Neutrinos travel faster than light

It is still a premature declaration, other teams must confirm it, this will happen next year. The jury is still out.
 
Richard said:
How do neutrinos travel through rock faster than light in a vacuum?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-15791236
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The person that legitimately answers that question gets a trip to Stockholm, a place in the history books, and untold numbers of schoolchildren will learn about their work.

Interesting that the experiment is holding up, but it still need further validation. Nothing against the researchers- extraordinary results and claims require extraordinary scrutiny.
 
I know absolutely nothing about things this deep but, I heard an article about this and, in that article, they stated that, IF this revelation is true, then the theory of relativity isn't.

To you guys who know this stuff...true?
 
Cap'n Jack said:
The person that legitimately answers that question gets a trip to Stockholm, a place in the history books, and untold numbers of schoolchildren will learn about their work.

Interesting that the experiment is holding up, but it still need further validation. Nothing against the researchers- extraordinary results and claims require extraordinary scrutiny.
Click to expand...

Should I start packing? :confused:


;)
 
timwinters said:
I know absolutely nothing about things this deep but, I heard an article about this and, in that article, they stated that, IF this revelation is true, then the theory of relativity isn't.

To you guys who know this stuff...true?
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No more than relativity invalidated Newton's laws.

Any new theory will probably start from a different basis than Einstein did, but the equatons that appear will still simplify to Einstein's under certain conditions, and Newton's equations under less "extreme" conditions.

Physics is in for some interesting times- the fine structure constant seems not to be...constant.
http://www.laboratoryequipment.com/...cy-of-Physics-May-Not-Be-Constant-110311.aspx

Physicists will be looking at this one too.

Edit- has anyone checked the spped of light lately? Maybe the fine structure constant is the only variable constant :)
 
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A lot of what we hold to be true in physics later turns out to have some foot notes - Heisenberg and Dirac caused a lot of footnotes... The Big Bang Theory is understood by many to not hold water - Fred hoyle for all his faults as a person is still right on this issue and it remains a 'theory' not fact... And so on...

Neutrinos are ghost particles... 62 billionths of a second in timing between two locations 450 miles apart is difficult to manage without error... I betting that Murphy has had input on this one....

dr. o
 
Well, if it turns out to be true, I want some of those nuetrino thingies in my plane!
 
timwinters said:
this revelation is true, then the theory of relativity isn't.

To you guys who know this stuff...true?
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yes, it will be a big shock to many.
However theory of relativity has been verified in many, many experiments to be right (even your GPS receiver depends on it!) so it doesn't necessarily mean the whole theory have to be abandoned, perhaps some things need to be modified. I am a physicist.
 
Dr. O said:
A lot of what we hold to be true in physics later turns out to have some foot notes - Heisenberg and Dirac caused a lot of footnotes... The Big Bang Theory is understood by many to not hold water - Fred hoyle for all his faults as a person is still right on this issue and it remains a 'theory' not fact... And so on...
Click to expand...

In physics we have observations (or measurements) and we have theories, which are attempts to explain or generalize those observations. So the Big Bang theory is a theory not because it's right or wrong but because it isn't itself an observation. Hoyle's idea of a steady state universe is practically impossible to reconcile with the current state of our observations. I have my share of issues with the details of modern cosmology studies (mostly rising from the fact that I study stars and cosmologists tend to dismiss them as unimportant ;)), the evidence that the universe is dynamically evolving and has a finite age is pretty overwhelming. There's always a chance that the next generation of observations will overturn that, of course - there's no such thing as certainty in astronomy, or in any other science - but at the moment there's no viable alternative to the theory of the Big Bang.

As far as the neutrino thing goes, I'm skeptical like everyone else.
 
olasek said:
yes, it will be a big shock to many.
However theory of relativity has been verified in many, many experiments to be right (even your GPS receiver depends on it!) so it doesn't necessarily mean the whole theory have to be abandoned, perhaps some things need to be modified. I am a physicist.
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What do you do you think of the fine-structure thing I linked?
 
One thing about all the reports that claim Einstein's theory predicts that nothing can travel faster than light has me wondering. I thought his theory actually predicted that accelerating any mass to the speed of light would require an infinite amount of energy as the mass increases as the speed gets closer to C. If something has zero mass at rest (or negative if that's possible) then I'm not so sure his theory requires that it cannot exceed C.
 
gismo said:
One thing about all the reports that claim Einstein's theory predicts that nothing can travel faster than light has me wondering. I thought his theory actually predicted that accelerating any mass to the speed of light would require an infinite amount of energy as the mass increases as the speed gets closer to C. If something has zero mass at rest (or negative if that's possible) then I'm not so sure his theory requires that it cannot exceed C.
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Yeah that has been my understanding in a nut shell. That if the neutrino has an imaginary mass value than it is more of the exception to the rule than "breaking the laws" of relativity theory.

<---<^>--->
 
Cap'n Jack said:
What do you do you think of the fine-structure thing I linked?
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I wasn't the one you asked, but I did take a look at some of that group's papers. Interesting stuff, though I'm as skeptical of their work as I am of the neutrino stuff. The current set of results are summarized in a Physical Review Letters paper, but they haven't yet published their discussion of the systematics, unfortunately. In this sort of thing, the devil really is in the details.

As for what it would means for physics if it's true, though, I don't really know.
 
chucky said:
I wasn't the one you asked, but I did take a look at some of that group's papers. Interesting stuff, though I'm as skeptical of their work as I am of the neutrino stuff.
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My understanding is that the inherent error in the measurements is greater than the exceedance of "c", so it's a little early to be worried. :) Hawking thinks the speed of light can be bettered at the boundary of a black hole, so the possibility here isn't truly earth shattering.
 
Cap'n Jack said:
No more than relativity invalidated Newton's laws.
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IIRC Sir Isaac's results are now considered close approximations; results derived from relativity are considered "exact" (although in fact they are not, which proves only that we still don't know what we're talking about :)). No matter; I still consider Newton to be the smartest guy in recorded history.
 
rotorhead1026 said:
My understanding is that the inherent error in the measurements is greater than the exceedance of "c", so it's a little early to be worried. :) Hawking thinks the speed of light can be bettered at the boundary of a black hole, so the possibility here isn't truly earth shattering.
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Actually, the reason their paper has made such a splash is that error that they report in the discrepancy is smaller than the discrepancy itself. That's why a lot of people (myself included) are skeptical of their statistics. Skeptical here doesn't mean I disbelieve, I should note. It just means I haven't been convinced.

Your point about the black hole is very relevant for this thread, though, and the issue of 'proving relativity wrong'. That's already been done, in a certain sense, since relativity and quantum mechanics are not compatible theories. Hawking likes to study the areas where these two theories intersect - the boundary region of a black hole is a perfect example.
 
chucky said:
since relativity and quantum mechanics are not compatible theories.
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One has to be very careful making such absolute statements without important qualifiers. Special Theory of Relativity is very much compatible with Quantum Physics, actually the marriage of both theories lead to creation of Quantum Field Theory. Folks like Dirac and Feynman are probably considered fathers of this theory (both Nobel prize winners). It is the General Theory of Relativity that so far can't be reconciled with Quantum Physics however even this difficulty could be overcome if only the String Theory gains traction and proves to be correct.
 
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Someone mentioned that GPS relies on Relativity Theory. The computer inside the GPS also relies on Quantum Mechanics which bothered Einstein until the day he died.

He had various names for it... "sloppy", "unfinished", "incomplete", but the math turned out to be strikingly accurate overall.

It's very hard for someone to grasp that the state of something only exists not just at the point in time of a measurement but *because* the measurement was taken.

Einstein couldn't philosophically agree with that, and since the math also indicated that two separate particles could behave as if they were linked in some way over a distance too large for information to pass between them (faster than light), Quantum Entanglement was a problem yet to be solved by Einstein all the way to his death.

The state of the spin of two particles separated by a great distance can be inexorably linked with no known (yet) mechanism for the two particles to "communicate" and it's been proven many times over in lab experiments. (After Einstein's death.)

All you have to do is measure them. Which is the weird part. If you're not measuring them, perhaps they aren't always linked. Only when measured. Completely non-intuitive.

Einstein dubbed it "spooky action at a distance" and it is a hard one for anyone to wrap their heads around.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Action_at_a_distance_(physics)

Even the physicist who designed the measurement that proved it happens was dismayed. He was trying to disprove it. The data didn't agree. He still claims he can't fully wrap his head around Quantum Mechanics.

Tons of theories behind why it happens, but precious few which can be tested by any known means in a repeatable experiment. There's a few new ideas a year, but no fully definitive, proven ones yet.

String theory is tantalizing because it might explain some of this, but proving anything in String theory is really really difficult. We haven't devised the means, mostly just ideas.

Depending on whom you ask, the math doesn't seem to hold up as well or be as applicable as Quantum Mechanical math was originally. Others say we're just missing variables. Similar to the initial debates over Quantum Mechanics, it's still very fuzzy around the edges.

Most honest scientists will admit much of this stuff lends more to being a philosophy than a science at this point. But perhaps ironically, it probably takes a philosophical zealot attempting to prove or disprove their pet theory to create enough motivation to even think up new ways to test the math.

I love that irony in the hard unknown sciences. You have to take an almost "religious" stand and pursue it to determine the truth. Not many folks are motivated by "pure" means.

Heck, most funding for the research doesn't happen without strong convictions about what the outcomes are projected to be. A number of very interesting works have been quietly buried by zealous scientists and their benefactors if the outcome wasn't what they wanted, but the truth eventually comes out.

Cool stuff. Strange stuff. Way above my math capabilities.
 
gismo said:
One thing about all the reports that claim Einstein's theory predicts that nothing can travel faster than light has me wondering. I thought his theory actually predicted that accelerating any mass to the speed of light would require an infinite amount of energy as the mass increases as the speed gets closer to C. If something has zero mass at rest (or negative if that's possible) then I'm not so sure his theory requires that it cannot exceed C.
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Well, if you look at the relativistic momentum equations, a particle travelling at >c will have an imaginary mass.
 
Gee, can computers that sit on a desk be far behind?
 
olasek said:
One has to be very careful making such absolute statements without important qualifiers. Special Theory of Relativity is very much compatible with Quantum Physics, actually the marriage of both theories lead to creation of Quantum Field Theory. Folks like Dirac and Feynman are probably considered fathers of this theory (both Nobel prize winners). It is the General Theory of Relativity that so far can't be reconciled with Quantum Physics however even this difficulty could be overcome if only the String Theory gains traction and proves to be correct.
Click to expand...

True. I should have been more precise. Another way of saying it, I think, is that we do not have an experimentally validated quantum theory of gravity.
 
I thought "gravity" was just acceleration... our path through spacetime. Not sure if you could even measure it on a quantum level.

<---<^>--->
 
p1l0t said:
I thought "gravity" was just acceleration... our path through spacetime. Not sure if you could even measure it on a quantum level.

<---<^>--->
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Whatever gravity is, it's usually so weak on small scales that it's completely negligible. That's not true, though, in regions where spacetime curvature becomes extreme - as you approach the event horizon of a black hole, say. How does physics behave there? :dunno:
 
chucky said:
Whatever gravity is, it's usually so weak on small scales that it's completely negligible. That's not true, though, in regions where spacetime curvature becomes extreme - as you approach the event horizon of a black hole, say. How does physics behave there? :dunno:
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Surely there is an experiment that can leave us with more questions than answers for what happens at the event horizon... We just have to figure how to get the results back during our lifetime..

<---<^>--->
 
p1l0t said:
Surely there is an experiment that can leave us with more questions than answers for what happens at the event horizon... We just have to figure how to get the results back during our lifetime..

<---<^>--->
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If you want an experiment that left more questions than answers, it was certainly the supernova survey where they tried to measure the rate that the expansion of the universe was slowing at...yeah, ended up discovering that the expansion is accelerating.
 
This talk about neutrinos reminded me of a boss I used to have. His head was so dense that we referred to him as our portable neutrino shield. It was widely believed that if you had filled his pants legs full of lead and thrown him overboard, that he would still have sank head first.
 
Graueradler said:
This talk about neutrinos reminded me of a boss I used to have. His head was so dense that we referred to him as our portable neutrino shield. It was widely believed that if you had filled his pants legs full of lead and thrown him overboard, that he would still have sank head first.
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:rofl:
 
p1l0t said:
Surely there is an experiment that can leave us with more questions than answers for what happens at the event horizon... We just have to figure how to get the results back during our lifetime..

<---<^>--->
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My first project in grad school was looking at a system with a star in a very tight orbit around a black hole. In principle you can learn a great deal about physics near the event horizon. In practice, of course, there are all kinds of problems.
 
olasek said:
I fully agree.
But strangely Dr.O original post is nowhere to be found.:confused:
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It's still there, but his screen name is different from the user ID that is referenced when a post is quoted.
 
olasek said:
yes, it will be a big shock to many.
However theory of relativity has been verified in many, many experiments to be right (even your GPS receiver depends on it!) so it doesn't necessarily mean the whole theory have to be abandoned, perhaps some things need to be modified. I am a physicist.
Click to expand...

By my calculations, the speed disrepancy is only 0.0025%. Since the discrepancy is so small, is it possible that the "c" in Einstein's equations is not really the speed of light, but is actually a limiting quantity that is slightly larger?

Also, is quantum tunneling limited by the speed of light?
 
Palmpilot said:
Also, is quantum tunneling limited by the speed of light?
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I don't think it is a right question. Quantum tunneling is framed by Heisenberg uncertainity principle and Plank's constant, there is really no speed (light or other) there. However there were some paradoxes cited that appeared to suggest that speed of light was violated when particle was tunneled through the barrier but later this had been resolved.
 
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