure?

[GoNINzo]

They changed the outcome by observing it! This is just another example of Big Physics ruining the results of science by observing the location of particles.