Topic: Particles faster than light measured.

[Chew]

Seems much more likely that they got their distance wrong, right?  Any idea as to how specifically they established the distance between the OPERA experiment, and how precise that measurement is?

GPS. On the order of centimeters I would assume.

[Reeltarded]

Anyone find anything more on this yet? The internet is so yesterday.. maybe tomorrow then.

[Shibboleth]

Wait a minute.

Neutrinos were shot through the earth to an installation 730 km away.  They arrived in 0.00239994 seconds.  After calculating the distance between the emitter and detector (because they can't flash light through the earth and test experimentally), they figured that light would have gotten there in 0.0024 seconds.

Seems much more likely that they got their distance wrong, right?  Any idea as to how specifically they established the distance between the OPERA experiment, and how precise that measurement is?

These are very competent scientists not crackpots. While there might be other explanations for the data I wouldn't assume that they are doing bad science.

[mkultra]

GPS?  The emitter and detector are underground, so I wonder how they got an accurate GPS measurement.  If they just have a GPS receiver aboveground, how do they know that that accurately corresponds to the location of the OPERA equipment?  Are there survey markers on the land covering CERN?

Anyway, to double-check their results, they just re-ran the experiment a couple of thousand times.  They didn't try shooting anything else with a known velocity to see if that gave anomalous results.  They don't mention anywhere recalculating the distance between the emitter and detector.  All they did was run the experiment again and again.  If they made an error early on, of course they would continue to get anomalous results.

[Chew]

GPS?  The emitter and detector are underground, so I wonder how they got an accurate GPS measurement.  If they just have a GPS receiver aboveground, how do they know that that accurately corresponds to the location of the OPERA equipment?  Are there survey markers on the land covering CERN?

It's not that hard to measure X, Y, and Z from a GPS receiver on the surface to a room below ground.

[Will Nitschke]

Aren't tachyons suppose to go faster than light, if they exist?

Except they don't exist.

[Troll]

If this were true (and I'm in the doubter camp), I'd first suggest it's some weird exception for near-massless particles.

[chelovek]

I'm calling BS on this right now!!! 

Like a true, open-minded, sensible intellectual. 

[chelovek]

I really, really hope Einstein's theory is significantly flawed. Nothing like a complete revision of 100 years of physics to put dogmatic, bigoted, arrogant "skeptics" and "scientists" in their place. Of course, as we've seen time and time again with all religions, this is what happens when you're more interested in your belief system than in the facts.

[Will Nitschke]

A technical question please, if your measuring instruments operate no faster than the speed of light, how do you detect entities that are traveling faster than the speed of light?

[True Disbeliever]

Yep. The Bad Astronomer said we should have received neutrinos 4 years before we visually observed SN 1987 if this were true.

If they were going faster than light, shouldn't they have detected them before they even beamed them?  Or did they go back in time and destroy themselves?

[Will Nitschke]

Scratch my question, I noticed the link to a video on the original article.

[Lukas]

I really, really hope Einstein's theory is significantly flawed. Nothing like a complete revision of 100 years of physics to put dogmatic, bigoted, arrogant "skeptics" and "scientists" in their place. Of course, as we've seen time and time again with all religions, this is what happens when you're more interested in your belief system than in the facts.

Many physicists actually hope that this holds up, even though most would probably bet against it. There isn't much in human culture that is less dogmatic and less religious than physics, by the way. Einstein himself started the two revolutions in physics in the 20th century, relativity and quantum mechanics. It didn't take very long for the community of physicists to overthrow the old "dogmas" and adapt the new theories, once experimental evidence accumulated. (Then Einstein himself didn't like the consequences of quantum mechanics and tried to disprove it, but that is a different story...)

Did you have some traumatic experiences with scientists in your childhood, or why did you have to write such an incoherent nonsense post?

[hfleming]

I wouldn't hold my breath.

Drew Baden, chairman of the physics department at the University of Maryland, said it is far more likely that the CERN findings are the result of measurement errors or some kind of fluke. Tracking neutrinos is very difficult, he said.

"This is ridiculous what they're putting out," Baden said. "Until this is verified by another group, it's flying carpets. It's cool, but ..."

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2011/09/22/world/europe/AP-EU-Breaking-Light-Speed.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&hp

[Green Ideas]

I wouldn't hold my breath.

Drew Baden, chairman of the physics department at the University of Maryland, said it is far more likely that the CERN findings are the result of measurement errors or some kind of fluke. Tracking neutrinos is very difficult, he said.

"This is ridiculous what they're putting out," Baden said. "Until this is verified by another group, it's flying carpets. It's cool, but ..."

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2011/09/22/world/europe/AP-EU-Breaking-Light-Speed.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&hp

He's being a jerk. Baden should be working on verifying the experiment or something, which is pretty much what the guys at CERN asked the scientific community to do.

BTW, what I find ridiculous is the article appearing in the 'Europe' section of the NY Times, instead of the 'Science' one.