Slashdot Mirror
New Paper Claims Neutrino Is Likely a Faster-Than-Light Particle
HughPickens.com writes Phys.org reports that in a new paper accepted by the journal Astroparticle Physics, Robert Ehrlich, a recently retired physicist from George Mason University, claims that the neutrino is very likely a tachyon or faster-than-light particle. Ehrlich's new claim of faster-than-light neutrinos is based on a much more sensitive method than measuring their speed, namely by finding their mass. The result relies on tachyons having an imaginary mass, or a negative mass squared. Imaginary mass particles have the weird property that they speed up as they lose energy – the value of their imaginary mass being defined by the rate at which this occurs. According to Ehrlich, the magnitude of the neutrino's imaginary mass is 0.33 electronvolts, or 2/3 of a millionth that of an electron. He deduces this value by showing that six different observations from cosmic rays, cosmology, and particle physics all yield this same value within their margin of error. One check on Ehrlich's claim could come from the experiment known as KATRIN, which should start taking data in 2015. In this experiment the mass of the neutrino could be revealed by looking at the shape of the spectrum in the beta decay of tritium, the heaviest isotope of hydrogen.
But be careful. There have been many such claims, the last being in 2011 when the "OPERA" experiment measured the speed of neutrinos and claimed they travelled a tiny amount faster than light. When their speed was measured again the original result was found to be in error – the result of a loose cable no less. "Before you try designing a "tachyon telephone" to send messages back in time to your earlier self it might be prudent to see if Ehrlich's claim is corroborated by others."
But be careful. There have been many such claims, the last being in 2011 when the "OPERA" experiment measured the speed of neutrinos and claimed they travelled a tiny amount faster than light. When their speed was measured again the original result was found to be in error – the result of a loose cable no less. "Before you try designing a "tachyon telephone" to send messages back in time to your earlier self it might be prudent to see if Ehrlich's claim is corroborated by others."
Me too. I read it one week before it was published, and posted my comments last month. As I said tomorrow, there's no reason I can see that neutrinos aren't tachyons. In fact Prof. Robert Ehrlich agreed with me yesterday, after he accepted his Nobel prize for non-casual phenomena next year.
You cheated using tachyons.
Since they travel back in time, you have to test the result before you do the experiment.
If your test was successful, you see little reason to do the experiment, which causes the test result to not have happened -- which can make your co-workers quite angry with you. The frustrating nature of this type of work requires extreme dedication.
Priest: "Universe from nothing, no laws of physics, sped up time"+ huge discrepancies. Creationism? No. Big Bang Theory
http://arxiv.org/abs/1408.2804
Six observations based on data and fits to data from a variety of areas are consistent with the hypothesis that the electron neutrino is a m^2_v_e = 0.11±0.016eV 2 tachyon. The data are from areas including CMB fluctuations, gravitational lensing, cosmic ray spectra, neutrino oscillations, and 0v double beta decay. For each of the six observations it is possible under explicitly stated assumptions to compute a value for m^2_v_e , and it is found that the six values are remarkably consistent with the above cited _e mass (\Chi^2 = 2.73). There are no known observations in clear conflict with the claimed result. Three checks are proposed to test the validity of the claim, one of which could be performed using existing data.
Ummm...according to my calculator, 0.33 eV / 510998 eV = 0.646 x 10^-6, which is reasonably close to "two thirds of a millionth" quote
As for the imaginary mass, let's say that some particle had 0.33i eV as its mass. Then if you squared that, you would end up with -0.108 eV^2. How is that not "negative mass squared" ?
There are lots of potential problems with Erlich's theory, but the ideas you chose to nitpick are not at issue..
drdread66 doesn't have it backwards, the original article is unclear in its phrasing. It should have stated that the square of the mass is negative, which can be assumed when it accurately states that the mass is an imaginary number. Another commenter has linked back to the original paper on archiv.org; I always recommend going back to the source for science reporting anywhere online. As Einstein said when asked about his thoughts on a one page summary of the theory of relativity from a local paper, "things should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler."
- W. Blaine Dowler
http://www.bureau42.com