Faster than lightspeed achieved?

[imatfaal]

I think the problem lies within the programming of the GPS system concerning the differences of altitudes involved. I also think there are some new physics involved unrelated to the velocity of the neutrinos, but related to a discrepancy of distance and timing.

//

I would be very surprised if it is as simple as that - the calculation of distances and times and synchronisation of clocks over long distances is very advanced, and even if none of the highly qualified physicists noticed I find it hard to believe that all of the external metrology experts would have failed to notice that OPERA is buried under a mountain. This is a presumption but surely one can use the GPS signals to generate a three dimension coordinate referenced to an origin at the centre of the orbits of the satellites - this would render unimportant any difference in altitude of the receivers. I think that an assumption of simultaneity (or of known delay) between instance and measurement at either SPS or OPERA will turn out to be the problem - and only those with an intimate understanding of the systems will be able to figure that out; and as most of those with the requisite knowledge have signed the paper the problem must be subtle, and there might be a long while before the snafu is caught.

 

Wouldn't a discrepancy of the physics of distance and timing have even greater implications?

[md65536]

I think the important thing to realize is that no individual neutrinos were measured to be traveling at v > c.

It is only the statistical distribution of observations that best matches a calculated speed of slightly more than c.

 

Starts With A Bang describes this better than I can and explains some possible problems with misinterpreting such data:

http://scienceblogs.com/startswithabang/2011/09/are_we_fooling_ourselves_with.php

 

 

I think that assuming there's a measurement error is a tunnel-vision approach to this that misses other possibilities.

 

An important question to ask is: Is it possible to detect a change in the neutrino source faster than if that information is transmitted at c?

I think the answer based on the existing measurements is "no". You can't determine the statistical distribution until you have enough samples, by which time you've lost any advantage over c.

 

If this is the case, then relativity is still safe. There are other examples in quantum mechanics where you can "look back" at past information and see a pattern that suggests superluminal information, but that information is only retrospective. These other examples don't invalidate relativity, and neither would this experiment.

 

It would certainly suggest something new though.

 

 

I believe that if there is some "wave pattern" that is carried at superluminal speeds, then it is not received via the same neutrinos that were transmitted, but by ones that were transmitted slightly earlier. If so, then repeating the experiment with individual neutrinos would result in no observations of anything with v > c.

[pantheory]

I would be very surprised if it is as simple as that - the calculation of distances and times and synchronisation of clocks over long distances is very advanced, and even if none of the highly qualified physicists noticed I find it hard to believe that all of the external metrology experts would have failed to notice that OPERA is buried under a mountain. This is a presumption but surely one can use the GPS signals to generate a three dimension coordinate referenced to an origin at the centre of the orbits of the satellites - this would render unimportant any difference in altitude of the receivers. I think that an assumption of simultaneity (or of known delay) between instance and measurement at either SPS or OPERA will turn out to be the problem - and only those with an intimate understanding of the systems will be able to figure that out; and as most of those with the requisite knowledge have signed the paper the problem must be subtle, and there might be a long while before the snafu is caught.

 

Wouldn't a discrepancy of the physics of distance and timing have even greater implications?

I also think this possibility is not unlikely. Maybe the discrepancy will unmask a greater implication/changes concerning new physics than neutrinos going faster than the speed of light.

 

It may take a little while to figure out the "error" but it may not take that long to know that there was one. In light of this report, Japan is gearing up to repeat a similar test that was interrupted by their Earthquake. The U.S. also said they would get right on it. I expect that neither results will show this kind of discrepancy. Also I would think that one of the first things they would recheck is the distance by using another means like surveying, to measure the surface distance without relying on the GPS system. It is my opinion that this is where the fault lies. If this is the first major verification that they do, then I would expect if distance measurement and calculations are the cause then we would be aware of the error in less than a years time.

 

md65536,

I think that assuming there's a measurement error is a tunnel-vision approach to this that misses other possibilities.

I think few are assuming anything. Measurement error does not have to include calculations. It can be an error in the programming of the GPS system itself related to differences in altitude as they relate to the speed of light moving straight up and straight down. The light going up travels 8,300 feet farther than when it goes down, the difference in elevation between the sending and receiving points.

//

It would certainly suggest something new though.

Presently I am of the same opinion. There may be new physics involved.

//

Edited September 28, 2011 by pantheory

[dragonstar57]

This is true. There is a change is altitude of about 8,300 ft. on the rise, but their calculations were based upon the GPS system which is supposed to take into account all factors including the rotation rate of the Earth. And I would presume that they are smart enough to do the trig compensation for altitude, even though they are shooting through the Earth to get there. There might be unknown problems with the GPS system in some locations whereby it might be less accurate than in other locations based upon the relative positions of the satellites. Their claim was 20 cm accuracy concerning distance. I would bet a six pack that the accuracy is not that good. What I said was that the GPS system in general claims a 3 meter accuracy in any one location concerning the designated coordinates. I also said that for the error to be 60 nanoseconds off, it would require a 20 meter error in distance over-estimation, according to my calculations, to account for a 60 nanosecond error.

 

Your other point is a good one. Accordingly most are claiming that these muon neutrinos have mass. If so then their speed according to Special Relativity must be less than the speed of light (accordingly it would take infinite energy for massive particles to reach the speed of light). General Relativity might also come to play to some minuscule extent because "massive" neutrinos are moving upward 8,300 ft. against gravity. Any such calculated effect seemingly would be a lessening of the calculated speed.

if it were the distance being shorter than they think would they not be able to send light through at "V<C"? or @ least appear to do so Edited September 28, 2011 by dragonstar57

[md65536]

I think few are assuming anything.

True... and assuming that "it couldn't possibly be blah" is a good way to miss something.

 

It makes me think of the analogy of "picking the low-hanging fruit first" and looking at what's easiest, first.

Suggestions like "maybe they forgot that the Earth is round" would be fruit that's hanging so low that it's on the ground and 2 weeks rotten. If it was something like that I'd be embarrassed for them.

 

Extending this analogy, you have this tree with low-hanging fruit which is problems like GPS precision and altitude that we should expect the scientists to have thought of and fully analyzed.

Then at the top of the tree is a glowing angel ornament that is "relativity has been toppled!!!". Near the bottom of the tree is other measurement problems, up higher may be obscure problems, maybe higher is exotic but known effects, maybe never before seen with neutrinos. I dunno... whatever! But there's a whole middle section of this tree where there is new and earth-shaking (to varying degrees) science, which doesn't invalidate relativity. The only news and blogs etc I've seen seems to ignore this whole middle of the tree.

 

(A Christmas tree shape, probably with a very very wide bottom, may be a good analogy for the probability of where the explanation "fruit" will be found?)

[pantheory]

if it were the distance being shorter than they think would they not be able to send light through at "V<C"? or @ least appear to do so

No, this is not a direct measurement. They are using the Global positioning satellites to determine the surface distance and then they are calculating the appropriate arc and other distance adjustments to come to their conclusion concerning distance. My opinion is that the error occurs within the global positioning programming and is related to new physics.

 

md65536,

 

I agree that distance is the lowest hanging fruit and "why didn't they check it using at least 3 different methods." I think the reason is that it is extremely hard for scientists to consider things that seem to be well accepted. So instead of checking the distance three different ways, they will check it the same way 20 different times

 

Hey, I love your analogies and concede that they are really cool -- but until I see a survey of the distance absent of any GPS measurements, I will continue to think the the lower hanging fruit (the distance) is the culprit. However it works out I like your thinking

 

best regards, Forrest Noble

Edited September 29, 2011 by pantheory

[Klaynos]

I'm afraid I can't recall the details of the distance measurements that produced errors under 1m, but the details are available online.

 

I also agree that the distance measurement is the most likely problem.

[levin irmak]

i believe this wouldn't harm the relativity as speculated because we actually don't know if the neutrinos travelled faster than the speed of light in our 4 dimensional space and time and i do believe that the tau neutrinos travelled through the extra dimensions predicted in the string theory or even a wormhole . therefore the only flaw of relativity would be that it only describes our 4 dimensional space if the extra dimensons and the neutrinos travelling through another dimension can be proved then the only thing we can do for relativity is to expand it to describe our 11 dimensional universe or whatever

[Iggy]

I wonder if anyone could explicitly say since I haven't seen it yet, is there anything provable about the nature of a neutrino that makes FTL propagation incompatible with relativity?

[pantheory]

I wonder if anyone could explicitly say since I haven't seen it yet, is there anything provable about the nature of a neutrino that makes FTL propagation incompatible with relativity?

 

I mentioned this in an earlier posting. If muon neutrinos have mass then the interpretation of this experiment would violate Special Relativity if the interpretation holds true. Special Relativity dictates that no mass can equal the speed of light unless an infinity of energy is expended for it to do so.

[Mystery111]

I mentioned this in an earlier posting. If muon neutrinos have mass then the interpretation of this experiment would violate Special Relativity if the interpretation holds true. Special Relativity dictates that no mass can equal the speed of light unless an infinity of energy is expended for it to do so.

 

Actually it doesn't violate relativity so long as the particle did not accelerate to or past the speed of light.

 

If the nuetrino is superluminal, it most likely moves superluminally at all times.

[dragonstar57]

No, this is not a direct measurement. They are using the Global positioning satellites to determine the surface distance and then they are calculating the appropriate arc and other distance adjustments to come to their conclusion concerning distance. My opinion is that the error occurs within the global positioning programming and is related to new physics.

 

md65536,

 

I agree that distance is the lowest hanging fruit and "why didn't they check it using at least 3 different methods." I think the reason is that it is extremely hard for scientists to consider things that seem to be well accepted. So instead of checking the distance three different ways, they will check it the same way 20 different times

 

Hey, I love your analogies and concede that they are really cool -- but until I see a survey of the distance absent of any GPS measurements, I will continue to think the the lower hanging fruit (the distance) is the culprit. However it works out I like your thinking

 

best regards, Forrest Noble

following this logic if a photon were thrown down the LHC it would go faster than C?

my point being that if you want to prove it is not the distance send something we already to have a V=C and it if it apears to have a V>C than it is the distance down the LHC?

[swansont]

http://arxiv.org/abs/1109.6562

 

[W]e show that such superluminal neutrinos would lose energy rapidly via the bremsstrahlung of electron-positron pairs ([math]\nu\rightarrow \nu+e^-+e^+[/math]). For the claimed superluminal neutrino velocity and at the stated mean neutrino energy, we find that most of the neutrinos would have suffered several pair emissions en route, causing the beam to be depleted of higher energy neutrinos. Thus we refute the superluminal interpretation of the OPERA result.

 

Remember that this is an ArXiv preprint, so it's not the final word.

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

Surely they have it backwards; if theory says neutrinos can't be superluminal, and they have not found a systematic error in the data, then the theory is wrong.

 

I could just as easily write a paper saying "special relativity means they could never be superluminal in the first place, so I've refuted the result", but the point of the result is that it might break SR.

[pantheory]

following this logic if a photon were thrown down the LHC it would go faster than C?

No, a photon has no magnetic charge so it can't be "thrown down" the LHC. If it were really possible for something to go around the LHC faster than light they seemingly could have detected it by now. They can detect rpm's of a single proton around an accelerator over a given time interval with a known distance, to calculate "accurately" the velocity.

 

my point being that if you want to prove it is not the distance (that is the "error factor") send something we already to have a V=C and it if it appears to have a V>C than it is the distance down the LHC?

If I understand you correctly, it's not the distance around the track that is in question, it is the distance that the neutrinos had to travel to the detector, about 450 miles away, that is in question.

//

Edited October 4, 2011 by pantheory

[StringJunky]

 

 

I agree that distance is the lowest hanging fruit and "why didn't they check it using at least 3 different methods." I think the reason is that it is extremely hard for scientists to consider things that seem to be well accepted. So instead of checking the distance three different ways, they will check it the same way 20 different times

 

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result -attributed by some to Einstein.

 

Just a possibly apt and humorous quote that came to mind reading this.

[Doppler]

Can't it be that the clocked speed of the Neutrino at CERN is just a more accurate numerical description of the speed of light?

[swansont]

Can't it be that the clocked speed of the Neutrino at CERN is just a more accurate numerical description of the speed of light?

Basically, no. 60 nanoseconds in a trip of 2.4 milliseconds is a few parts in 10^5. The speed of light is a defined quantity, so it's exact, but we can realize the meter to a few parts in 10^11 and the second to parts in 10^15.

[michel123456]

Basically, no. 60 nanoseconds in a trip of 2.4 milliseconds is a few parts in 10^5. The speed of light is a defined quantity, so it's exact, but we can realize the meter to a few parts in 10^11 and the second to parts in 10^15.

 

Worse, the measurement was in a material (Earth's crust), not empty space.

Edited October 5, 2011 by michel123456

[swansont]

Worse, the meaurement was in a material (Earth's crust), not empty space.

To a neutrino, the crust is approximately empty space.

[dragonstar57]

No, a photon has no magnetic charge so it can't be "thrown down" the LHC. If it were really possible for something to go around the LHC faster than light they seemingly could have detected it by now. They can detect rpm's of a single proton around an accelerator over a given time interval with a known distance, to calculate "accurately" the velocity.

 

 

If I understand you correctly, it's not the distance around the track that is in question, it is the distance that the neutrinos had to travel to the detector, about 450 miles away, that is in question.

//

idea one:the distance is shorter than the cern people think it is.

conclusion(s) that can be made if true:1.) all LHC experiments are flawed because of a input error for D. in v=d/t

2.) this input error would effect all particles in the LHC and could be replicated proving that any particle can move faster than it hey ought. (weather this is above or below C)

 

therefore I theorize that if a particle with a known velocity was sent along the same path than we could use V=D/T to calculate the distance just as accurately as the speed of the neutrino was clocked.

if they did not know exactly how far the two are apart than the whole place would be useless.

lets assume that the brilliant physicists working at the largest particle accelerator in the world have at least some idea what they're doing.

ps. if the distance is really messed up than i might not be so confident in their assertions that a microscopic black hole will not form and destroy the earth anymore.

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

The neutrino experiment did not use the LHC.

 

Unfortunately there are no particles other than neutrinos which will penetrate through several hundred miles of earth and still reach the target.

[dragonstar57]

The neutrino experiment did not use the LHC.

 

Unfortunately there are no particles other than neutrinos which will penetrate through several hundred miles of earth and still reach the target.

 

why did they not use the LHC?

ps. TY for replying so quickly

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

The Super Proton Synchrotron is used to create the neutrino beam, since they don't need the incredibly high energies of the LHC just to make neutrinos. The SPS has been in operation since the 70s.

[michel123456]

I found it. Our FOR is shrinking.