New Report Casts Doubt on CERN's Faster-Than-Light Neutrino Result

The OPERA team published the amazing discovery of faster-than-light neutrinos back in September.
arxiv.org...

But now a different group of scientists, the ICARUS team, have analyzed the data and cast doubt on the findings. Apparently, because the neutrinos didn't lose energy on their journey they didn't exceed light speed.

Faster-than-light neutrino result queried

Neither team have formally published their results.

reply to post by FOXMULDER147

With the exception of Prof Glashow's theoretical paper, none of the results by the Opera or the Icarus team has been reviewed by the scientific community and formally published.

Interesting. nothing is supposed to travel faster than light, so all our knowledge on that is theoretical.

The team finds the neutrinos are appearing faster than they should, meaning they are travelling faster than light to account for the distance traveled in the time frame.

But, these scientists who haven't released their information for peer review say, theoretically they should emit other particles, lose energy, and slow down to the speed on light, and since the energy shows no loss, no faster than light travel has taken place.

But things aren't supposed to travel that fast to begin with, so how can we honestly "expect" any results?

Man, these guys really need to figure this out, faster than light neutrinos are totally bumming me out.

I personally fell, if it's not an error with the experiment itself, it's a symptom of time dilation. The neutrino travels so fast time dilates and slows for it, while passing as a constant rate for us, allowing the neutrinos to appear before they should, while never breaking the speed of light.

Isn't physics epic?

Originally posted by phishyblankwaters

But, these scientists who haven't released their information for peer review say, theoretically they should emit other particles, lose energy, and slow down to the speed on light, and since the energy shows no loss, no faster than light travel has taken place.

But things aren't supposed to travel that fast to begin with, so how can we honestly "expect" any results?

That's one thing that bugs me when people around here suggest that faster-than-light neutrinos mean going back in time. As you say, if they're violating one part, they should be violating the whole. If they're violating the luminal speed limit, then they should also be violating time dilation, as both result from the same mechanism. It's not a restaurant, they can't pick which parts of a theory they want to keep, like it's a menu, and toss the rest.

That's odd, i was reading only yesterday that the CERN team have repeated the experiment and obtained exactly the same results as the first time. Or in other words, the neutrinos beat light to the target about 450 miles away by about 60ns (60,000,000,000th's of a second).

reply to post by spikey


The experiment can be repeated as many times as they want, but, if it's an unaccounted-for systematic error, then they'll just keep getting the same results.

This is an example of two teams saying two different things for different reasons. The OPERA team is repeating their experiment in a more stringent manner and finding the same results, and another team is looking at the problem mathematically and claiming that what they're seeing can't be happening because current physics doesn't allow it to happen without certain phenomenon that we should be seeing.

At this point, either side could be right. It'll probably take a while to figure out which.

One wonders if there are any politics at play here. Undeniable proof of faster-than-light neutrinos would certainly rock the boat of physics considerably. I imagine there are billions of dollars already invested in projects that are founded on the assumption that nothing breaks the speed of light.

I would hope not, but the stakes are very high.

reply to post by FOXMULDER147


cern was not the first institution to see the faster than light effect it was in fact found a few years earlyer as well,
at the time the findings were so unexpected and unusual that it was concluded to be an anomoly.

then cern finds the same thing, twice.

i wounder if an amazing claim not only requires an amazine amount of certantcy AND a large number of reproductions by peers to allow the idea to gain acceptence.

ie
if the same results are found by 100 different experiment locations then it makes the result harder to explain away.

so in this sence it may take a while for enought data from many sources to confirm this one to the degree required for extra-ordinary claims to be accepted when so much money is at stake


you kinda wana know you are going forwards in underrstanding, and not compounding an error

xp

reply to post by FOXMULDER147

Undeniable proof of faster-than-light neutrinos would certainly rock the boat of physics considerably. I imagine there are billions of dollars already invested in projects that are founded on the assumption that nothing breaks the speed of light.

How about the rate of atomic decay. That was supposed to be standard, but they've shown it isn't. Various factors effect it including the earths position in relation to the sun. This discovery has DRASTIC implications for medical isotope use as depending on where the earth is compared to the sun, you might be getting a low dose, or an extremely high dose.

I'm sure there's a thread on that here.

I don't believe they've broken the speed of light myself, i think it's either time dilation (extremely interesting) or a system error (lame).

But yeah, it can't be half in half out, either it's proof the speed of light can be broken AND a time dilation effect, or neither.

Anyways, lets say they are breaking the speed of light. Other than completely overturning decades of physics, what implications would this have?

What exactly could we do with faster than light neutrinos?

Originally posted by FOXMULDER147
The OPERA team published the amazing discovery of faster-than-light neutrinos back in September.
arxiv.org...

But now a different group of scientists, the ICARUS team, have analyzed the data and cast doubt on the findings. Apparently, because the neutrinos didn't lose energy on their journey they didn't exceed light speed.

Faster-than-light neutrino result queried

Neither team have formally published their results.

This is from official CERN communication:

OPERA experiment update 18 November 2011

Following the OPERA collaboration's presentation at CERN on 23 September, inviting scrutiny of their neutrino time-of-flight measurement from the broader particle physics community, the collaboration has rechecked many aspects of its analysis and taken into account valuable suggestions from a wide range of sources. One key test was to repeat the measurement with very short beam pulses from CERN. This allowed the extraction time of the protons that ultimately lead to the neutrino beam to be measured more precisely.

The beam sent from CERN consisted of pulses three nanoseconds long separated by up to 524 nanoseconds. Some 20 clean neutrino events were measured at the Gran Sasso Laboratory, and precisely associated with the pulse leaving CERN. This test confirms the accuracy of OPERA's timing measurement, ruling out one potential source of systematic error. The new measurements do not change the initial conclusion. Nevertheless, the observed anomaly in the neutrinos' time of flight from CERN to Gran Sasso still needs further scrutiny and independent measurement before it can be refuted or confirmed.

On 17 November, the collaboration submitted a paper on this measurement to the peer reviewed journal JHEP.

Link to paper

Originally posted by phishyblankwaters
What exactly could we do with faster than light neutrinos?

Communication, possibly. However, with our current technology it's hard to imagine any practical use.

But it would refocus the study of physics, which in turn would lead to new discoveries.

Originally posted by FOXMULDER147

Originally posted by phishyblankwaters
What exactly could we do with faster than light neutrinos?

Communication, possibly. However, with our current technology it's hard to imagine any practical use.

But it would refocus the study of physics, which in turn would lead to new discoveries.

For communication, the FTL neutrinos are not much better than ordinary (if those FTL neutrinos do exist, which I doubt).

However, neutrinos have been used for communications for a long time, nor widely though. Unfortunately, it's mostly classified material. There are still many public links like that one.

reply to post by FOXMULDER147

Communication, possibly. However, with our current technology it's hard to imagine any practical use.

Hmm, I'm still placing my bets on quantum entanglement for communication purposes, then we'd finally have those communication stones from, was it Battlestar Galactica? Bah whatever.

This test confirms the accuracy of OPERA's timing measurement, ruling out one potential source of systematic error.

so back to square 1 I guess.

reply to post by CLPrime

Probably so, but am i alone in thinking it totally illogical to dismiss carefully and scientifically structured experiments that have been validated by repetition, at the same time altering the experiment to satisfy critiques of the methods used during previous experimentation, simply due to the results obtained flying in the face of accepted theory?

I imagined science was all about discovery and advancement, yet one could be forgiven for thinking science is instead concerned with maintaining accepted (and apparently flawed) theory and the scientific status quo, these days.

A thought has just occurred to me.

What if the neutrinos are in fact, NOT travelling faster than the photons at all, but is somehow 'calling ahead' with news of it's arrival at the destination?

To explain:

Most of us are aware of a couple of famous experiments and hypotheses formed in Physics.(if not intimately, we have heard of them) The 'Double slit experiment' and the Schroedinger's cat hypothesis are two that spring to mind for me.

The double slit experiment, where electrons bizarrely appear to change their properties and action, depending on whether the electrons are being observed or not...and similarly the Schroedinger's cat hypothesis relies on the same bizarre situation where a cat (or any living thing) with either prussic acid being released in a sealed cage, or some other means of killing the cat is present, will only actually kill the cat, if (and when) the internals of the cage are being observed or measured.

What if something bizarre is occurring at the quantum level, such as 'Quantum pairing' or a similar, but as yet unrecognised phenomena?

What if the neutrinos are 'aware' they require infinite amounts of energy to travel faster than photons, and get around this problem buy creating a Quantum paired 'twin' neutrino at the destination instead, and surrender it's existence in favour of the 'paired twin' AT the destination?

Originally posted by spikey
reply to post by CLPrime

 

Probably so, but am i alone in thinking it totally illogical to dismiss carefully and scientifically structured experiments that have been validated by repetition, at the same time altering the experiment to satisfy critiques of the methods used during previous experimentation, simply due to the results obtained flying in the face of accepted theory?

There is a gap in logic right there, in "simply due". Are you aware of the details of critique? Has it occur to you that some of it was valid regardless of the result obtained?

Originally posted by spikey

Probably so, but am i alone in thinking it totally illogical to dismiss carefully and scientifically structured experiments that have been validated by repetition, at the same time altering the experiment to satisfy critiques of the methods used during previous experimentation, simply due to the results obtained flying in the face of accepted theory?

It's illogical to dismiss it, but, remember, this single experiment hinting at faster-than-light neutrinos is up against multiple precise, careful, and scientifically structured experiments validating accepted theory. The skepticism is understandable.

Originally posted by CLPrime
reply to post by spikey

 

. The OPERA team is repeating their experiment in a more stringent manner and finding the same results, and another team is looking at the problem mathematically and claiming that what they're seeing can't be happening because current physics doesn't allow it to happen without certain phenomenon that we should be seeing.

The problem with the naysayers is that this is exactly what has been going on since Einstein scribbled on the blackboard that there was a hard and fast SOL limit. The recent experiments showed otherwise. Do you believe your eyes or the old theory?

The naysayers can only claim that something is wrong with the experiment/analysis. The other guys are saying, "No, the data is good. Go rewrite your equations." (This reminds me of the half a century battle over UFOs, dyed in the wool scientists (Sagan for one) can prove with Equations that ETs can't get here, People that witness the things say, "Seeing is believing." Pick your position, old school conservative or forward thinker without the blinders?

Originally posted by Aliensun
Pick your position, old school conservative or forward thinker without the blinders?

Pick your position, one who understands the scientific method and actually is familiar with the field, or a bag full of hot air?

PS. I'm sick of people calling Einstein a moron or somebody who is creator of all dogma

Originally posted by Aliensun
The problem with the naysayers is that this is exactly what has been going on since Einstein scribbled on the blackboard that there was a hard and fast SOL limit. The recent experiments showed otherwise. Do you believe your eyes or the old theory?

The naysayers can only claim that something is wrong with the experiment/analysis. The other guys are saying, "No, the data is good. Go rewrite your equations."

I don't think they said "Go rewrite your equations.", unless you want to provide a source for that quote.

Here's what I recall them saying:

www.bbc.co.uk...

The team has published its work so other scientists can determine if the approach contains any mistakes.

That's not quite the same as "rewrite your equations", is it?

But the group understands that what are known as "systematic errors" could easily make an erroneous result look like a breaking of the ultimate speed limit.

That has motivated them to publish their measurements.

"My dream would be that another, independent experiment finds the same thing - then I would be relieved," Dr Ereditato told BBC News.

But for now, he explained, "we are not claiming things, we want just to be helped by the community in understanding our crazy result - because it is crazy".

No quote there about rewriting equations. In fact he's quoted as saying "we are not claiming things".

I thought the argument mentioned in this latest article was pretty much already known in September? If that's the case then perhaps the only development here is that argument has been written up in a paper.

From the OP article:

It is clear the issue is unlikely to be conclusively resolved until other experiments around the world undertake similar measurements.

The Borexino experiment, also at Gran Sasso, the Minos experiment in the US and Japan's T2K facility are all expected to publish their results of similar neutrino experiments in the coming months.

So there are three replication experiments in progress? Good, the results of those should prove more enlightening than this latest paper.

reply to post by buddhasystem

There is a gap in logic right there, in "simply due". Are you aware of the details of critique? Has it occur to you that some of it was valid regardless of the result obtained?

By 'has it occurred to me', do you mean that the criticism levelled about packaging the neutrino bundle more tightly is valid criticism?

If so, then yes, it has occurred to me, and yes i think it's a valid criticism...so did CERN apparently, having altered the parameters of the second experiment in order to answer and address those very points.

But that wasn't really my point (about the criticism)...i completely agree that a monumental, paradigm changing result would and quite rightly, should be challenged and validated by replication (independent preferably), inspection and so on. I would expect no less from professionals, especially in regards to something like this.

I was making a point about professional physicists and other scientists dismissing the results out of hand, claiming errors, mistakes, skulduggery or anything else on the tip of their tongues before having a chance to replicate or investigate personally, simply because accepted THEORY, says that the experiment result is impossible.

Of course, i appreciate the results should NOT be taken at face value, and rigorous investigation and further hopefully independent experimentation will need to be performed to validate or repudiate the results.

But that is a world away from professionals stating categorically that the results are impossible or erroneous...that's not science as i comprehend it. Science is meant to challenge our paradigms and comprehension...automatically claiming error or even fraud is not scientific, it's simply propping up the accepted theory.

I read this elsewhere.

"that any faster-than-light particles would be expected to emit a particular type of radiation as they traveled. Because they didn't detect any of this coming from the neutrinos — and because the particles didn't seem to be shedding energy in the form of undetected radiation — they must have been traveling at or below the speed of light."

Sounds like a self forefilling conclusion to me.
The theories tenants, one of which is in question, place constraints and even the final conlusions on the outcome. Those neutrinos never had a chance.
How do they detect undetectable radiation to know it's not there anyway? Perhaps it's the very reason they can travel faster? After all if something unknown is truly happening here it's just may be there are other unknowns as well.

They (neutrinos) are doing something they are not supposed to do according to theory, so because they are not doing what we expect or detect (shedding radiation) as well according to theory, they therefore cannot be doing what they appear to be doing in the first place. And the theory is safe. Phew!

Perhaps it's just the media reporting screwing things up again. Anyway it's certainly interesting, on a physics level and a psychological level. Looking forward to seeing how this plays out.

I expect there will be papers going back and forth over this for a while yet.