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Second experiment confirms neutrinos travel faster than light

kaya'08

kaya'08

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funny-captions-albert-einstein-neutrinos.jpg

Honestly, it's too bad he isn't still alive. Imagine how much he could come up with considering the technology we have today.
 
The possibility that these neutrinos really are travelling faster than light has been strengthened, although we cant confirm anything yet. If scientists fail to find any major criticism of this second experiment then we're looking at one of the basic pillars of our understanding of Physics come tumbling down. This wont just mean people in this field will have to change the way they view physics, but its literally going to have to involve rewriting most academic books, review current theories and open up many many new doors to us that we couldnt contemplate just a year ago.
 
kaya'08 said:
The possibility that these neutrinos really are travelling faster than light has been strengthened, although we cant confirm anything yet. If scientists fail to find any major criticism of this second experiment then we're looking at one of the basic pillars of our understanding of Physics come tumbling down. This wont just mean people in this field will have to change the way they view physics, but its literally going to have to involve rewriting most academic books, review current theories and open up many many new doors to us that we couldnt contemplate just a year ago.
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Not ONE OF the basic pillars. Causality is THE FUNDAMENTAL pillar. There's still a lot to be looked at. The fact of the matter is that this could be a material property. A while ago they had talked about light going faster than the speed of light through some material. The fact is that the photon wave packet could be detected apparently sooner than it should have been. But the phase information could not arrive faster than the speed of light. There was some interesting results of it and left hand chiral material tested; but it was all material property and interaction. Here they are shooting neutrinos through the earth, and there could be an effect as such.

Want to do this right, you need a vacuum. If we had a cool Lunar Science Bay, we could aim the neutrinos there and know a hell of a lot better. It would be pretty difficult to drill a hole through the earth and evacuate the air.
 
kaya'08 said:
The possibility that these neutrinos really are travelling faster than light has been strengthened, although we cant confirm anything yet. If scientists fail to find any major criticism of this second experiment then we're looking at one of the basic pillars of our understanding of Physics come tumbling down. This wont just mean people in this field will have to change the way they view physics, but its literally going to have to involve rewriting most academic books, review current theories and open up many many new doors to us that we couldnt contemplate just a year ago.
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Well there goes college tuition costs through the roof.
 
Before everyone gets too carried away, let's clarify what this second experiment did and didn't actually confirm. It did NOT confirm that neutrinos travel faster than light, it simply confirmed that whatever is causing the discrepancy wasn't due to a simple measurement error. If there is some systemic problem with the way the experiment was conducted, or if the experiment made an invalid assumption somewhere along the way, then it doesn't matter how many times you run the test and get the same result because the experiment itself is flawed.

I remain highly skeptical of this result, and will continue to be skeptical until there is literally no other plausible explanation. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, as Carl Sagan famously said.
 
Bartender says, "Hey slow down, you're inside!". A neutrino walks into a bar.
 
Kandahar said:
Before everyone gets too carried away, let's clarify what this second experiment did and didn't actually confirm. It did NOT confirm that neutrinos travel faster than light, it simply confirmed that whatever is causing the discrepancy wasn't due to a simple measurement error. If there is some systemic problem with the way the experiment was conducted, or if the experiment made an invalid assumption somewhere along the way, then it doesn't matter how many times you run the test and get the same result because the experiment itself is flawed.

I remain highly skeptical of this result, and will continue to be skeptical until there is literally no other plausible explanation. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, as Carl Sagan famously said.
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thank you.
 
This isn't a criticism, but a mere question to help me understand the concept. Is speed not relative? It seems to me that light itself would exceed C if the frame of reference were also moving in the opposite direction of that light, or at least would be measured to be higher. I always thought of C as a speed with the reference point being space itself (the grid points of the universe if you will), though maybe I'm missing some ideas from relativity. If the Earth were to move in the opposite direction of light through space, couldn't an observer then measure the speed of light to be higher than C relative to the earth?
 
ok, so lets assume the experiments are correct, and faster than the speed of light is possible.

what are all the ramifications?
 
Boring Bob said:
This isn't a criticism, but a mere question to help me understand the concept. Is speed not relative? It seems to me that light itself would exceed C if the frame of reference were also moving in the opposite direction of that light, or at least would be measured to be higher. I always thought of C as a speed with the reference point being space itself (the grid points of the universe if you will), though maybe I'm missing some ideas from relativity. If the Earth were to move in the opposite direction of light through space, couldn't an observer then measure the speed of light to be higher than C relative to the earth?
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Nope, the idea of relativity is that there is no "absolute" reference point such as space itself...it's all relative. The view of absolute reference points was the prevailing mindset prior to Einstein (it was a concept known as "ether"), but Einstein conclusively proved that the ether didn't exist. This means that everyone measures the speed of light the same. If you're on earth and you measure a beam of light, it will appear to you to be traveling at C. If you're in a spaceship traveling at 50% the speed of light (relative to an observer on the earth) and you measure a beam of light, it will still appear to you to be traveling at C...regardless of whether it's traveling in the same direction as you or the opposite direction.

This is possible because time itself isn't absolute. What feels like one second to someone in a spaceship traveling at near the speed of light, feels much longer to someone on earth. This is where the Twin Paradox comes from. Imagine that there are two twins in their 20s, and one builds a spaceship that travels near the speed of light. He sets out on a joyride for an hour...and when he comes back, many years have passed on earth and his brother is an old man! This is what would literally happen if someone travels at near the speed of light. So the reason that both brothers would measure a beam of light as traveling at the same speed, is because their units of measurement are fundamentally different. If they both measure how far it goes in one second, they'll get the same distance...but "one second" doesn't mean the same thing to both brothers.
 
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Kandahar said:
This is possible because time itself isn't absolute. What feels like one second to someone in a spaceship traveling at near the speed of light, feels much longer to someone on earth. This is where the Twin Paradox comes from. Imagine that there are two twins in their 20s, and one builds a spaceship that travels near the speed of light. He sets out on a joyride for an hour...and when he comes back, many years have passed on earth and his brother is an old man! This is what would literally happen if someone travels at near the speed of light. So the reason that both brothers would measure a beam of light as traveling at the same speed, is because their units of measurement are fundamentally different. If they both measure how far it goes in one second, they'll get the same distance...but "one second" doesn't mean the same thing to both brothers.
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AHA! I did know this, but wasn't thinking of it at that moment. Thanks for reminding me.
 
E=MC3

E is expansion created by same polarities pushing apart perpendicularly. M is molecular elements in each molecule stable balanced within everything taking place between action and reaction, of C being contracting forces of opposites attract in each dividsion of the 4 dimensional spaces between gaseous, liquid, and mineral elements of the periodic table streming within perpetually balancing positions universally using Earth as one sole result example.

Now rule of 72 where simple compounding interest is the most powerful physical force in the universe is because now everything universal is always here in the same instant working the same way.

Why? things contracted far enough to reach a point they expand against the contracting forces in each state of stable matter of the periodic table within self contained positions self maintaining the results compounding the distace between inception and extinction with conception to conceiving of overlapping generations.

With now always here light and electricity work the same way because they are 2 halves of the same whole but on two levels, plain magnetism and generated electromagnetism because everything in results is constantly moving.

Again take time out of the perception. these neutrinos are just single charged particles that adapt to the last polarity that passed by them or the last electromagnetic field that placed a static charge.

Since the universe is self contained think in hydraulic and pneumatic principals of saturation which means there is no place in the universe for nothing at all to exist. This shows that there was always something before shape and form functioned as it is functioning now as it will continue to do with or without the human species in any generation yet conceived.

this effects reality's social identities not real genders every generation being male and female results of conception to conceiving between inception and extinction like every other species.
 
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OneMale said:
E=MC3

E is expansion created by same polarities pushing apart perpendicularly. M is molecular elements in each molecule stable balanced within everything taking place between action and reaction, of C being contracting forces of opposites attract in each dividsion of the 4 dimensional spaces between gaseous, liquid, and mineral elements of the periodic table streming within perpetually balancing positions universally using Earth as one sole result example.

Now rule of 72 where simple compounding interest is the most powerful physical force in the universe is because now everything universal is always here in the same instant working the same way.

Why? things contracted far enough to reach a point they expand against the contracting forces in each state of stable matter of the periodic table within self contained positions self maintaining the results compounding the distace between inception and extinction with conception to conceiving of overlapping generations.

With now always here light and electricity work the same way because they are 2 halves of the same whole but on two levels, plain magnetism and generated electromagnetism because everything in results is constantly moving.

Again take time out of the perception. these neutrinos are just single charged particles that adapt to the last polarity that passed by them or the last electromagnetic field that placed a static charge.

Since the universe is self contained think in hydraulic and pneumatic principals of saturation which means there is no place in the universe for nothing at all to exist. This shows that there was always something before shape and form functioned as it is functioning now as it will continue to do with or without the human species in any generation yet conceived.

this effects reality's social identities not real genders every generation being male and female results of conception to conceiving between inception and extinction like every other species.
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Cocaine is a hell of a drug.
 
I will remain on the skeptical side until everyone is done reviewing and rechecking the data, and further tests are done, and reviewed and checked. Which is going to be a long wait.
 
The OPERA Collaboration​
T. Adam, N. Agafonova, A. Aleksandrov, O. Altinok, P. Alvarez Sanchez, A. Anokhina, S. Aoki, A. Ariga, T. Ariga, D. Autiero, A. Badertscher, A. Ben Dhahbi, A. Bertolin, C. Bozza, T. Brugière, R. Brugnera, F. Brunet, G. Brunetti, S. Buontempo, B. Carlus, F. Cavanna, A. Cazes, L. Chaussard, M. Chernyavsky, V. Chiarella, A. Chukanov, G. Colosimo, M. Crespi, N. D'Ambrosio, G. De Lellis, M. De Serio, Y. Déclais, P. del Amo Sanchez, F. Di Capua, A. Di Crescenzo, D. Di Ferdinando, N. Di Marco, S. Dmitrievsky, M. Dracos, D. Duchesneau, S. Dusini, J. Ebert, I. Efthymiopoulos, O. Egorov, A. Ereditato, L. S. Esposito, J. Favier, T. Ferber, R. A. Fini, T. Fukuda, A. Garfagnini, G. Giacomelli, M. Giorgini, M. Giovannozzi, C. Girerd, J. Goldberg, C. Göllnitz, D. Golubkov, L. Goncharov, Y. Gornushkin, G. Grella, F. Grianti, E. Gschwendtner, C. Guerin, A. M. Guler, C. Gustavino, C. Hagner, K. Hamada, T. Hara, M. Hierholzer, A. Hollnagel, M. Ieva, H. Ishida, K. Ishiguro, K. Jakovcic, C. Jollet, M. Jones, F. Juget, M. Kamiscioglu, J. Kawada, S. H. Kim, M. Kimura, E. Kiritsis, N. Kitagawa, B. Klicek, J. Knuesel, K. Kodama, M. Komatsu, U. Kose, I. Kreslo, C. Lazzaro, J. Lenkeit, A. Ljubicic, A. Longhin, A. Malgin, G. Mandrioli, J. Marteau, T. Matsuo, N. Mauri, A. Mazzoni, E. Medinaceli, F. Meisel, A. Meregaglia, P. Migliozzi, S. Mikado, D. Missiaen, K. Morishima, U. Moser, M. T. Muciaccia, N. Naganawa, T. Naka, M. Nakamura, T. Nakano, Y. Nakatsuka, V. Nikitina, F. Nitti, S. Ogawa, N. Okateva, A. Olchevsky, O. Palamara, A. Paoloni, B. D. Park, I. G. Park, A. Pastore, L. Patrizii, E. Pennacchio, H. Pessard, C. Pistillo, N. Polukhina, M. Pozzato, K. Pretzl, F. Pupilli, R. Rescigno, F. Riguzzi, T. Roganova, H. Rokujo, G. Rosa, I. Rostovtseva, A. Rubbia, A. Russo, O. Sato, Y. Sato, J. Schuler, L. Scotto Lavina, J. Serrano, A. Sheshukov, H. Shibuya, G. Shoziyoev, S. Simone, M. Sioli, C. Sirignano, G. Sirri, J. S. Song, M. Spinetti, L. Stanco, N. Starkov, S. Stellacci, M. Stipcevic, T. Strauss, S. Takahashi, M. Tenti, F. Terranova, I. Tezuka, V. Tioukov, P. Tolun, N. T. Tran, S. Tufanli, P. Vilain, M. Vladimirov, L. Votano, J. -L. Vuilleumier, G. Wilquet, B. Wonsak, J. Wurtz, C. S. Yoon, J. Yoshida, Y. Zaitsev, S. Zemskova, A. Zghiche
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I simply can’t imagine the physicists/mathematicians above publishing two different/distinct/monumental superluminal-neutrino papers unless they were absolutely certain of the methodology/data/analysis.
 
Tashah said:
I simply can’t imagine the physicists/mathematicians above publishing two different/distinct/monumental superluminal-neutrino papers unless they were absolutely certain of the methodology/data/analysis.
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I can. Even many of the scientists involved have assumed that there is an error somewhere, but they published the paper because they can't figure it out on their own. Maybe someone else will. Unless they also can show some mechanism through which a massive particle can exceed the speed of light, I'm going to go with Occam's Razor here: both experiments are flawed and the two teams are likely overlooking the same thing.

At this point I'm nowhere near convinced of this theory, or even doubtful of the prevailing view. That's going to take a lot longer and a lot more tests. For now, the smart money is still on them being wrong.

http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/neutrinos.png
 

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Time itself progresses at light speed. Light remains right at the event horizon. If neutrinos travel faster, then they are ahead of the event horizon...


Is the speed neutrinos travel at a constant?
 
Thunder said:
ok, so lets assume the experiments are correct, and faster than the speed of light is possible.

what are all the ramifications?
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The biggest one I know, is that it breaks the time barrier. Time is supposed to stand still at the exact speed of light, so if this particle travels faster than light, based on all we know about physics, the particle will arrive before it leaves. In other words, E=Mc2 is either flawed, or we have just found our first evidence of actual time travel.
 
Grim17 said:
The biggest one I know, is that it breaks the time barrier. Time is supposed to stand still at the exact speed of light, so if this particle travels faster than light, based on all we know about physics, the particle will arrive before it leaves. In other words, E=Mc2 is either flawed, or we have just found our first evidence of actual time travel.
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cool!!!! :)
 
Grim17 said:
The biggest one I know, is that it breaks the time barrier. Time is supposed to stand still at the exact speed of light, so if this particle travels faster than light, based on all we know about physics, the particle will arrive before it leaves. In other words, E=Mc2 is either flawed, or we have just found our first evidence of actual time travel.
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Why is time supposed to stand still at the exact speed of light?

Not arguing or anything - just curious to know what makes c so special regarding the passage of time.
 
samsmart said:
Why is time supposed to stand still at the exact speed of light?

Not arguing or anything - just curious to know what makes c so special regarding the passage of time.
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I'm not a physicist, but I have watched about every documentary made in the last 20 years, and if we were able to go in a rocket at the speed of light, supposedly time would stand still, while everything else would continue to progress through time. I think it's based on light being the speed limit of the universe, which would also include time's speed limit.

Here's a documentary from the series "Through the wormhole" discussing time travel:

 
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samsmart said:
Why is time supposed to stand still at the exact speed of light?

Not arguing or anything - just curious to know what makes c so special regarding the passage of time.
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Because the faster you go, the slower time passes and the slower you go, the faster time passes. One way to look at it is with each of them being vectors with an inverse relationship in magnitude. If you are standing still, velocity is a 0 vector and time passage is at it's highest magnitude. But as velocity increases, the vector of time decreases in magnitude.
 
samsmart said:
Why is time supposed to stand still at the exact speed of light?

Not arguing or anything - just curious to know what makes c so special regarding the passage of time.
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As objects approach the speed of light, time slows down for them. So if you get in a spaceship and spend an hour joyriding near the speed of light, many years will have passed on earth when you return. Theoretically, if you could travel at exactly the speed of light (which you can't), you would appear frozen in motion and the clocks on your spaceship would appear to have completely stopped to a person on earth who was looking in the window of your spaceship. But everything would appear normal to you until you stopped...then you'd notice that an infinite amount of time had passed and the universe was completely dead from heat death.

The speed of light is a maximum speed because a lot of infinities happen if you could travel at exactly the speed of light. You'd become infinitely massive, you'd become infinitely thin, your line of vision would become infinitely narrow, distant objects would appear to have no distance at all, and an infinite amount of time would pass outside of your spaceship. This is why it is impossible for anything that has a mass (whether it's a spaceship or a neutrino) to travel at the speed of light.

If something is exceeding the speed of light, that would mean that it was traveling backward in time, it would weigh more than the entire universe (or possibly weigh less than nothing), and it would have negative width. Therefore, color me skeptical.
 
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