Speedy neutrino mystery likely solved, relativity safe after all.

reply to post by CLPrime


Oh, ok, well then I guess it is a bit more obscure than I had first assumed. Still ironic though.

EDIT:

Actually, you might say this is inside-out velocity dilation.

Wait, so it is velocity time dilation...what do you mean by inside out? You mean it's the other way around then what we usually deal with? If so, that doesn't really make it any better.

Originally posted by CLPrime
reply to post by ALOSTSOUL

 

So, basically, what happened was they were using distance measurements based in the Earth's reference frame, while using time measurements based in a GPS satellite's reference frame. From the Earth's perspective, the two locations (in Switzerland and Italy) were stationary, but, from the perspective of the GPS satellite timing the experiment, those locations were moving.

I once had a (software) client telling me that they needed to synchronize their east coast and west coast data centers to the atomic clock in Bolder, Colorado. Their tolerances were so tight as to be well inside the variation introduced by transmitting the time signal at the speed of light (much less the differing processing speeds of their mainframes).

It had not occurred to them that they would have to make mathematical estimates for transmission preparation and means (over which they had no control, e.g., landlines or satellite), relative distance of signal travel, and local processing.

It is not like this a new problem.

Well, applications based on relativity work. I don't know why people expect it to be overturned so easily.

reply to post by CLPrime


Correct, pilots do not use nanosecond precision, and I never meant to imply that they did. The explanation is supposed to be based on variances between the earths rotation and GPS satellites, which I hope was obvious to most.
GPS satellites are already calibrated. I assume you have read the article filled with 'possiblys' and 'probablys' scattered throughout? If so, check out the posts below, which show many obvious errors in the explanation

Originally posted by ChaoticOrder

Wait, so it is velocity time dilation...what do you mean by inside out? You mean it's the other way around then what we usually deal with? If so, that doesn't really make it any better.

It does, because, if we don't usually deal with it, then we're not necessarily going to be looking for it. Like I said earlier, sometimes the simplest answers are the easiest to overlook.
When I said this wasn't velocity dilation, I was half wrong, and I corrected myself with that "Actually" bit. What I meant (and didn't have time to fully explain, since I had work to do), was that this isn't the velocity time dilation that is accounted for in GPS synchronization. Specifically, this isn't the velocity time dilation that is the flip-side of gravitational time dilation.
In this case, a different mindset was needed to find the problem. The problem had to be viewed from the perspective of the GPS satellite used to time the experiment. And, this is where our human bias kicks in. As I've said, these are Earth-bound scientists running an Earth-bound experiment. They were far from considering their experiment from the perspective of an orbiting satellite. My guess would be that's why it was overlooked. Initially. You'll notice, it may have taken some time, but the issue has now been discovered. If scientists weren't prone to human error and overlooking the obvious, then we wouldn't need peer review.

Originally posted by sinthia
reply to post by CLPrime

 

Correct, pilots do not use nanosecond precision, and I never meant to imply that they did. The explanation is supposed to be based on variances between the earths rotation and GPS satellites, which I hope was obvious to most.

As I explained in the post above, this isn't quite what the problem was. It was a bit more subtle than that.

GPS satellites are already calibrated.

Not for this... otherwise it would never have been an issue and the experiment would never have made any headlines, because the neutrinos would have been found to be travelling slightly slower than the speed of light.

I assume you have read the article filled with 'possiblys' and 'probablys' scattered throughout? If so, check out the posts below, which show many obvious errors in the explanation

The apparent uncertainty is due to the fact that this conclusion has yet to be peer reviewed. You'll notice, the announcement that these neutrinos were found to be travelling faster than light was full of 'possibly's and 'probably's, as well.

Seems like the GPS satellite point of view has been considered and the earth Switzerland Cern to Italy point of view considered but still something important has been left out. The neutrinos' point of view. I'm not sure that neutrinos have even been proven to exist yet but, hypothetically, if they do exist, what would neutrino-centric measuring be like? Would neutrino-earth measuring involve hyperbolic distances and time-space warps? I'm not sure that a neutrino could even be considered earth-based and in that case there isn't any way to know how far away from earth the neutrino is to begin with.

Originally posted by luxordelphi

... something important has been left out. The neutrinos' point of view.

Nothing's being measured from the neutrinos' point of view, so their reference frame doesn't matter in this experiment.

Faster than light speed is possable infact we are all doing it now.Space travels faster than light we know this due to doppler effect.The further we are from an object the faster it receides from us.An us from them.The space we ocopy is travelling faster than speed of light from the most distant objects in the univese.If this were not so we would see know black in the sky at night,There are so many stars an galaxies in the universe that every where we look should be a point of light.The very fact we do see black sky is thanks to space expanding faster than light.Im not makeing this up its proven fact.

reply to post by ecossiepossie


First of all, universal expansion, which is a metric expansion, does not translate into proper velocity. The expansion of the universe is not causing greater motion in objects further away. Space between objects is expanding. This is not motion. And it's most certainly not faster-than-light.

Second, there is no way to know that there are stars beyond the observable universe, so you have no basis to say that, if it weren't for superluminal expansion, the sky would be completely lit. Since we have no way to see beyond the CMB, we have no way of knowing what's beyond it. In fact, the very nature of the CMB indicates that beyond it represents a period of time spanning just a few hundred thousand years between the initial inflation epoch and recombination, which is a period producing no light whatsoever.

OK you may be right my point is that the speed of light may have been broken not by physical objucts or matter but by expansion dureing inflation,An even now there are observable galaxies moveing away from us faster than light.So it stands to reason if they are looking at us we are moveing away from them faster than light I cut an pasted this.....You can think of expanding space like a giant, stretching sheet of rubber (or maybe better: an expanding loaf of raisin bread). For two points on the sheet (or two raisins) that are close together, the space between them does not expand very quickly. But the farther away the two points are, the faster the space between them expands.

Because of the rapid expansion of space on cosmological scales, we have actually catalogued about 1,000 galaxies that are receding from us at faster than lightspeed. There's an excellent, easy to read online article in Scientfic American (see below) that explains more about this.

reply to post by ecossiepossie


And my first point was that this is not actual velocity. Universal (metric) expansion is not motion. The space between objects is growing, objects are not moving farther apart. There's a difference, and it's a very important one, but it's one that's lost on many people.
Most people are still thinking in terms of a Big Bang - an initial explosion propelling matter outward at a great (and initially vastly superluminal) velocity. But, we now understand expansion in a different way. There was no explosion. Instead, there was inflation. Objects are not moving faster the further out you go. Space is stretching at a constant rate, which gives the illusion that objects are moving faster the further out you go. There is no actual motion involved.

The only motion we do observe is proper motion (which is how fast individual objects travel through space, independent of expansion, and is measured with respect to the CMB). This motion is always subluminal.

Now, The GPS satellites are ALREADY corrected for in regards to relativity.

And they're totally, 100% correct, because the distance that the neutrinos had to travel in their reference frame is longer than the distance that the neutrinos had to travel in our reference frame

So... a passing satellite changed the distance the neutrino had to travel here on earth, eh?

because in our reference frame, the detector was moving towards the source.

The detector could not be moving towards the source, because they are both stationary relative to each-other.

G.P.S. satellites BROADCAST their own internal Time, which is how the entire system works.

A GPS receiver calculates its position by precisely timing the signals sent by GPS satellites high above the Earth. Each satellite continually transmits messages that include

* the time the message was transmitted
* precise orbital information (the ephemeris)
* the general system health and rough orbits of all GPS satellites (the almanac).

The receiver uses the messages it receives to determine the transit time of each message and computes the distance to each satellite.
en.wikipedia.org...

What time you receive from the satellites will be the same regardless of how fast the thing you are measuring is moving, because the DETECTOR is stationary.

Someone is trying to Cover something up...

And it took them THIS LONG to manufacture a Lie.

reply to post by ErtaiNaGia


It only seems like a lie to you because you don't understand the cause of the discrepancy. Plus, I'm well acquainted with your anti-Relativity stance, so you would have to disagree with the conclusion, wouldn't you?
Of course, I have a pro-Relativity stance, so I have to agree with the conclusion. I still say you and I aren't all that different.

Originally posted by CLPrime
reply to post by ecossiepossie

 

And my first point was that this is not actual velocity. Universal (metric) expansion is not motion. The space between objects is growing, objects are not moving farther apart. There's a difference, and it's a very important one, but it's one that's lost on many people.
Most people are still thinking in terms of a Big Bang - an initial explosion propelling matter outward at a great (and initially vastly superluminal) velocity. But, we now understand expansion in a different way. There was no explosion. Instead, there was inflation. Objects are not moving faster the further out you go. Space is stretching at a constant rate, which gives the illusion that objects are moving faster the further out you go. There is no actual motion involved.

The only motion we do observe is proper motion (which is how fast individual objects travel through space, independent of expansion, and is measured with respect to the CMB). This motion is always subluminal.

I may go a little off-topic here, sorry
I was reading earlier an article about Alcubierre´s paper about the artificial creation of differentials in the space-time in order to very theoretically "displace" an object without moving FTL. (the so-discussed here alcubierre drive)
And they mentioned that the frontal region of the "bubble" would compress the space, creating a zone with conditions similar to those in the first moments of the universe's life. And how this would respect both GR and SR.
And after a few hours of and cursing my relativity-disabled brain, I think i may have started to "get it"...
The point is:
1) what effects would the creation of this "wave" in space-time have on the surrounding space and "stuff in space"?
and
2) What is the difference between matter and space? (I know it sounds retarded, but there's a subtlety there that eludes me... )

Originally posted by ErtaiNaGia
Now, The GPS satellites are ALREADY corrected for in regards to relativity.

The story doesn't claim that they completely neglected the results of relativity. You're right about the satellites already being corrected for SOME relativistic effects.

The claim is rather that some of the subtler aspects of relativity were overlooked. When the authors of the original paper admit their mistake then we can probably say the error is confirmed. Until then I guess you can claim the jury is out and I won't dispute that.

Originally posted by drakus
I may go a little off-topic here, sorry...
1) what effects would the creation of this "wave" in space-time have on the surrounding space and "stuff in space"?
and
2) What is the difference between matter and space? (I know it sounds retarded, but there's a subtlety there that eludes me...

)

Rather than post off-topic in this thread, why not create a new thread? Those are interesting enough questions but you are right about them not being on topic.

I program here and then. I know how easy it's to overlook a simple bug in the code. You can work on it for several hours and come up blank. Then you go to bed for 4 hours, frustrated. You wake up fresher and in 30 minutes you solve the problem. It turned out to be the wrong routine. The syntax and everything was correct. Somehow you just wrote out the wrong one. This kind of thing happens ALL THE TIME in programming. I'm sure it happens in other fields.

One thing I've noticed is that I can spend hours and hours looking for the bug and just can't find it. It's only when I take a break from it and come back later that it comes to me. And often it comes quick, within 30 or 60 minutes. Somehow the brain gets stuck in a certian mode and just cannot find the bug. It needs a break. Maybe these CERN researchers were "stuck". They needed somebody else to find the bug for them or they needed to take a break. In their case, a break would probably be a lot longer than a few hours.

Scientists aren't perfect. Similarly, programmers aren't either. You can read every book out there and still forget things. You have to constantly refer to books and help files. Sometimes the mind drifts too, and you can misplace something and then not remember it. The brain is a messy thing. It's not precise. Hard science and peer review help to keep our brain under control.

reply to post by drakus


To keep this thread from going too far off-topic, I'll reply in a U2U...if you don't mind.

Or, as Arbitrageur suggested, you could start a thread. I'd be more than happy to contribute there.

reply to post by ErtaiNaGia

Oh come on. Even though I don't 100% understand the explanation given in the link, I'm familiar with these kinds of blunders in my own way. It's not a surprise to me that the CERN researchers are wrong. But we have to wait for a confirmation from CERN that they did not properly account for ALL aspects of relativity. I think that we all give scientists TOO MUCH credit. They're humans. Not angels. Science doesn't depend on one person or one group of researchers. Science depends on peer review and hard science. So a group is wrong; CERN. Others corrected them.

It's the peer review and reproducibility of science that makes it so trustworthy.

Originally posted by jonnywhite
They needed somebody else to find the bug for them

That's a valid comment. I think they alluded to that when they published their results, that if there was an error, they couldn't find it and they were publishing the results to get more eyes looking for it.

I've had the exact same experience in not only trying to fix broken code, but also broken cars and broken computers. There's something about stepping away from the problem and coming back to it with a fresh look that facilitates problem-solving and solutions we didn't see before we stepped away.

Originally posted by CLPrime
Or, as Arbitrageur suggested, you could start a thread.

Other people might be interested in that too so that might be the best option. I find your comments are frequently insightful so it would be a shame to hide that in a private message where others can't benefit from it!