Faster-than-light Neutrino Travel EXPLAINED

[Mal12345]

http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2012/02/breaking-news-error-undoes-faster.html?ref=hp

"It appears that the faster-than-light neutrino results, announced last September by the OPERA collaboration in Italy, was due to a mistake after all. A bad connection between a GPS unit and a computer may be to blame."

 

[INTP]

Thats still just a hypothesis, but i kinda expected some stupid mistake being the reason for the speed of this neutrino, but who knows..

 

[Mal12345]

Thats still just a hypothesis, but i kinda expected some stupid mistake being the reason for the speed of this neutrino, but who knows..

Yes, they need to confirm it. It COULD be just a coincidence that the speed with which data travels through the loose fiber optic connection accounts for exactly the amount of discrepancy in the data.

 

[Mole]

If we did find the faster than light neutrino, it would open the interesting question of where the energy came from to accelerate it faster than light.

And interestingly if we did see it go faster than light, we would also see it slowing down.

And what is very interesting is that, from our perspective, light travels almost infinitely slowly and so the universe looks set in stone. And if we weren't moving ourselves, we wouldn't see the universe move.

 

[figsfiggyfigs]

It's t this really old news? The debunking I mean.

 

[Mal12345]

It's t this really old news? The debunking I mean.

Is it old news? Attempts at debunking are old news. But the cable problem is new news.

 

[figsfiggyfigs]

Is it old news? Attempts at debunking are old news. But the cable problem is new news.

Nope. Read about it a few weeks ago; the miscalculation due to medium issues.

Edit: so I just checked the date of the article, I'm really surprised that this article is new, considering I did read about it, I believe on Physorg. I'm too lazy to go article hunting. But definitely seen the article about the miscalculation, and not the attempt at the debunking.

 

[Mal12345]

Nope. Read about it a few weeks ago; the miscalculation due to medium issues.

Edit: so I just checked the date of the article, I'm really surprised that this article is new, considering I did read about it, I believe on Physorg.

And you didn't bother to share it with the forum. Hmmm....

 

[figsfiggyfigs]

And you didn't bother to share it with the forum. Hmmm....

I keep a lot to my greedy self :}

 

[Mal12345]

Nope. Read about it a few weeks ago; the miscalculation due to medium issues.

Edit: so I just checked the date of the article, I'm really surprised that this article is new, considering I did read about it, I believe on Physorg. I'm too lazy to go article hunting. But definitely seen the article about the miscalculation, and not the attempt at the debunking.

The debunking attempts are really old news. Here is a page from Oct 6 at Physorg -

http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-10-theories-emerge-opera-faster-than-light-neutrinos.html

 

[Mal12345]

I keep a lot to my greedy self :}

Greedy or not, it is more likely because the news story at Physorg is only a day old as of right now:
http://www.physorg.com/news/2012-02-faster-neutrinos-faulty-wiring.html

 

[figsfiggyfigs]

Greedy or not, it is more likely because the news story at Physorg is only a day old as of right now:
http://www.physorg.com/news/2012-02-faster-neutrinos-faulty-wiring.html

hmmm, odd. Must've been somewhere else. I was even discussing it with another forum member... Alright, I'll give you this one because I'm, as I said, too lazy to argue. Thanks for the links, however.

 

[ygolo]

Yeah. There were older stories posted on the web claiming they knew the reason for the result (that neutrinos were measured to be faster than light). But, apparently, those older stories were less substantiated.

For those talking about "stupid mistakes", the people at CERN aren't exactly doing a high school science experiment.

That something simple like a slow connection could lead to the result is not surprising, but imagine the amount of stuff they had to consider, and test, before thinking about this hypothesis. They still have to do work to convince themselves (and many others) that this was indeed the reason.

 

[Mal12345]

Yeah. There were older stories posted on the web claiming they knew the reason for the result (that neutrinos were measured to be faster than light). But, apparently, those older stories were less substantiated.

For those talking about "stupid mistakes", the people at CERN aren't exactly doing a high school science experiment.

That something simple like a slow connection could lead to the result is not surprising, but imagine the amount of stuff they had to consider, and test, before thinking about this hypothesis. They still have to do work to convince themselves (and many others) that this was indeed the reason.

So how does tightening a fiber optic connection make the neutrinos appear to be traveling 10 ns slower? I would assume that they are not traveling through the fiber optic itself as they cannot be constrained in this manner.

 

[Mal12345]

http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2012/02/official-word-on-superluminal-ne.html?ref=hp

 

[ygolo]

So how does tightening a fiber optic connection make the neutrinos appear to be traveling 10 ns slower? I would assume that they are not traveling through the fiber optic itself as they cannot be constrained in this manner.

The way I read it was that the connection between the GPS unit doing the measurement and their computer. I don't really know how they instrumented it, and I am not sure how things work in optics.. But I have run in to similar issues when using instruments like BERTs, oscilloscopes, and even logic analyzers. Calibrating for cables used in measurement is always a pain.