Neutrino apparently moving faster than light

My bet is on experimental error, but it sure would be interesting...even getting really, really close should give neutrinos measurable mass...

-- Sent from my Palm TouchPad using Forums
 
What are the possibilities that they had one of the problems:
1) they got the distance between emitter and sensor wrong by more than 30cm (they are around 720km apart)
2) they got the timestamp for the exact moment of the neutrino-generation wrong by more than ~40ns

Either of those is good enough to make the result bogus.

Also, if neutrinos would move faster than C then why isn't it shown in supernovas? The neutrinos from latest one we had this month should have arrived years before the visible light but they didn't. Yes, they did arrive a tiny bit earlier but that can be explained by the time it takes for the visible light to break out of the star. when it goes nova
 
That would be great if true, it also nice to see theory shaken and the following new researches.
But unlikely as it's so huge that it has to be uncertainties and measurement errors.
 
What are the possibilities that they had one of the problems:
1) they got the distance between emitter and sensor wrong by more than 30cm (they are around 720km apart)
2) they got the timestamp for the exact moment of the neutrino-generation wrong by more than ~40ns
Everything is being detailed and explained right now in the live webcast http://webcast.cern.ch/
 
What are the possibilities that they had one of the problems:
1) they got the distance between emitter and sensor wrong by more than 30cm (they are around 720km apart)
2) they got the timestamp for the exact moment of the neutrino-generation wrong by more than ~40ns
they spent months verifying their results, and the margin of error is small enough. If there is an mistake im sure its not that trivial.

anyway, as far as I understood relativity, its impossible to accelerate to 100% lightspeed (as it would need infinite amount of energy), not that lightspeed (or beyond) is impossible.
But I understand little to nothing about subatomic particles so Ill leave it at that and just wait till someone builts me a timemachine.
 
General relativity requires matter to have infinite mass at the speed of light.
It does not allow for speeds in excess of light speed.
 
Pointers, not arrays. Dimensionality is the least questioned axiom of physics and I wouldn't be surprised if quantum teleportation was only a (rather minor) special case of a much more general phenomenon. Physicists would tend to speak of worm holes and extra dimensions but I think dimensionality itself being a flawed axiom makes much more sense (and I'm pretty sure the difference should be testable).

So one possibility is that they've measured the external distance perfectly but that the neutrino is able to find a shortcut. Unfortunately that would be dependent on the test environment itself (which might have been 'corrupted' in a way by earlier experiments) so if that's the case, the test results will not be replicated at Fermilab or anywhere else. But they'll be unable to 'fix' it at CERN which might lead to quite a bit of confusion.

Or it will just turn out to be a test error (very likely) or something even more extraordinary (unlikely) - who knows. I figured I might as well place in a seemingly insane bet for posterity's sake though - that way people can make fun of me when it turns out horribly wrong ;)
 
Also, if neutrinos would move faster than C then why isn't it shown in supernovas? The neutrinos from latest one we had this month should have arrived years before the visible light but they didn't. Yes, they did arrive a tiny bit earlier but that can be explained by the time it takes for the visible light to break out of the star. when it goes nova

According to the article above, the supernova neutrinos are much lower energy than those in the CERN experiment (which is pretty crazy in itself IMO) but that could account for the difference.

I'm in the very cautious camp on this one for noow though. Certainly experimental error seems more likely but I sure as hell hope it's not.

Incidentally, I'm visiting CERN in 4 weeks :smile:
 
Neutrinos, unlike light, can pass through matter, right?
 
According to the article above, the supernova neutrinos are much lower energy than those in the CERN experiment (which is pretty crazy in itself IMO) but that could account for the difference.
Interesting. Any idea what kind of difference are we talking about?
Neutrinos, unlike light, can pass through matter, right?
Basically yes. Only a very tiny fraction of neutrinos can be captured in the sensors we are using. Large majority of them just pass through Earth as it wasn't there. Matter mostly being empty space and neutrinos not having a charge while being vastly smaller than other sub-atomic particles make it quite simple for them.
 
Interesting. Any idea what kind of difference are we talking about?

MeV versus GeV.

I watched some of their webcast, seems to me that whilst they've been quite thorough in their analysis of statistical and systematic errors, the whole experimental setup is sufficiently complex that it's a bit early to declare this anything more than an interesting suggestive result that requires much more work and independent confirmation (which is basically what they said too!).
 
hoho said:
Interesting. Any idea what kind of difference are we talking about?Basically yes. Only a very tiny fraction of neutrinos can be captured in the sensors we are using. Large majority of them just pass through Earth as it wasn't there. Matter mostly being empty space and neutrinos not having a charge while being vastly smaller than other sub-atomic particles make it quite simple for them.

Which gives me pause to ask the question why shouldn't they be faster than light?
 
MeV versus GeV
So about 1000x? That doesn't really seem like enough energy to push something from c to c*(1+1/40000) but what do I know :)

From what I understand they basically said they got this weird result and now expect others to look where the mistake could be. If there is no mistake in their experiment then it has to be something we are missing in our current theories
Which gives me pause to ask the question why shouldn't they be faster than light?
Mostly because unlike photons they still have mass and accelerating mass to C takes infinite amount of energy. Not sure how much it takes to pass that line :)
 
I've heard a good description which says that time and speed are simply opposite ends of the same scale. The faster you travel through space, the slower you travel through time a vice versa. i.e.

100% speed (light speed) = 0% time (frozen in time) and vice versa

Given that in theory time slows down until it stops as you approach the speed of light this makes perfect sense. But it also raises interesting possibilities for particles that exceed the speed of light.
 
hoho said:
So about 1000x? That doesn't really seem like enough energy to push something from c to c*(1+1/40000) but what do I know :)

From what I understand they basically said they got this weird result and now expect others to look where the mistake could be. If there is no mistake in their experiment then it has to be something we are missing in our current theoriesMostly because unlike photons they still have mass and accelerating mass to C takes infinite amount of energy. Not sure how much it takes to pass that line :)

I thought we weren't so sure anymore that light is only waves, not particles? I always tend to assume there is no either/or. But it will be interesting to see how this turns out.

Time does not exist in an absolute sense, only in a relative one. I've always interpreted time stopping at the speed of light to refer to the issueof measurement. Take a double-sided tv that emits one frame of light in opposite directions. If your only frame of reference is the single frame of light travelling in one direction, the light wouldn't appear to move at all. Measured from the tv, it travels at the speed of light. If measured from the frame of light travelling in the opposite direction, it travels at twice the speed of light.

Time only measures movement, and it needs two objects moving independently from each other to be able to observe movement It takes two sets of movers two measure time, which is what locks show you. "0% time" surely only exists in that same frame of reference. And travelling back in time is therefore not possible, but we've done that one here before I'm sure.
 
Back
Top