CERN finds neutrinos faster than light - Page 48

On February 24 2012 01:15 Klockan3 wrote:

f=ma is wrong though. It is good enough in most cases which is why it is still used, but it isn't true. Also the reason quantum and relativity was discovered was due to experiments disproving newtonian physics, if newtonian physics wasn't disproven people would never have gotten into the much more unintuitive models of relativity and quantum.

The experiment was most likely false, not because neutrinos going faster than light would break all of the world but because errors are much more common than scientific revolutions.

On February 24 2012 06:40 Miyoshino wrote:



No. You missed the point. f=ma is clasical mechanics. But the point is that we depended on classical mechanics to do experiments and figure out other stuff. If one cornerstone of science gives way, a lot of it must collapse because it was all build on that. Assumptions are stacked on assumptions. If you go to cutting edge science and ask 'How do we know that' you will be asking that question a dozen of times before you actually reach something basic.

Also, f=ma is not wrong because the model has certain constraints. Any model is wrong if you ignore the constaints under which it ought to be applied.

On February 24 2012 06:40 Miyoshino wrote:



No. You missed the point. f=ma is clasical mechanics. But the point is that we depended on classical mechanics to do experiments and figure out other stuff. If one cornerstone of science gives way, a lot of it must collapse because it was all build on that. Assumptions are stacked on assumptions. If you go to cutting edge science and ask 'How do we know that' you will be asking that question a dozen of times before you actually reach something basic.

Also, f=ma is not wrong because the model has certain constraints. Any model is wrong if you ignore the constaints under which it ought to be applied.

On February 24 2012 06:56 Keone wrote:
I think you are all missing the point.

The point being that this debate should be and will be resolved by people who actually understand the entire dynamics to this argument with the highest levels of knowledge in physics. Of which there are virtually zero in this thread. Stop being pissed at each other, you guys sound like ignorant kindergarten kids arguing over calculus.

On February 24 2012 08:37 Miyoshino wrote:


Tnx for the insult.

On February 24 2012 17:34 Mr.F. wrote:



just wondering since you brought it up, and the other guy who posted above me, does anyone here work in physics? specifically at/for CERN in some manner?

On February 24 2012 06:35 ProBot wrote:
I don't know why people are so quick to dismiss new findings especially in the physics field. Theoretically nothing is impossible, just improbable and with new discoveries open new doors to new understandings. 150 years ago people thought it would be impossible to fly or even reach space ... so if the scientists fucked up, cool let them correct the mistake and run the experiment again. Nothing even says their findings WERE wrong but that they MAY BE wrong ... nothing more, nothing less. So lets wait for them to run it again and see what happens.

On February 23 2012 21:42 Cascade wrote:
Let me make an example:

you throw a ball at 45 degree angle at a certain velocity, and measure how far it goes before it hits the ground. You do the classical mechanics calculation using the gravitational force at the surface of the earth g = 9.8 m/s^2 etc. Easy.

Then you go measure, and you see that it agrees very well with your model. However, you notice that as you increase the velocity, the ball doesn't really seem to go as far as you expect, and it falls short by more and more the higher the velocity. Eventually you realsie that you have to take air resistance into account, at which point you modify your model and now agree with experiments.

You will hit similar effects when you start going up in thinner air, which will gradually make the ball go further, when you start going out of earths gravitational field, which will gradually make it go further, etc.

Let's say that you build a new ball-launcher, launching it at an initial velocity of 5km/s, and the measurement shows that the ball goes 5 meters on average. The people building the launcher and doing the measurement say that they cannot find any error in their procedure, and calls for help from the community, asking for interpretations. The papers start writing about new revolutionary effects and that the model of ball-launching has to be rewritten.

What do you think at this point? While you are not at all alien to further modifications to your model, it has already been corrected three times after all, you do not expect a steadily growing distance with velocity to suddenly turn around completely to just barely leave the launcher when thrown at 5km/s. You would be pretty convinced that there is some experimental error. Not because the low-velocity model would suffer any changes (it wouldn't, those experiments are not changed by the new launcher), but because you intuitively find such a sudden change very unlikely.

So to tie up the ends, scientists would be fine with modifying the standard model, and there are plenty of suggestions around on how to do it (and no, I am not referring to string theory). But there was no approach that made much sense (not that people didn't try...) that would produce (almost) light-speed low-energy neutrinos, but superluminal high-energy neutrinos. Actually there were arguments that even if these superluminal neutrinos were real, we would have already noticed in other ways, for example through some kind of Cherenkov radiation (not sure about the details).

Actually there were arguments that even if these superluminal neutrinos were real, we would have already noticed in other ways, for example through some kind of Cherenkov radiation

OPERA experiment reports anomaly in flight time of neutrinos from CERN to Gran Sasso
UPDATE 23 February 2012

The OPERA collaboration has informed its funding agencies and host laboratories that it has identified two possible effects that could have an influence on its neutrino timing measurement. These both require further tests with a short pulsed beam. If confirmed, one would increase the size of the measured effect, the other would diminish it. The first possible effect concerns an oscillator used to provide the time stamps for GPS synchronizations. It could have led to an overestimate of the neutrino's time of flight. The second concerns the optical fibre connector that brings the external GPS signal to the OPERA master clock, which may not have been functioning correctly when the measurements were taken. If this is the case, it could have led to an underestimate of the time of flight of the neutrinos. The potential extent of these two effects is being studied by the OPERA collaboration. New measurements with short pulsed beams are scheduled for May.

On February 24 2012 19:00 plgElwood wrote:


Cherenkov radiation only appears if a CHARGED particle travels through Material faster than specific the speed of Light THIS Material. The speed of light in vacuum is an universal constant, in materials it´s always a little less.

On February 23 2012 22:09 Condor wrote:


This was actually a nice argument. When something goes faster than the speed of sound in a medium, you get a sound shockwave (supersonic boom). When something goes faster than the speed of light in a medium, you get a different kind of shockwave, one made of specific light (photonic boom: Cherenkov radiation). The paper by Glashow and Cohen showed that (with the Standard Model as we know it), faster than light travel in vacuum would create a similar kind of shockwave, made up of electron and positron pairs. These should be much more easily detected than the neutrinos, but were not. The argument was then that since that radiation was not seen, either the experiment was wrong, or the part of the Standard Model that they derived this radiation from must also be wrong. But the part they derived it from was not nearly as poorly tested as the neutrino part (it holds for any particle going faster than light), so this was/is a strong theoretical argument in support of experimental errors in the experiment.

However, theoretical arguments of why an experiment must be wrong should always be treated with strong scepticism.

From my understanding the Gran Sasso Experiment has plenty room for mistakes, and i am not excited about big facilities putting out results so premature

Well that's dissapointing. If/when CERN does find something really cool I hope it isn't colored by this error.

On February 24 2012 23:06 oGoZenob wrote:

my hat to you sir, that's exactly what i explain to everyone around me for the last 6 months

That did not come as much of a surprise to generations of physicists and students who have come to see Einstein’s word as law. And, according to Ars Technica, it did not come as a surprise to Sergio Bertolucci, CERN’s head of research. When asked before the glitch was discovered if he believed the neutrinos really did get to the Apennine Mountains so fast, he said he had his doubts, “because nothing in Italy arrives ahead of time.”