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Physicists at CERN have recorded particles moving faster than light

Re: Physicists at CERN have recorded particles moving faster than ligh

News this isn't. That GPS explanation is what I read weeks ago.

Some articles say that the time at start and end point is measured using GPS and that the nanosecond difference might be caused by that. D'oh!
 
Re: Physicists at CERN have recorded particles moving faster than ligh

News this isn't. That GPS explanation is what I read weeks ago.

Some articles say that the time at start and end point is measured using GPS and that the nanosecond difference might be caused by that. D'oh!

The GPS system incorporates relativistic corrections.

Also - In addition to using GPS, the OPERA experimenters have been using (since 2008) two ground-based atomic clocks that were synchronized (to within 2.3 ± 0.9 ns) using a third (portable) atomic clock.
 
Re: Physicists at CERN have recorded particles moving faster than ligh

It might be an embarrassment, but not a failure. Even if they made a mistake in their calculations (heh, it happens), they handled the situation well and did the right thing opening the raw data to the science community. It's not their fault the media went crazy about it.

I agree they handled it really well, publishing the data without any interpretation and leaving it open to discussion.

We need McDuff to turn up and tell us what the tea leaves said before we will know anything for sure.
 
Re: Physicists at CERN have recorded particles moving faster than ligh

Basically, if this is right, the finding forgot to take into account that the GPS units were in motion as well and thus in a different reference frame. That if true, when relativity is taken into account for the GPS units, there is a drop of 32 ns on each end basically cancelling out the 60 ns discrepancy
Yeah, right.
1. They didn't use only GPS when verifying the positions AFAIU
2. GPS accounts for relativity already – otherwise it wouldn't really work with the precision it's required.
3. That's a pretty incredible mistake to make when you're running these kinds of experiments.
4. It's even more incredible to not immediately think about it when presented with such a result (yet still less incredible than FTL).
5. Such a huge discrepancy wouldn't have been noticed earlier? I mean that's a pretty HUGE difference for this kind of things. It's like landing in the wrong city!
6. The article appears to have just as much knowledge about the GPS and the experiment as I do, which is almost none. Good job. I can write them equations too!

It would be a somewhat more plausible explanation if it speculated that somebody accounted for relativity... twice. Or that they didn't account for relativity when they were moving the atomic clocks.
 
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Re: Physicists at CERN have recorded particles moving faster than ligh

For those who doubt the explanation, you have to remember that scientist make stupid errors like this all the time

Remember this

http://articles.cnn.com/1999-09-30/...iter-spacecraft-team-metric-system?_s=PM:TECH

That's slightly different. They weren't trying to insert the probe into orbit repeatedly over a disturbingly long period of time and wondering why it doesn't enter the orbit.

It failed. Once. And for what is worth, they figured out the reason after the first failure. Not that it was of any use any more...
 
Re: Physicists at CERN have recorded particles moving faster than ligh

The OPERA results were actually found to be inconsistent with another neutrino experiment. From this blog:

So there you have it: while physicists are still arguing over just where the OPERA collaboration's mistake is, another experiment seeking to check their result has found wild inconsistencies with OPERA's claims. So congratulations to ICARUS on a very clever use of their apparatus, and for those of you who aren't afraid of details, check out the ICARUS paper for yourself!

Basically, if the neutrinos were traveling faster than light, then they would start emitting particles (sort of like Cerenkov radiation, but with electrons/positrons instead of photons). This effect would lower the energy of the neutrinos. the ICARUS experiment found that when they observed neutrinos, that were emitted with the same energy as OPERA's neutrinos, they didn't see this cutoff in energy effect. Their results are actually consistent with neutrinos traveling very close to the speed of light (at least 1000x slower than OPERA's result).

If OPERA's result is still to be believed, maybe there is something in the ground under Italy speeding up neutrinos? ;-)
 
Re: Physicists at CERN have recorded particles moving faster than ligh

Let us hope that the OPERA guys took the curvature of the Earth into account as well. You never know... :p

It's interesting to see science in action -- tightening the screws on the details of the experiment until inconsistencies and likely sources of systematic error are revealed.
 
Re: Physicists at CERN have recorded particles moving faster than ligh

Yep. I hope they are not thinking the Earth is round.
 
Re: Physicists at CERN have recorded particles moving faster than ligh

However, what do you still need the graviton for, a particle undetectable by definition?

To explain why quantum mechanics and relativity describe the same universe.
For more information, read wikipedia.

I did before I wrote that, and some more articles. Wikipedia says "For example, a detector with the mass of Jupiter and 100% efficiency, placed in close orbit around a neutron star, would only be expected to observe one graviton every 10 years, even under the most favorable conditions. It would be impossible to discriminate these events from the background of neutrinos, since the dimensions of the required neutrino shield would ensure collapse into a black hole."

Seems we are stuck here with a highly speculative item.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graviton#cite_note-Rothman-11
 
Re: Physicists at CERN have recorded particles moving faster than ligh

However, what do you still need the graviton for, a particle undetectable by definition?

To explain why quantum mechanics and relativity describe the same universe.
For more information, read wikipedia.

I did before I wrote that, and some more articles. Wikipedia says "For example, a detector with the mass of Jupiter and 100% efficiency, placed in close orbit around a neutron star, would only be expected to observe one graviton every 10 years, even under the most favorable conditions. It would be impossible to discriminate these events from the background of neutrinos, since the dimensions of the required neutrino shield would ensure collapse into a black hole."

Seems we are stuck here with a highly speculative item.

Wouldn't they need to know how a graviton detector actually worked in order to be able to say that it needs the mass of Jupiter and 100% efficiency to detect one every ten years?
 
Re: Physicists at CERN have recorded particles moving faster than ligh

Presumably the graviton will have to affect the mass that acts as a detector.
 
Re: Physicists at CERN have recorded particles moving faster than ligh

Is it time yet for Jim Al-Khalili to eat his shorts?
 
Re: Physicists at CERN have recorded particles moving faster than ligh

The experiment has been refined and repeated, with... the same result:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-15791236

The team behind the finding in September that neutrinos may travel faster than light has carried out an improved version of their experiment - and found the same result.


Ok, I am well aware this is still far from being seen as a truth, but wow. I was expecting the only way for this theory was down from here, and here this is bucking it right back up.
 
Re: Physicists at CERN have recorded particles moving faster than ligh

This is fun. Should come in handy for stuff like the Supernova Early Warning System? If neutrinos truly travel 60ns faster than light on just about 800 km, then we could detect a supernova weeks, months or even years before we could actually see it.
 
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