BBC Focus Magazine

[M Paul Lloyd]

I have to admit I wasn't too sure about Brian Cox, given his 'rock star' status and all, I mean he did seem to go from relative obscurity to TV presenter at a frightening velocity, but his cheerfully fundamental attitude towards physics has endeared him to me somewhat and if ever an opportunity for a return to more 'bucket and thermometer' science should present itself I think he could just be the guy to take up the mantel of media liaison?

But what I want to know is, what exactly are the implications of a Neutrino, a particle with mass, (albeit a very small amount) travelling faster than the speed of light? Because I'm not finding much more than a blanket 'it could change everything' on most science sites I'm looking at?

Where does the energy for this amazing event come from and why has it not been observed before?

[Shadowwolf]

Because I'm not finding much more than a blanket 'it could change everything' on most science sites I'm looking at?

Probably because no one is entirely sure what the exact implications are, if confirmed to be correct the work will start in earnest but until then it is a case of, "we don't know."

Where does the energy for this amazing event come from and why has it not been observed before?

The former will have to await further work as for the latter, well it could be because no one was looking at it this way before. From what I've read it is a specific kind of neutrino and not every last version that appears to have a slight leg up on photons. There is of course one explanation that dispenses with any need for energy and explains why it has not been observed before, there's an error in the measurements.

Let us be having some independent replication before we rewrite the rules.

If any of my caustic, chums would like to contribute to my books,

Well this has nothing to do with the thread but if you're actually serious and going the self publishing route with this stuff please know that I don't want to be associated. No offense, but these fantasies with the sciencey facade are 100 % your own, all I did was try to illustrate the errors to no avail.

[Nails]

But what I want to know is, what exactly are the implications of a Neutrino, a particle with mass, (albeit a very small amount) travelling faster than the speed of light? Because I'm not finding much more than a blanket 'it could change everything' on most science sites I'm looking at?

Where does the energy for this amazing event come from and why has it not been observed before?

I'm pretty sure that while some people are getting really excited about this next quantum leap in our understanding of the universe, the earth will still go round the sun and I will still have to cook Sunday dinner.

So lets be honest, it only changes our understanding of things.
If time travel is possible (which I sincerely doubt) then it is still way out of our technological grasp for many a year to come.

It is interesting, even if it is a glitch, but not life changing.
Unless you're a theoretical physicist.

[Healerman]

But what I want to know is, what exactly are the implications of a Neutrino, a particle with mass, (albeit a very small amount) travelling faster than the speed of light? Because I'm not finding much more than a blanket 'it could change everything' on most science sites I'm looking at?

Where does the energy for this amazing event come from and why has it not been observed before?

To me this is very much the big point. As I understand the theory of relativity (I'm being very brave using that phrase) a body with mass would achieve infinite momentum at the speed of light, an achievement that would require infinite energy. This is of course impossible, if for no other reason than the total supply of energy in the Universe is finite. So if a particle with mass has truly been observed at the speed of light, or beyond it, then...I think it's time for dinner...at Milliways.

if this finding is confirmed, it will rewrite modern physics the way realtivity and quantum mechanics rewrote classical physics.


IF!

[Lateralman]

No offence taken Mr Wolf. You are a sage, a man of principals and a real solid cinder.

At times, I have real empathy for you and Mr Lloyd having to deal on a daily basis with all the invertebrate idiots of this world.

We shall keep this to ourselves.

I shall call my publisher right away to cancel my other two books, “Say Hello to my Aunty Matter!” and “Journey to the centre of my tumble dryer!”

PS: This changing the laws of physics thingy had nowt to do with me.

[M Paul Lloyd]

Let us be having some independent replication before we rewrite the rules.

That would make the most sense wouldn't it, and as the simplest explanation is most likely to be the right on, well I'm inclined to agree that they must surely have made a mistake?

It's bit like the moment when someone discovers that stainless steel is not rust proof, it goes against everything they think they know and its difficult to accept.

[M Paul Lloyd]

Looks like we may have to wait a bit though.

U.S. Accelerator Lab To Test CERN’s Results
Nobody is quite sure what to make yet of the astonishing announcement Thursday from the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) that it has conducted an experiment that seems to show neutrinos, a type of uncharged particle, traveling faster than the speed of light.
After all, if confirmed, the results from CERN’s OPERA experiment would mean scrapping one of physics’ most fundamental theories: Albert Einstein’s theory of special relativity, part of which states that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light.
There have already been a number of science writers and physicists raising profound doubts about the results.
But in order to find out for sure whether or not we have to revise or scrap Einstein’s theory, the results have to be replicated, and U.S. particle physics laboratory Fermilab is going to be the one to do it.

http://idealab.talkingpointsmemo.com/20 ... esults.php

[The Beige Avenger]

There could be a million and nine reasons why this result was achieved (without violating relativity) and even the authors of the paper didn't speculate as to a theoretical reason behind the result, but like good boys, said they'll need to do a lot more work first to rule out everything else... then the media got it and it quickly became Einstein Schmeinstein.

It's pretty amazing that we're in a position where we can ask these questions in the first place... let alone the implications of the results if true.

I'm doubtful to say the least.

[Jamie]

It is exciting but also rather frightening, especially if your entire career was built on something which might suddenly turn out to be fundamentally wrong.

Ah, but if you're a real scientist, that shouldn't bother you. Therein lies religion . . . and we don't like that nonsense.

[M Paul Lloyd]

True.

[EzBloke]

I have a question.

How many of the 15/16,000 iterations of this experiment travelled faster than the speed of light?
According to everything I have found the statment is;

The team measured the travel times of neutrino bunches some 16,000 times, and have reached a level of statistical significance that in scientific circles would count as a formal discovery.

Am I foolish to extract from this statement that not all the tests travelled FTTSOL? (Does anyone else hear Bonnie Tyler whenever they type "Faster than the speed of..."? No? Must just be me then... sigh.)

My next question is, given a "yes" to the above (quantity of results not the Bonnie Tyler tangent... I wish I'd never mentioned it now... sigh), do we know how the "significant events" are distributed?
Symetrically?
Randomly across the whole?
Does anyone know if/where we can see that information?

Also; everyone is concentrating on the speed of light breech (do do do-do doooo, do do do-do doooo, do do do-do dooooooo, ahhhhhh, ahhhh... where have all the good men gone and where are all the gods?...) but does anyone know what that 60 billionth of a second means in terms of distance? To bring the experiment back in line with Einstein how much farther than the 732.xxxxKM should that be?

Ez

[M Paul Lloyd]

To answer your first question

Does anyone else hear Bonnie Tyler whenever they type "Faster than the speed of ...." ?

I have to say yes.... dammit!

As for the rest, well to be honest I'm going to have to have a think about it as it involves some pretty heavy sums, but as I recall from a Radio interview with Prof Brian Cox on the subject we are talking just a few nano seconds or a few billionth's of a second if you prefer. Its not a lot but given that neutrinos posses mass they should not really be travelling at light speed let alone faster.

Therefore the significance, if true, is quite astonishing.

Faster than the speed of night
Faster than the speed of night
It's all we ever wanted
And all we'll ever need
And it's slipping through our fingers
Faster than the speed of night

Faster than the speed of night
Faster than the speed of night
Faster than the speed of night
Faster than the speed of night

Oh hell that's going to be with me all night now!

[EzBloke]

You are welcome...

I was thinking last night that the answer may be even more profound;
I wondered if it could be due to the rate and direction of expansion of the universe (relative to Earth/the Solar system)?

As Earth spins on its axis does CERN approach OPERA?
What about as the planet orbits the sun?
What about the movement through the Milky Way?
And that then led me to ask which direction is the expansion of the universe?
(am I correct in assuming we know its velocity?)

The distance thing was interesting as we know the result indicates c has been exceeded but c is a two-dimensional variable and yet no-one mentions the distance.

I love a good mystery, me.


Anyone know Brian Cox's email address?

[Shadowwolf]

I wondered if it could be due to the rate and direction of expansion of the universe (relative to Earth/the Solar system)?

I doubt it. Space expands but the objects in it do not, neither galaxies nor the stars and planets so neutrinos traveling through Terra would I reckon, be unaffected.

As Earth spins on its axis does CERN approach OPERA?

I daresay that's impossible given that they are both in the ground and don't move relative to each other and the same goes for the following three variants suggested; oh and as far as I know we do not know the expansion rate of the verse itself.

...yet no-one mentions the distance.

If I understand you right the distance is that between the launch point and the detector, to actually measure the speed they have to and do know what it is.

[M Paul Lloyd]

Anyone know Brian Cox's email address?

brian.cox@manchester.ac.uk

Don't abuse this information please.

[EzBloke]

Ah... SW... my bad. I don't explain myself very well do I?

Once the neutrino has left CERN, is there not some degree of velocity in OPERA approaching the neutrino due to planetary rotation? Wouldn't the two sites each describe an arc relative to an axial observer? (But the neutrino's path be a perfectly straight line.) Once the neutrino left the emiter aimed precisely at the detector surely there would be a nanoscopic difference between where OPERA was when the neutrino was fired and where OPERA is when it detects it? I presume this is accounted for in the mathematics but what I wondered is how far out does the calculation go? Is there a virtual orrery that shows the path of an object on Earth relative to an observer looking down on the solar systems planetary plane? And then one stage further to include the solar systems travel from the perspective of a galaxial observer watching the spin of the milky way...? Does that make more sense of my query?

As for the expansion of the universe, this is just pure unadulterated pig-ignorance on my part; I just cannot get my head round "expansion" without asking "into what?" I forget that it's space-time as the surface of a balloon. (I'm always on the underside of the balloon holding the string and watching it float in mid-air... metaphorically speaking) so my ignorance just left space-time as a static entity and only expanded the distance between stars; hence the same point as above but down to the big-bang pushing everything apart and that movement accounting for the difference between two moving points again. Sorry.


Ez

[M Paul Lloyd]

So Ez, as I understand it, and I admit I may not, you are wondering if the people at CERN have allowed for the relative rotation of the Earth in relation to its path around the Sun as the beam of neutrino's travels by a straight line path from CERN to OPERA?

Do you know? I do not have the faintest clue, but I rather hope they did. But then again, you may have something.

Thing is that for all the speed of light is seen as a 'constant' it can be made to go slower and technically its ultimate velocity is only accurate in a true vacuum, which is something that simply does not exist. So here's a thing, what if the speed of light is being inhibited in some way, from our point of view as it were, so that something could be observed to travel faster than light but still not exceed it absolute velocity... and as I type I'm seeing a whole host of reasons why this is a really silly idea...

[EzBloke]

You got it!
But not only planetary rotation as well as solar rotation but also milky way rotation?
(It's a shame you got it, I was going to use a "spirograph" analogy next... )

The corollory to this question would be; are there similar results that show the speed of the neutrino's being significantly slower than theory predicts? If the 15/16,000 results were graphed do they look like a heartbeat? Rhythmical peaks and troughs?

Does anyone know if we can get our hands on the result data?

[M Paul Lloyd]

Does anyone know if we can get our hands on the result data?

THis PDF file is quite illuminating.
http://arxiv.org/abs/1109.4897

[Healerman]

THis PDF file is quite illuminating.
http://arxiv.org/abs/1109.4897

Yeah, and so is a "flash-bang", and both give you a headache.

I can't say I've fully digested it yet (Rennie anyone?) but the error assessment makes it clear why they've nailed their colours to the mast. We may not know what it is they've found, but it seems to be something.