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Scientist Who Oversaw OPERA's Faster-Than-Light Neutrino Study Resigns

Posted by Soulskill on from the don't-shoot-the-messenger dept.

New submitter Big Hairy Ian writes with this news from the BBC: "The head of an experiment that appeared to show subatomic particles traveling faster than the speed of light has resigned from his post. Prof Antonio Ereditato oversaw results that appeared to challenge Einstein's theory that nothing could travel faster than the speed of light. Reports said some members of his group, called OPERA, had wanted him to resign. Earlier in March, a repeat experiment found that the particles, known as neutrinos, did not exceed light speed."

25 of 186 comments (clear)

  1. That seems weird to me by i+kan+reed · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Part of scientific endeavor is getting it wrong, and testing again to make sure. It seems like the mistakes that happened were minor, technical, and easy to miss. It would be a very different manner if the problems had been from operational carelessness or intentional fabrication, but I can't actually see any wrongdoing here.

    1. Re:That seems weird to me by calmond · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I fully agree. In fact, when this first happened, I remember the team saying they were sure they had missed something and wanted help figuring out what they had missed. Seemed to me that they were using the scientific method exactly as it should be used. All I can figure is that there were politics or other internal pressures.

    2. Re:That seems weird to me by jythie · · Score: 3, Insightful

      That is my guess. Scientifically they behaved fine, but the PR in the mainstream press might have been a bit uncomfortable.

    3. Re:That seems weird to me by i+kan+reed · · Score: 4, Funny

      I did. I will tender my Slashdot resignation immediately. The editors should get to it in 5-10 years.

    4. Re:That seems weird to me by zlives · · Score: 3, Insightful

      didn't the PR generate TREMENDOUS interest in the on goings...

    5. Re:That seems weird to me by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Having been involved with a controversial bit of particle physics, I'm not surprised at this. I'd wager that Ereditato resigned because of something OTHER than his group simply getting the science wrong. I'm not involved with the result in any way, but here's my guess: 1) fascinating apparent result was found, 2) part of collaboration said: hold on there, let's make sure we get his right, others (possibly influenced by funding/political pressures) felt that they should push ahead. If Ereditato was part of the "push ahead" group and there was any whiff of politics driving his decision then I can well imagine him being forced to resign. At the end of the day, as a particle physicist it's incredibly hard and expensive for someone to duplicate your work -- to escape with your soul intact you have to be extremely self-disciplined and conscientious.

    6. Re:That seems weird to me by Leafheart · · Score: 4, Interesting

      (stupid mouse with "back" button, lost the damn post, let's restart)

      From the second link, emphasis mine

      Two days ago a workshop was held at the Gran Sasso laboratories, where the various experiments reported their findings and discussed them. I have no report from the workshop, but it is clear that the superluminal signal of Opera is as dead as it can be. Following the workshop, the Opera collaboration is reported to have voted on removing Ereditato from the leadership position. The motion did not pass, but the voting showed that the collaboration was split, and this must eventually have led Ereditato to step down today.

      It seems to me that someone inside took the opportunity to grab power into the structure of OPERA. Shady politics as usual. You are right that erro'ing is part of the scientific process, but on the political, and "journalistic" spheres it is a sign of weakness. So, it seems, that a group who was antagonist to him decided to take the opportunity and strike him down. Even if the vote hasn't passed, the no confidence was already set in motion, and his presence became a burden on the team. Hooray for crook scientists\politicians.

      Unfortunately, unless we have someone on the inside of the workshop coming forward, explaining what exactly transpired, it will be kept as speculation. What is a shame.

      --
      --- "When you gotta do something wrong. You gotta do it right. (Fighter)"
    7. Re:That seems weird to me by Ihmhi · · Score: 3, Interesting

      It's a fantastic thing IMO. Science is not flawless because it is done by humans, and humans are fallible. Even if it were done by machines from cradle to grave, humans still built the machines - a software bug or misconfigured and/or contaminated instruments can screw up the results.

      My guess is that someone higher up in the chain (politically) didn't like being embarrassed and needed a sacrificial lamb.

      --
      Random Thoughts From A Diseased Mind (Not For Dummies)
  2. What A Bunch Of Twats by Kneo24 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    All OPERA did was saying, "Hey, we saw a result that made no sense. This is what we did. Can anyone verify that we did something wrong?" And so his peers want him ousted for doing science as it is intended?

  3. Wrong decision by hackertourist · · Score: 4, Insightful

    They had an unusual result, ended up having to publish something after a leak, then found the error and published that as well. This is science as it should be done. Asking for this man's resignation is idiotic.

    1. Re:Wrong decision by photonic · · Score: 3, Insightful

      No-one says that this is not science as usual, this is the typical type of error which you make every now, which on occasion wastes a few weeks of your time. As for the real reason of his resignations I can only speculate. My guess it has to do with the decision to publish the unexpected result so early, only to retract it two months later. It makes them look a bit like amateurs. Couldn't they have kept it internally for another 2 months while double-checking everything? But it must have been hard to have foreseen the public hype that resulted. Do note, finally, that the guy just gave up his position as spokesman of the Opera experiment, it is not like he was forced to resign his professorship or so.

      --
      karma police: arrest this man, he talks in maths; he buzzes like a fridge, he's like a detuned radio. [radiohead]
  4. Why? by inhuman_4 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Seems wrong to me. You shouldn't fire a scientist because they got something wrong. As long as he followed the procedure and acted in good faith I think the community should let him be. From what I can see he practiced due diligence. A quote from the guy:

    We wanted to find a mistake - trivial mistakes, more complicated mistakes, or nasty effects - and we didn't. When you don't find anything, then you say 'well, now I'm forced to go out and ask the community to scrutinize this.'

    Seems to me like he wasn't doing anything wrong, or make outrageous claims. They did an experiment and got questionable results. They tried to find the reason for the strange results and couldn't. So they asked for peer review. Peer reviewers found the mistake. Progress marches on.

  5. Getting it wrong is right by cullaloe · · Score: 5, Interesting

    That seems a shame to me. I'm a science educator and one of the things students love science for is that it's OK to get it wrong. You're allowed to do all the planning, setting up, measurements, analysis and evaluation and get the wrong answer, provided that you're honest about what you did and leave a record such that other can repeat what you did to see if they get the same thing. The faster-than-light news story was fantastic for me to underline the strength of science for my students, not least because of the very careful things that were being said by the scientists (compared to the media hyperbole). I hope Prof. Ereditato hasn't been made to regret the very great open service he did for contemporary science.

    --
    Nick Hood
  6. Re:I don't want to say "I told you so," but .... by Iamthecheese · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I still think you were being a jerk. The group published a request for others to find out what went wrong and the media had a feeding frenzy. The scientists did nothing wrong.

    --
    If video games influenced behavior the Pac Man generation would be eating pills and running away from their problems.
  7. Re:I don't want to say "I told you so," but .... by afidel · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I disagree, science works best when all experimental results are shared. One of the biggest problems in modern science is that groups rarely publish negative results thus necessitating that other groups working on the same problem will inevitably try the same failed experiments. Publishing anomalous results and asking for others to critique your work shouldn't tarnish anyone's reputation, only falsifying data or repeatedly pressing dis-proven results should do that.

    --
    There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
  8. And what about the rest of the team? by pavon · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The original paper had over a hundred co-authors listed, and I have only heard of 5 people in the entire project that asked to not have their name listed. If the director should resign over this, then why shouldn't the 100+ other people who were confident enough to put their name on the paper?

    This is stupid. They did nothing wrong, there is no reason for anyone to resign.

  9. The members of the press should resign by perpenso · · Score: 5, Insightful

    That is my guess. Scientifically they behaved fine, but the PR in the mainstream press might have been a bit uncomfortable.

    The members of the mainstream press who blew things out of proportion and dumbed down the story so much and failed to emphasize that the real scientists were saying "we must have made a mistake" should resign.

    The real scientist who sees something odd and shows it to colleagues to help him/her figure out what went wrong should not be punished when it turns out to be due to some basic mistake. Something like "I have odd data but I can't figure out what I did wrong" was the start of many scientific discoveries.

    Creating an environment where scientists are reluctant to share odd results and get help finding mistakes will impede the progress of science.

    However creating an environment where sensationalist journalists, or scientifically illiterate journalists who write articles regarding advanced scientific topics, are reluctant to publish their writing might be a good thing. Of course I might have made a mistake in my logic and I hope my slashdot colleagues can help me see my error. :-)

    1. Re:The members of the press should resign by chichilalescu · · Score: 4, Insightful

      you did make a mistake... for some reason, you assume that society will choose to help the progress of science rather than continue to be "entertained" with sensationalistic journalism.

      --
      new sig
    2. Re:The members of the press should resign by girlintraining · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Creating an environment where scientists are reluctant to share odd results and get help finding mistakes will impede the progress of science.

      That may have been precisely the point. People doing perfectly good science are being hung out to dry in the court of public opinion. Why? You'll note in this country a sudden rise in the number of science articles which are (almost) immediately proven wrong. The press then makes a big deal about this. Funding for science has been sharply curtailed and all manner of anti-science has gained mainstream attention and appeal: The anti-vaxxers, the creationists, homeopathic remedies, alternative medicine, indigo kids, people against fluorinated water... the list goes on. The media has been giving "equal time" to these rubbish movements, and being very uncritical of even the most outlandish claims, while being exceptionally critical of proper science. All the while our rates of high school graduation are dropping, conservatives are telling us that turning to church-based learning is the answer, and technology-based companies are increasingly moving labor and capital overseas to get out from under the onerous requirements of our patent and copyright system.

      The ultimate goal of all these seemingly disparate legal and social changes appears to be to deprive the american public of its most valuable asset: It's own minds. You don't need to know science, math, technology, etc., to work in a factory, or a call center, or a service job. We're creating a vast gap between the few who are rich enough to afford an education -- who have enough resources to know the literal truth of things, and the rest, who are fed non-sense ideas that make their behavior easy to predict and control. We may very well be reverting to a world where the commoners think the world is flat and only the few scientists who, at the behest of their land barons are called upon to do limited inquiry and research for their own personal gain, will know any better.

      This might be a stretch, but I've talked to way too many teenagers that can't even do basic math.. like division of whole numbers. They have no understanding of the relationships between numbers, whether an answer 'sounds right'. I know reading comprehension was low in my day, but right now I have a 15 yo kid sister who has just now reached 5th grade reading comprehension. Mom insists that it's because of a "learning disability", but there's nothing wrong with her -- the quality of her education has simply been shit. And mom's solution? An online school! Homeschooling. And she's hardly alone... where I live (Minneapolis, MN), there are almost as many kids in private or charter schools as public school. The only cities near here to maintain their graduation rate has been in relatively affluent neighborhoods that due to local law are inaccessible by anyone not a resident in those cities.

      I can see no real hope here; I think we've managed to raise a generation predisposed to an almost caste-like system based on their education.

      --
      #fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
    3. Re:The members of the press should resign by Xylantiel · · Score: 4, Insightful

      You have misunderstood the relationship between scientists and the press. OPERA could have killed the sensationalism at the source, but instead they went along with it. It turns out that a lot of people in the project seem to think this is a bad idea. And they know it is not just the press' doing.

      Scientists know how to publish uncertain or most-likely-wrong results without causing a media frenzy. You don't put up a press release and hold press conferences. You publish your paper, circulate it to others, present at conferences, put it on the preprint server. And if someone from the press asks about it you say that it is mostly likely wrong and they should work on something else until the problems are worked out. This doesn't get you much press, but scientists having glitches in their experiments is not news; it happens all the time.

  10. Re:I don't want to say "I told you so," but .... by theguyfromsaturn · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I totally agree. It has been my own experience, that since people only publish successful experiments, all the what ifs that came before and failed never see the light of day, condemning innumerable researchers to repeat the same dead end experiments. In those failures might also be the seed of someone else's idea. I think there shoudl be a journal dedicated to these failures. "The journal of failed experiments" or something. It would be an awesome source of info. As long as the failures are well documented.

    --
    I like my dinosaurs feathery, and my pterosaurs hairy (or is it pycnofibery?)
  11. Einstein's still wrong. by liquiddark · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Neutrinos having mass AND traveling at the speed of light means there is something seriously wrong with relativity or quantum theory. There's every reason to think at this point that there is a result in the offing, and there's no point making scientists tiptoe around while they try to find the hole.

  12. Re:I don't want to say "I told you so," but .... by c++0xFF · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The benefit goes beyond knowing what experiments don't work. Look at the FTL neutrino experiment for an example: now we know at least a few pitfalls of using GPS as an extremely accurate time source, and that is knowledge that is worth preserving for future generations.

    The interesting knowledge isn't the fact that an experiment failed, but why it failed.

  13. Not the press: OPERA by Roger+W+Moore · · Score: 4, Informative

    The members of the mainstream press who blew things out of proportion and dumbed down the story...

    Sorry but this time the press are most certainly NOT to blame. OPERA was by no means "scientifically fine" and they did not present it as "odd data" they specifically made the claim that neutrinos were travelling faster than light and asked for help to verify this. Read the paper if you don't believe me - it is there in the abstract. They specifically claim than the anomalous timing was consistent with faster-than-light neutrinos. This is NOT the paper you write if you have some data which seem crazy and you are not sure whether they are correct.

    Something like "I have odd data but I can't figure out what I did wrong" was the start of many scientific discoveries.

    Correct. However this does not mean that the moment you have some odd data you rush to publish. First you talk it over with colleagues and see if they can find fault (and OPERA did this internally which is fine). After that you could publish a paper explaining every single timing correction systematic error you have considered in full gory detail and at the end say that your final measured time of flight "appears to be" inconsistent with relativity. Better yet, for data with massive implications like this, you could invite a pannel of external reviewers to go over the data and experiment to look for mistakes with an agreement that if it is confirmed by them that they will publish their findings after the first paper laying out the full gory details.

    What you do NOT do is publish an initial short paper with most of the details left out in a rush which claims the data are due to faster-than-light neutrinos. The mistake OPERA made was not in publishing but in HOW they published.

  14. Some churches OK with science by perpenso · · Score: 3, Informative

    ... turning to church-based learning is the answer ...

    FWIW some churches may be doing OK with respect to scientific education. The Catholic church has stated that scientific discovery is not in conflict with faith, this includes discoveries with respect to evolution. They do a bit of real cosmological science. One of their priests formulated the currently accepted origin of the universe, the big bang theory. Our western tradition of the scientific method originated with various medieval bishops. I believe various other churches have similar perspectives. Not all Christian churches are of the opinion that the universe snapped into existence, as we see it now, on a wednesday six thousand years ago. The later group just gets more TV time and create a misleading impression of Christianity.