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OPERA Group Repeats Faster-Than-Light Neutrino Results
gbrumfiel writes "Earlier this year, the OPERA experiment made the extraordinary claim that they had seen neutrinos traveling faster than the speed of light. The experiment, located at Gran Sasso in Italy, saw neutrinos arrive 60 nanoseconds earlier than expected from their starting point at CERN in Switzerland. Others have doubted OPERA's claim, but in a new paper, the group reaffirms its commitment to the measurement. 'It's slightly better than the previous result,' OPERA's physics coordinator Dario Autiero told Nature News. Most members of the collaboration who didn't sign the original paper out of skepticism have now come on board. But scientists outside the group still aren't sure. 'Independent checks are the way to go,' says Rob Plunkett, co-spokesman of a rival experiment called MINOS."
They make you reset the shield harmonics
To offset political mods, replace Flamebait with Insightful.
As others here noted last time this result came around, if neutrinos really travel that much faster than the speed of light, then we would have expected the neutrino burst from the 1987a supernova to arrive months, rather than hours, before the light came. Thus, I am skeptical.
Of course, there is good reason to be skeptical of this claim. A post from Universe Today (http://www.universetoday.com/89933/special-relativity-may-answer-faster-than-light-neutrino-mystery/), seems to indicate that OPERA may not have taken certain things into account in their measurements. Something about the relativistic motion of the GPS clocks. I'm not a Physicist, so I won't claim to understand fully all of the data. but I agree that independent checks are crucial.
While I want to think that we could be on the verge of some new physics discoveries... I have my doubts. It very likely could be that OPERA is still using a flawed method and thus seeing flawed results.
That being said, if and when other (independent) groups can verify this claim, that will be an exciting day.
Isaac
Wasn't it related to some GPS tracking error ? can't remember where I read that, but CERN has found why they measured that speed and went public about that...
Could this all just be measurement error? But the people who'd know are taking these findings seriously, so probably not.
Photons have to travel at the speed of light because they have no mass. What if there were a way for neutrinos to have negative mass?
That's probably too freaky even for physics.
Is there a way to do some arm-waving about string theory that makes this all work?
Given my experiences in Italy, if the neutrinos arrived exactly when they were supposed to, Italians would consider that about 15 minutes too early.
Is this going to make their browser run Farmville even faster?
I notice that lunch-time definitely passes faster than any other time.
it's all going to happen soon! Then we will find the Covenant, The Flood, Wraith ehmmm themmm..... Cylons! Borgs and thanks to some genius Italian we will all die suffering from plasma burns (remember, rebels don't have plasma guns...), we will be assimilated and we are really screwed now.
if there's an effect here, it should probably be related to neutrinos-through-matter vs neutrinos-through-vacuum
That, or interaction with the gravitational field. Neutrinos from the supernova traveled through essentially flat spacetime, far from any masses.
So now we just need to figure out how to reduce everything to 0 mass or create a warp field. No problem. I'll take care of it. Of course, I'll have to bone up on my math. Lets see. In school I got as far as that. Hmmm. Anyone have a link to a basic algebra howto? XD
Having to work for a living is the root of all evil.
It might have nothing to do with neutrinis at all but be more general: the distance through matter could simply be smaller. Mass is known to change the metric, but maybe it does in a different way. What would be nice to check is to compare the light and neutrini speed through matter. Lets dig a tunnel through the moon ....
General Relativity is a classical theory, but the underlying nature of reality is quantum. So General Relativity, like Newton's theory of gravity, is an approximation of reality. Now, I'm not saying that the neutrinos went faster than light, however, perhaps this experiment has finally revealed a hole in General Relativity in the way the equations are applied to the timing of the event.
The Moore-Murphy Law: The number of things that will go wrong will double every 2 years.
(Near re-post of http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2507746&cid=37936976)
OPERA shows light travels little bit slower than the fastest objects we've measured. A little while ago we heard that in galaxies far, far away, either the electric charge is larger, Plank's constant is smaller or the speed of light is smaller (http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2507746). If it's the speed of light that's smaller, the required slow-down is of the same order of magnitude as the factor by which photons are slower than neutrinos as observed by OPERA.
Here's my take. There's a field of undetected particles (dark matter?) that refract light a tiny bit, and this field was denser in the early universe. This field would not affect the apparent speed of light as an observer moves through it, just as (ignoring dispersion) light traveling through moving glass doesn't pick up the glass' motion vector (i.e. this wouldn't manifest itself as the Luminiferous aether, which is experimentally disproved). Light from the 1987A supernova would not be delayed too much relative to the neutrinos because most of the journey was through regions of space with low dark matter density.
There: three mysteries (dark matter, OPERA neutrinos and the fine structure "constant") all tied together with a bow on top. If you know more physics than I (honours undergrad) and you think I've missed something, please tear into this hypothesis, either here or on my blog: http://many-ideas.blogspot.com/2011/11/ftl-neutrinos-and-fine-structure.html. I look forward to hearing from you!
Best,
LeDopore
Expected time to finish is 1 hour and 60 minutes.
Unfortunately for us, replicating the experiment with a second team in a second location entirely from scratch will be extremely expensive, given that this CERN location used for the experiment is unique.
There are other long-baseline neutrino experiments out there, such as MINOS.
I am by no means a physicist, so maybe someone can explain this to me. Instead of just measuring the time that it takes for the neutrinos to travel the span and comparing that to the known value based on the speed of light, why not shine a beam of light across the distance, measure that time, and then compare the values directly? It seems like that would remove some possible errors in timing and distance measurement.
Opera is faster than light? That should put Google's chrome out of business.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
But we should also stop assuming that the theory of relativity is more reliable than it is or that our knowledge is anything other than incomplete and premature. I think it is only a matter of time until we something that can exceed C.
If you ignore ACs because they are anonymous - you're an idiot.
But I remain sceptical until an independent experiment ran by another team confirms it.
Nobody's going to can relativity on the basis of one experiement done at one facility, even if it's consistently repeatable. There's just too much chance that you overlooked something, no matter how careful you are (and OPERA, to their credit, have apparently been *very* careful). The problem is that there's no other facility that can do this experiment at the required precision, and with no idea as to what we're actually seeing, there's no way to design another experiment to get another look at it. The next big news will be when MINOS's upgrades come on line in 2012. Then we'll have independent confirmation (or not).
It might have nothing to do with Neutrinis at all but be more general: the distance through matter could simply be smaller. What would be nice to check is to compare the light and neutrini speed through matter. Lets dig a tunnel through the moon ....
These browser release schedules are getting out of control. First, FireFox considered updating as often as once every 5 weeks. Now, Opera is going to top them by developing faster than light technology so they can post updates before their predecessors were released! (Side note: I'm now running Opera version 10,573 and it's great. I expect to be able to update to 10,574 yesterday.)
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
Because those neutrinos would have arrived some years before we saw a supernova explosion and bothered to look in that direction for any neutrinos we would expect from it.
We also have fewer neutrinos from our sun than we expected from solar physics.
Would this be because they arrived early and were discounted as rogue?
What if the neutrino isn't a moving object but an exchange of events? Don't be too hard on my because I don't have the education or math skills to propose a theory or provide formula; but, I have a theory. A supposition really. Anyway.
Suppose there is a teeny tiny object (tT) with the following characteristics.
1) In its natural state, a state of complete rest 0 kelvin, it occupies a single dimension.
2) If it comes into contact with another object, not at rest, it reacts by changing its dimensional state. Kind of like a heat exchange.
3) When it changes to occupy a multidimensional state it releases gravity.
4) When the tT's occupy multiple dimensions they make up objects with a strong force, neutrons, protons, electrons, etc...
My supposition:
Suppose a large sheet of these tT's are sitting at rest forming a massive one dimensional sheet. Along comes a tT that is not at rest, multidimensional tT (mtT). When this mtT comes into contact with a point on the sheet the tT's, in the immediate area of contact, change their shape and release gravity. As a result more tT's get pulled in. They in turn change to occupy more dimensions, create more gravity, and the process snow balls. As the tT's increase their multidimensional occupation they change into objects with strong force. The strong forces react greater and greater upon themselves until the amount of gravity being produced by the changes in state isn't stronger than the strong forces being exerted by the multidimensional objects they are becoming. Insert big bang here.
If my supposition is in any way correct it would be possible for the neutrino not to be a moving object but a reaction at the tT level. For example, the mtT comes into contact with the first object in its path, the next object's mtT's react by changing to match that object, which effects the next object in the path and so on until a duplicate of the original object is recorded at the end of the process. It would simply mean the reaction is happening faster than light. Assuming gravity at that minuscule level could be measured it would, at least, make my supposition a little more interesting.
Having to work for a living is the root of all evil.
nothing can reach the speed of C, that has been proven over and over again.
You would have to disassemble the universe, and then assemble it again to have any hope in being faster than C.
From the BBC article: "The idea that nothing can exceed the speed of light in a vacuum forms a cornerstone in physics", I wonder why they highlight in a vacuum here when this test was not in a vacuum it was through rock. Bad writing I guess.
In Italy, at least the Tachyon's run on time.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Are you sure you got today's code?
The Physics is being shaken to the foundations by Italian researchers.
After the faster-than-light neutrinos we still have to debunk the low-energy nuclear reaction claim (Remember, Google is your friend even if you don't read Italian).
Sent as ripples into the electromagnetic field. No single photon has been harmed in the process.
Don't you mean - 4 years?(1/40.0000 of 168000 light years) Which is such a long period it is very hard to put a correlation between those numbers. because it is 4 years +/- 2 years. But the fact that they were there before the light could now be taken with a different view.
Beside that, are all neutrino's equal?
And beisde that, maybe their speed goes closer to the light speed at higher distances. This is really stuff that is unknown.
Is the amount of unwarranted skepticism towards any experiments which indicate FTL travel may be possible, which is odd considering that this is a forum of geeks that was raised on Star Trek and other sci fi shows.
You guys do know that without FTL travel your Star Trek future doesn't exist right?
Send them to mars and back. We'll save weeks!
All is well with special relativity. It was derived while considering electromagnetic radiation. Mass seems to obey this
theory ( or mass-energy ). But what of the fields which constitute the weak force? No clue. No theory. So those fields may not have to follow
special relativity. Just a thought. IAAPhD
It's good that they've rechecked themselves, but unless they come up with:
a) an explanation of why they're superluminal
b) an explanation of what they screwed up on the measurements
I don't really care what CERN has to say on the subject anymore. They've come up with a result that is highly suspect but possibly legitimate. Now that result needs to be repeated and confirmed or falsified by (preferably) other scientists using other equipment.
I'm not saying they shouldn't publish that they're still working at it, but it's hardly news.
Time passes quicker at higher altitude. When using a clock on the surface to measure the speed of something passing well below you, it will appear to go faster than it actually did. Since the neutrino bean passes underground over several hundred kilometers, somewhere in the middle it'll be several kilometers below the surface.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1314656/Scientists-prove-time-really-does-pass-quicker-higher-altitude.html
However, this effect is very small. Anybody around here on /. that has the time to put up a quick ballpark calculation of the expected increase in observer speed due to time dilation affecting the researchers' clock relative to the underground neutrino beam?
Probably this is in the paper since it will most certainly affect their measurements but the paper appears to have been slashdotted... and if it is not we may have the first empirical results to build a new subsurface time contraction theory on, in which case I suggest we call it the Zmooc Theorem:-)
0x or or snor perron?!
When the universe isn't paying attention. A lot of quantum physics seems to fall into that category. Couple hundred miles, maybe the universe is too busy with that black hole halfway across itself to pay attention. A few million light years from that supernova explosion, maybe it notices that all those neutrinos are going too fast and deploys the subatomic traffic cops...
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Hmm?
There's a small wormhole somewhere between CERN and Gran Sasso. If they run the experiment somewhere else, then they should be the expected results. A 60ns wormhole wouldn't be that big, and it would be hard to find, especially if it's inside a rock.
All ideas^H^H^H^H^Hprocesses in this post are Patent Pending. (as well as the process of patenting all postings)
So the timing ought to be right, unless it's done by cuckoo clock....
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
As others here noted last time this result came around, if neutrinos really travel that much faster than the speed of light, then we would have expected the neutrino burst from the 1987a supernova to arrive months, rather than hours, before the light came. Thus, I am skeptical.
Will the neutrinos take the same path that the light did from that event, and is it therefore possible that they took a longer path ....
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
By now it should be clear that this is just the Higgs with yet another attempt at eluding discovery. This time not by breaking things, but by attracting attention elsewhere!
...is to run the experiment with neutrino detectors at both ends, thus eliminating many of the variables involved with comparing the phase of the proton pulse string at the transmitter with the phase of the muon pulse train at the receiver. I assume that such an experiment is being planned right now, unless there is some reason obvious to physicists but not to me that it would be useless. This would, of course, be very expensive: I can understand not rushing into construction of such a system until all other avenues have been explored.
Even (as seems likely) that the neutrinos turn out not be exceeding c, I think that we will learn something interesting from this. I doubt that the explanation is a simple oversight or math error.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
As has been pointed out the Alps are in the way (which is a very large concentration of mass which is going to have some effect on time dilation, but I digress).
Personally, I won't be happy until they've drilled an absolutely straight shaft between the locations and measured the length by using a piece of string between emitter and detector.
This experiment needs to be run again, then re-run, then again..... etc....
Facts don't lie. If those scientists, after having eliminated all other known variables, still see this 60 ns difference, then it must be true.
However, we are far, far away from that being a certainty. Repeated testing is required,
However, if it is true, Einstein would be fascinated.
Rumor has it that a white rabbit link will be established between CERN and the OPERA experiment. See http://www.ohwr.org/projects/white-rabbit for more details on how white rabbit would permit synchronizing clocks at each end of the link to within 1ns. This would be an independent measurement of the time of flight.
A lot of questions might get answered if they put another detector half way and let them catch the bursts in turn.
How difficult would a setup like that be?
This is not the sig you're looking for.
The wonderful thing about an education higher than the sixth grade is, many of us can conceive of things like time measured in nanoseconds, and particles smaller than electrons.
It's ironic to listen to an inbred hillbilly * mocking the mouth breathing basement dwellers. Unlike yourself, most of them made it to 8th grade, before dropping out!
* Just sit down in that rocking chair, and show us what you got boy!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1tqxzWdKKu8
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
The percentage is likely less than that, some of this boils down to a specialty within a specialty that requires a PhD to get the background in before you can start learning about it. If you have read most of the lay blogs on the topic they jump to dismissing it on the basis of things that were among the first checked according to the paper.
If the speed of light is constant then the only way the neutrinos could arrive early is via time travel. Though, you would think that the mass of the Earth would actually make them arrive late instead of early due to time dilation. It is definitely a tricky one to solve. I look forward to more experiments, it's nice to have a challenge.
It was in Ayn Rand's book "Atlas Shrugged"... but there as the economy crashed and intellectualizated fakes replaced those who knew what they were doing, the invention was a magic motor that defied the 2nd law of thermo. As things go crash, people sometimes are more eager to publicise their magic machines, when they don't even understand what they are doing.
Not to overly accuse the physicists of CERN of being unqualified to do physics research, but...
(1) Hadn't there been something about the relativistic effects of the GPS satellites messing with the data?
(2) Hadn't they just swapped out their differentiators, possibly doing the calculations at the point of impact, instead of 20' up the cable, at the cable mount?
I'd think that a smart physicist would do anything he could to avoid FTL claims, because FTL claims also violate 2nd Thermo, and 2nd Thermo is a mathematical law -- it applies even to such things as data compression. To put it shortly, if you can do FTL particles, then you can send information back in time. If you can send information back in time, you an set up contradictions (overdefinition of equations, 3 equations 2 unknowns kind of thing). The contradictions themselves, by quantum mechanics, cancel themselves out.
Moreover, sending information back in time itself violates the 2nd law of thermo.
If you're going to violate FTL, you have to set up a system where contradictions are conceptually impossible. Whether or not that is ever going to be concievably possible, I doubt. But if you're just going to throw a particle FTL... I'd say no.
Correct Horse Battery Staple: 72 bits of entropy. Enter "Correct H" into google. When it generates the phrase, that's
) Hadn't they just swapped out their DISCRIMINATORS, possibly doing the calculations at the point of impact, instead of 20' up the cable, at the cable mount?
There, fixed that for me ;->
Correct Horse Battery Staple: 72 bits of entropy. Enter "Correct H" into google. When it generates the phrase, that's
These observations will be repeated...and repeated...changed...and repeated...analyzed...repeated. But...what if the unthinkable is true and the observation is correct? What does that mean? Most likely, it means that the exotic structure proposed for space-time termed a 'wormhole' really exists and the neutrinos are somehow traversing one or more of these.
Ok, several stuff there.
Unlikely (but way more likely than FTL neutrinos). They check that stuff a lot, they know how to do the math... But they are still humans, so there can be a problem somewhere. Nobody was able to find it up to now, people are still trying.
It is a mathematical consequence of some models of the universe. Other models don't bring it as a consequence. Remember, we don't know how the universe behaves, we just have clues.
I was corrected recently here on /. while saying that. Ends up that you can't keep current physics at all, so any prediction based on current physics (and yours is based on Relativity and Maxell laws) is not reliable.
Can you prove it? I'm trying to for a time, but it seems that it doesn't follow from the postulate of paradox-free time travel.
Rethinking email
We don't serve faster than light particles here.
A neutrino walks into a bar.
that...or maybe they just found a more accurate value for c.
"Size matters not. Look at me. Judge me by my size, do you?" --Yoda {whips out green light saber}
Actual science... not dumbed down.
Measurement of the neutrino velocity with the OPERA detector in the CNGS beam
"You want to know how to help your kids? Leave them the fuck alone." -George Carlin
FTL violates causality, not necessarily thermodynamics. It's not wise to associate yourself with Ayn Rand if you want to be taken seriously.
travelling faster than light is possible... we just need to evolve our physics and think outside the box.. quite an old box, from 1916 ;-)
http://www.montuori.net/
They're not traveling slower in this new experiment, neutrinos from further into the future just lapped the time-space continuum. :P
"Just a fox, a whisper."
Two neutrinos start out at the same time from St. Louis. The first neutrino takes a train to Chicago, with an average speed of 1/40000 *C. The second takes a taxi to Denver, discovers he doesn't have enough to pay the fare, and so finds himself deposited back at his starting point, four hours after he started out. Springfield goes supernova ten minutes after the first neutrino leaves it. The first neutrino transitions to a Tau neutrino at Bloomington. If the excess mass is converted to additional momentum, how many were going to St. Ives?
Could it be that the momentum of earth's gravity is affecting the measurements? Perhaps neutrinos are not affected by gravity...
My thinking is that Neutrinos are actually independent particles unaffected by the rules of gravity. That way when it is generated in one location, it is actually detected faster at another location because the Earth is traveling/spinning around the sun at a fixed speed.
One way to test this hypothesis is to set up testing centers west and east of the initial generation point. If the findings are identical (e.g. 60ns) then obviously there's something else going on.
Certainly opens a whole lot of doors though if the findings turn out to be true!
Can you prove it? I'm trying to for a time, but it seems that it doesn't follow from the postulate of paradox-free time travel.
It's a silly statement. The laws of thermodynamics are based on observation. This observation was impossible at the time.
And given that the only means of generating a signal from neutrinos involves using a city-sized apparatus to fire a bajillion of them at a material and hoping to produce a photon or two from the collision, it seems likely that you're not going to actually violate the systemic version of the laws of thermo doing it.
And time-travel means moving something through time counter to its physical properties. Positrons are naturally equivalent to electrons that are moving backward in time, and vice-versa. At least, the math still works when you treat them that way. But having neutrinos that move faster than light doesn't mean you can take anything else along with it to make that thing move backward in time.
The reality is that, despite your having graduated from 8th grade, if you were made a member of the OPERA team, the only thing you would be qualified to do is make coffee for them.
In Italy, at least the Tachyon's (sic) run on time.
Tachyon is a type of organized crime ?
------
Why do Italians hate helicopters? Because their blades go "WOP, WOP WOP!".
FIAT: Fix it again, Tony!
What do you call the offspring of an Italian & Jamaican couple? Pastafarians!
Perhaps this could be used to explain precognition ?
It is a mathematical consequence of some models of the universe. Other models don't bring it as a consequence. Remember, we don't know how the universe behaves, we just have clues.
Sometimes I wonder if we are just like the people in Plato's Allegory of the Cave - staring at the wall, watching the shadows move and then try to come up with scientific explanations of the shadows' behaviour - without knowing what's really going on because there's so much that we can't see/measure yet.
The Angels have the Phone Box
Positrons are naturally equivalent to electrons that are moving backward in time, and vice-versa.
yeah, they're funny in that. but it's more complete to say that there are particles exactly like electrons but with negative rest mass that can only move backwards in time. they can't stop and turn into 'normal' electrons. and that it's usually easier to think of them as positive electrons with normal positive rest mass and move forwards in time. the non-convertibility is important, or else it would seem that normal matter can take a sharp turn an go backwards in time.
But having neutrinos that move faster than light doesn't mean you can take anything else along with it to make that thing move backward in time.
right. but the parent post said
if you can do FTL particles, then you can send information back in time.
and it _is_ easy to take information along with it to make it move backward in time.
-Kz-
mangu: "if there's an effect here, it should probably be related to neutrinos-through-matter vs neutrinos-through-vacuum"
Cerenkov radiation shows ordinary matter can travel faster than light in a non-vacuum. This would be different but not that different.
http://lbne.fnal.gov/neutrino-beam.shtml indicates another experiment is possibly coming soon
This also would imply that the gravitational radius of a black hole is smaller for a neutrino than for light, so it might imply that black holes could evaporate a bit quicker than previous estimates.
Frosty pint? No thanks, I had enough last night and I've got a bit of a hangover. Besides, we've tickets for "Under Milk Wood" this afternoon, which manages to get through to even my philistine mind.
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
I propose physicists change the meaning of c in Einstein's equations to c = speed of neutrinos. Light interacts with matter, slowing down. Absolute vacuum doesn't exist, light probably interacts (albeit weakly) with virtual particles, so its measured c is a slowed down version of the real c. Neutrinos interact much more weakly with real or virtual matter, so their speed should be the new standard for c. Well, what do I know, I'm only an engineer. - Ricardo K Almeida
Well, no, because i meant "anything else."
Define 3 times t1 t2 t3. Set up two experiments that can "send information back in time" from t3 to t1.
At t2 i will flip a coin. At t3 I will run e1 if the coin came up heads, and e2 if it came up tails.
At t1 I will check the two experiments' output ports. If e1 is done, then it means I ran e1 at t3. If e2 is done, then it means I ran e2 at t3.
Simple, right?
Now do this:
Instead of flipping a coin, I will use the experiment results at t1 to determine which experiment I run at t3. If e1 is done at t1, I will start e2 at t3. If e2 is done at t1, I will start e1 at t3. If neither is done, I will start e1. If both are done, I will start only e1. In fact, I won't do it at all. I'll set up a piece of hardware to read the results and start the experiments according to these rules, and stand back.
Now what? One experiment must be done at t1, but it won't be the one I will start at t3.
The existence of a paradox is a revelation that you have done something with language that can not be done with actual logic. "This sentence is false," e.g. The only thing we're doing wrong with language here is inserting the semantics of "send information back in time" into it. Since such a concept leads to a logical impossibility, it is logically an impossible concept.
But, you'll say, what is a bistable flip-flop but a set of gate that does exactly this: read the output and set the input to the opposite of the one that could produce that output? And to that I'll say yes, but they do that in a time-ordered sequence. When we say that we'll do things out of time-order, they no longer work. In order to make them work, we have to have a concept of imaginary time, in which sequence can still be maintained and even iterated, while time itself is moving back and forth to couple the causes to the effects, which become causes for the next effects.
But, again, that still doesn't explain what experiment will show itself to be done at t1. So it's still impossible.