Merged Puzzling results from CERN

[rjh01]

I disagree with you on #1. No errors have been found, that doesn't mean no errors can be found.

Actually I think they have found the error. The link to the scientific paper is above. However the simplified version is here Did gravity mess with the clocks that measured particles breaking cosmic speed limit?

Because of its location relative to the centre of Earth, the CERN site feels a slightly stronger gravitational pull than Gran Sasso. Consequently, a clock at the beginning of the neutrinos' journey would actually run at a slower rate than a clock at the end. "It would reduce the significance of the result," Contaldi says

 

[Anders Lindman]

Actually I think they have found the error. The link to the scientific paper is above. However the simplified version is here Did gravity mess with the clocks that measured particles breaking cosmic speed limit?

From that article:

"Because of its location relative to the centre of Earth, the CERN site feels a slightly stronger gravitational pull than Gran Sasso. Consequently, a clock at the beginning of the neutrinos' journey would actually run at a slower rate than a clock at the end. "It would reduce the significance of the result," Contaldi says."

Notice that Contaldi only says that the significance will be reduced, not invalidated.

And:

"Contaldi admits that his original analysis posted at arXiv wrongly assumed that OPERA's timings relied on a clock being moved from one end of the beam to the other. But even synchronizing the clocks using GPS does not remove the difference in the time dilation effect, which Contaldi says could amount to tens of nanoseconds."

Tens of nanoseconds? I doubt it since Dario Autiero of the Institute of Nuclear Physics in Lyons (IPNL), France, and physics coordinator for OPERA, says that Contaldi's challenge is a result of a misunderstanding of how the clocks were synchronized.

 

[Anders Lindman]

Maybe not possible in practice because of the long distance, but they could take a very long optic fiber and measure the time it takes for light to travel through it when rolled up at one location, and then compare the time it takes when the fiber has been rolled out over the long distance between the source and destination at CERN, using the two clocks in both tests.

When the fiber is rolled up, then the light will be reflected many more times against the inner wall of the fiber than when the fiber is straight, but that could be taken into account in the measurements.

Comparing the difference between the measurements will reveal what effect gravity has on the speed of light through the optic fiber.

 

[sol invictus]

Actually I think they have found the error. The link to the scientific paper is above. However the simplified version is here Did gravity mess with the clocks that measured particles breaking cosmic speed limit?

I don't think so. You can derive a clock from GPS with ns accuracy. As I said above:

Thanks - I saw that before. At first I thought there might be something to it. But given that the GPS-derived clock agrees with the transported clock at closer than 3ns accuracy, it's hard to see how that can be the problem.

Still, it should certainly be checked, and it is remarkable that these tiny relativistic effects are some important here.

I think the problem is more likely the statistics, as discussed earlier in this thread.

 

[Drachasor]

I think the problem is more likely the statistics, as discussed earlier in this thread.

That does seem most likely.

 

[Olowkow]

"And there’s the rub: what we observed with Supernova 1987A (which was observed by astronomers in 1987 all over the world in real time) is not at all consistent with the findings of the CERN-OPERA group, because if these FTL results are to be believed then the neutrinos blasted out of Supernova 1987A should have been observed somewhere around 3 to 4 YEARS before the light from the explosion. And that didn’t happen… we observed the light from Supernova 1987A and related neutrino blast at essentially the same time." -- http://skepticalteacher.wordpress.co...pernova-1987a/

I believe it was on the podcast ABC Starstuff that it was explained that the neutrinos from the Supernova actually arrived a few hours ahead of the light, but this is well understood as similar to the type of phenomenon that delays photons from inside the sun from reaching the surface.

 

[ceptimus]

IF the CERN results are correct, it need not conflict with the supernova results. Neutrinos might travel FTL through rock, but not FTL through space.

 

[BenBurch]

I believe it was on the podcast ABC Starstuff that it was explained that the neutrinos from the Supernova actually arrived a few hours ahead of the light, but this is well understood as similar to the type of phenomenon that delays photons from inside the sun from reaching the surface.

Note also that if the delta v was the same as in the experiment, the neutrinos would have arrived YEARS before the light.

 

[Anders Lindman]

Note also that if the delta v was the same as in the experiment, the neutrinos would have arrived YEARS before the light.

But do all neutrinos travel at the same speed? What if some neutrinos really did reach Earth several years earlier. At that time nobody was perhaps measuring those because they didn't know about the supernova then.

 

[Anders Lindman]

Do heavier neutrinos travel slower than less heavy neutrinos? I read that neutrinos have small mass. Could that be a reason for why some of them travel faster than light?

"In 1998, research results at the Super-Kamiokande neutrino detector determined that neutrinos can oscillate from one flavor to another, which requires that they must have a nonzero mass.[42] While this shows that neutrinos have mass, the absolute neutrino mass scale is still not known. This is because neutrino oscillations are sensitive only to the difference in the squares of the masses." -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutrino#Mass

 

[Anders Lindman]

"A paper posted late last week, titled “New Constraints on Neutrino Velocities,” argues that any particle traveling faster than light would shed a great deal of their energy along the way. And since that didn’t happen, those neutrinos couldn’t have traveled faster than light. Case closed." -- From: http://www.popsci.com/science/artic...neutrinos-wouldve-lost-their-energy-along-way

 

[Anders Lindman]

"A paper posted late last week, titled “New Constraints on Neutrino Velocities,” argues that any particle traveling faster than light would shed a great deal of their energy along the way. And since that didn’t happen, those neutrinos couldn’t have traveled faster than light. Case closed." -- From: http://www.popsci.com/science/artic...neutrinos-wouldve-lost-their-energy-along-way

I found an interesting article that says:

"It means that Einstein’s relativity — a theory of uncommon beauty upon which all of physics has been built for 100 years — is wrong. Not just inaccurate. Not just flawed. But deeply, fundamentally, indescribably wrong. It means that the “standard model” of subatomic particles that stands at the center of all modern physics is wrong." -- http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/gone-in-60-nanoseconds/2011/10/06/gIQAf1RERL_story.html

Maybe the author is not a scientist, and has misunderstood the implications. But if that is correct, then the two scientists in the quote above, who said that the neutrinos would have lost a lot of their energy, were they making that claim based on the standard model of subatomic particles? If so, then their claim may be false since the very theoretical foundation they used to come up with the claim may be false.

 

[Olowkow]

Note also that if the delta v was the same as in the experiment, the neutrinos would have arrived YEARS before the light.

Right, I should have included the word "also" in my post.

 

[Anders Lindman]

Earth orbits the sun and the sun orbits around the Milky Way galaxy which in turn is moving through space. Space is not empty but contains vacuum energy which may even cause friction.

Have the experiments at CERN been done at different times during the day? Or at different days during the year? To really rule out the effect of the vacuum energy several experiments can be spread out evenly during a 24-hour period to see if the vacuum energy has any effect on the neutrinos.

ETA: Hmm... Unless the rotation of the Earth has very little effect on the direction of Earth through space.

"Our solar system is hurtling through space while angled nearly perpendicular to the plane of the Milky Way, new computer models suggest." -- http://www.space.com/3801-solar-system-sails-sideways-milky.html

Then it depends on the current position of our solar system in relation the direction the Milky Way galaxy is moving through space.

 

[minorwork]

If they exceed the speed of light in a vacuum, it would show that there is a major problem with our current theoretical framework of the world.

Two clocks. Two margins of error, not one.

The best tested theories ever produced would need a major reworking.

Then it depends on what you mean by reworking. The best tested theories have still passed tests looking to be falsified and were not. Nothing changes for those experiments.

You'd know that if you read the thread.

Knew it without reading the thread and still say, "So what?"

Similarly when the Michelson-Morley experiment showed that light travels at the same speed to all observers, it showed an effect that is tiny and "very difficult to detect", but it revolutionized physics.

The Michelson-Morley experiment 1887 was a failed experiment. What used to be the explanation for how light traveled which had previously been speculated to require a medium, MM's experiment designed to detect that medium, failed to do so. Much more exciting, at the time, than this CERN cluster of failing to multiply margins of error.

I liken the announcement as a media event in the same manner as the Iranian pastor going to be hanged if he doesn't recant when Iran hasn't officially hanged any for such a "crime" since 1990. Superluminal travel is effectively the same type of a high impact media event. Drug companies hold media events to bolster their investors confidence.

But again, "So what?" We have physics for material vibrations in gas, solids, and liquids. We have physics for electromagnetic waves or photons. What's another field of physics dealing with indeterminate particles that are very hard to detect in the first place. Neutrinos are the "dark matter" of the universe by definition of being so non-significant and nonreactive to the rest of the joint.

Light and matter is a different story and is very relevant. I'm not gonna get too excited over superluminal travel until the detectors register being hit before the trigger is pulled.

 

[dasmiller]

The Michelson-Morley experiment 1887 was a failed experiment. What used to be the explanation for how light traveled which had previously been speculated to require a medium, MM's experiment designed to detect that medium, failed to do so.

That doesn't make it a "failed" experiment. An experiment should provide either support or falsification for an hypothesis; if an experimental result falsifies the hypothesis, then experiment was a success and the hypothesis failed.

I'd regard the Michelson-Morley experiment as being very successful.

 

[sol invictus]

I found an interesting article that says:

"It means that Einstein’s relativity — a theory of uncommon beauty upon which all of physics has been built for 100 years — is wrong. Not just inaccurate. Not just flawed. But deeply, fundamentally, indescribably wrong. It means that the “standard model” of subatomic particles that stands at the center of all modern physics is wrong." -- http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/gone-in-60-nanoseconds/2011/10/06/gIQAf1RERL_story.html

Maybe the author is not a scientist, and has misunderstood the implications. But if that is correct, then the two scientists in the quote above, who said that the neutrinos would have lost a lot of their energy, were they making that claim based on the standard model of subatomic particles? If so, then their claim may be false since the very theoretical foundation they used to come up with the claim may be false.

I partially agree with that, actually. However, their analysis doesn't rely on much - it's just that when particles are travelling faster than the maximum speed of of some other form of energy, conservation of energy and momentum allow the radiation of the slower particle. For instance, when particles travel through water faster than the speed of light in water (which is less than c, so this is possible), they radiate light. Similarly, when a plane flies faster than the speed of sound in air, it radiates sound (a sonic boom).

Have the experiments at CERN been done at different times during the day? Or at different days during the year? To really rule out the effect of the vacuum energy several experiments can be spread out evenly during a 24-hour period to see if the vacuum energy has any effect on the neutrinos.

ETA: Hmm... Unless the rotation of the Earth has very little effect on the direction of Earth through space.

"Our solar system is hurtling through space while angled nearly perpendicular to the plane of the Milky Way, new computer models suggest." -- http://www.space.com/3801-solar-system-sails-sideways-milky.html

Then it depends on the current position of our solar system in relation the direction the Milky Way galaxy is moving through space.

They ruled out seasonal variations, which are what is relevant for the kind of effect you have in mind.

 

[Pixel42]

I'd regard the Michelson-Morley experiment as being very successful.

Indeed. Just as the project which has just won those responsible for it this year's Nobel prize for Physics was very successful, even though the results were the exact opposite of those expected.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-15165371

At the time, the competing teams expected to find that the more distant supernovae were slowing down, relative to those nearer - a decline of the expansion of the Universe that began with the Big Bang.

Instead, both teams found the same thing: distant supernovae were in fact speeding up, suggesting that the Universe is destined for an ever-increasing expansion.

 

[Anders Lindman]

They ruled out seasonal variations, which are what is relevant for the kind of effect you have in mind.

Ok, but the really tricky thing I found is: "Our solar system is hurtling through space while angled nearly perpendicular to the plane of the Milky Way, new computer models suggest." -- http://www.space.com/3801-solar-system-sails-sideways-milky.html

If our solar system at the moment is like a flat disc perpendicular to the motion of the Milky Way galaxy through space, then seasonal variations will have no effect! Of course, the chance that our solar system is at such precise location at the moment is slim, but anyway, it's something that could be examined just in case.

 

[sol invictus]

Ok, but the really tricky thing I found is: "Our solar system is hurtling through space while angled nearly perpendicular to the plane of the Milky Way, new computer models suggest." -- http://www.space.com/3801-solar-system-sails-sideways-milky.html

If our solar system at the moment is like a flat disc perpendicular to the motion of the Milky Way galaxy through space, then seasonal variations will have no effect! Of course, the chance that our solar system is at such precise location at the moment is slim, but anyway, it's something that could be examined just in case.

I don't follow. The earth is going around the sun. Therefore it's moving at a different velocity with respect to the center of the Milky Way at different times of year. But OPERA tested for seasonal variations and didn't find any.

The orientation of the earth's orbit with respect to the plane of the galaxy has nothing to do with it. Its orientation with respect to some velocity vector of the Milky Way (relative to something else) might, but the earth's motion in any plane still leads to a variation in its net velocity.