CERN breaks light speed barrier?

[Exorcet]

So, Famine are you saying these "Neutrinos" can pass through anything cleanly? So for example if I were to walk into a blast of Neutrinos I would be find and they would have dodged or missed all my cells? On the other hand could I get cut into little bits and pieces? I'm a bit confused as to how they can just go through anything without any interference.

[I am not Famine, but I'll give it a shot]

The Sun is blasting you with neutrinos.

It might seem strange that they pass through matter, but you could ask the opposite of matter. Why does it interact with itself? It's just the way things are, it doesn't necessarily have to be that way.

Neutrinos have no mass, charge, or color [a property, not color as in a hue], so 3 of the 4 fundamental forces (gravity, electromagnetism, and strong force) don't effect them. They are effected by the weak force, I think, though that's the force I understand the least so I can't really explain how that works.

They would pass through you the same way gamma radiation would I'm guessing. The have no mass like photons, you don't see photons shredding windows do you?

That's a good analogy, though gamma rays don't really pass through matter, they just have so much energy that it takes a lot of mass to absorb them. And photons pass through glass because the electron arrangement does not readily absorb photons in the visible spectrum.

 

[W3H5]

Dear santa. I know what i want for chrismas. Famine as my physics teacher drinking buddy on the pub quiz team .

Fixed.

 

[Sly Guy]

Time travel here we come

 

[Dotini]

The Sun is blasting you with neutrinos.

It might seem strange that they pass through matter, but you could ask the opposite of matter. Why does it interact with itself? It's just the way things are, it doesn't necessarily have to be that way.

Neutrinos have no mass, charge, or color [a property, not color as in a hue], so 3 of the 4 fundamental forces (gravity, electromagnetism, and strong force) don't effect them. They are effected by the weak force, I think, though that's the force I understand the least so I can't really explain how that works.

I've seen comment in other (physics oriented) sites that neutrinos may repel each other. This, if true, may account for expansion of the universe and possibly help explain why they seem to scoot along quicker than photons - they do some mutual spreading out? Apparently, neutrinos arriving from supernova do so only slightly quicker than photons, so the repulsion factor, or its intrinsic speed limit, if any, may work differently on cosmic scales than at the scale of the CERN OPERA experiment? I've also seen some speculation that neutrinos may have some extremely tiny amount of mass.

Most of the comments by physicists and PhD's I've seen in other places reflect the desire to see a systematic error found in the experiment.

My comment: It is greatly to be desired that the experimental finding be invalidated or disproved, since several cans of worms will be opened if it is confirmed by Fermilab.

Respectfully submitted,
Steve

 

[Stevisiov]

The have no mass like photons, you don't see photons shredding windows do you?

Neutrinos have no mass, charge, or color [a property, not color as in a hue]

But that's one of the weirdest things of all, they DO have mass, albeit a barely measurable mass.

So you have a particle of mass exceeding C, under the circumstances in this experiment, it should be impossible.

Most of the comments by physicists and PhD's I've seen in other places reflect the desire to see a systematic error found in the experiment.
Respectfully submitted,
Steve

A systematic error seems to be the most likely explanation for these results, however you would have thought that over the course of 15 000 readings over 3 years, they would have been able to isolate a systematic error from their results.

That said, you would expect the other Neutrino experiments to have observed something similar in the last few years.

 

[Dotini]

But that's one of the weirdest things of all, they DO have mass, albeit a barely measurable mass.

So you have a particle of mass exceeding C, under the circumstances in this experiment, it should be impossible.

A systematic error seems to be the most likely explanation for these results, however you would have thought that over the course of 15 000 readings over 3 years, they would have been able to isolate a systematic error from their results.

That said, you would expect the other Neutrino experiments to have observed something similar in the last few years.

Apparently several other experiments have achieved similar anomalous results over the last few years, but the experimentalists were more than happy to overlook them because of the measurement error factor. With CERN OPERA, the measurement error is not so significant. Now Fermilab will redo the experiment with even greater precision in the course of several experiments over the next few months.

Respectfully,
Steve

Edit: I've heard some folks say that if a particle with mass exceeds c, then the flow of time runs backwards and the hoary beast of causality rises from its crypt. Not to mention compromising all equations since 1905 which use c as a factor.

Edit 2: More news/info on neutrinos, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-13763641

 

[Slick Rick]

Dear santa. I know what i want for chrismas. Famine as my physics teacher.

Hahaha 👍 Thats what I was thinking, Just went through 5 pages and read the indigo text and everything ..kinda.. made sense lol

Its all pretty interesing, just wondering, when a particle decays into another particle if it is travelling at the speed of light when it decays could the new one go faster? Example could be if you throw a ball at 10mph it would travel at 10mph, if you were in a moving car travelling at 20mph and threw the same ball it would now be going 30mph. Is that how the neutrino could have exceeded the speed of light??

 

[wfooshee]

They should look for the neutrinos at the target before they're fired from the source. . . . .

God, I love being ignorant!!!!

 

[Famine]

Hahaha 👍 Thats what I was thinking, Just went through 5 pages and read the indigo text and everything ..kinda.. made sense lol

Its all pretty interesing, just wondering, when a particle decays into another particle if it is travelling at the speed of light when it decays could the new one go faster? Example could be if you throw a ball at 10mph it would travel at 10mph, if you were in a moving car travelling at 20mph and threw the same ball it would now be going 30mph. Is that how the neutrino could have exceeded the speed of light??

No. Special (note BBC: NOT General) Relativity accounts for that.

Now, it's worth noting that the people publishing this and discussing it are professional particle physicists and I am the particle physics equivalent of the fat kid you pick last and put in goal, but...

There are five possibilities that explain these results:

• 1. Neutrinos genuinely exceed c in a single frame of reference and that every single measurement of the speed of neutrinos ever taken over the last thirty years is wrong. Not likely.
• 2. Neutrinos don't exceed c, they just appear to because the dummies got the times wrong (either departure time or arrival time) 15,000 times. Not likely.
• 3. Neutrinos don't exceed c, they just appear to because of a known property of neutrinos where neutrinos appear to move superliminally or behave like tachyons. This particular property has been known about for twenty five years, but this would require professional particle physicists to have clean forgotten about it when publishing their results - oh and neutrino oscillation, which is exactly what the original study was about, is an example of this property (a "Lorentz-violating neutrino oscillation") so it's not likely they forgot about what they were studying...
• 4. Neutrinos don't exceed c, they just appear to because of a previously unknown property of neutrinos that occurs at high energies amongst packets of identical neutrinos, possibly involving either interdimensional travel (shortening the distance travelled in the first three dimensions) or unusual interactions with matter, particularly the matter in the Earth's crust between CERN and Gran Sasso.
• 5. The same as option 3 except with wildly overblown media speculation based on misunderstanding the results published and the difference between General and Special Relativity.

My money? I'll be putting 95% of it on #5, thanks.

 

[Exorcet]

I've seen comment in other (physics oriented) sites that neutrinos may repel each other. This, if true, may account for expansion of the universe and possibly help explain why they seem to scoot along quicker than photons - they do some mutual spreading out? Apparently, neutrinos arriving from supernova do so only slightly quicker than photons, so the repulsion factor, or its intrinsic speed limit, if any, may work differently on cosmic scales than at the scale of the CERN OPERA experiment? I've also seen some speculation that neutrinos may have some extremely tiny amount of mass.

just wondering, when a particle decays into another particle if it is travelling at the speed of light when it decays could the new one go faster? Example could be if you throw a ball at 10mph it would travel at 10mph, if you were in a moving car travelling at 20mph and threw the same ball it would now be going 30mph. Is that how the neutrino could have exceeded the speed of light??

Repulsion forces or a "running start" aren't enough to exceed light speed. c requires infinite energy/force to achieve. Also, relativity does some crazy things to keep things from going past c.

For example if two objects approached each other at .75c, classic physics says one will see the other moving faster than c, however relativistic physics says that neither would see the other moving faster than c because of all the dilation effects.

But that's one of the weirdest things of all, they DO have mass, albeit a barely measurable mass.

So you have a particle of mass exceeding C, under the circumstances in this experiment, it should be impossible.

Correction noted, they have mass. But we still don't know if they're breaking c. It could something like the energy from CERN opening a worm hole and letting the neutrinos just plain skip part of the distance.

 

[Stevisiov]

Correction noted, they have mass. But we still don't know if they're breaking c. It could something like the energy from CERN opening a worm hole and letting the neutrinos just plain skip part of the distance.

Yes sorry, the particles appear to be exceeding c, but aren't necessarily, we will hopefully find out in due course.

 

[CMvan46]

I've never read a thread before that made me feel this inadequate with my education.

I don't understand it but my god that's one heck of a discovery.

 

[Crispy]

Well, since these particles pass through pretty much any matter, they wouldn't be able to create hyperspeed space travel. So, sorry. Also Famine, I now feel 90% smarter!

 

[terminator363]

Dumbass question but C is the speed of light, am I correct.

 

[Omnis]

c is the speed of light. C is Coulombs.

 

[Famine]

c is the speed of light

In a vacuum.

 

[Crispy]

So how long would it take light to travel without being in a vacuum then? Would it be a relative speed, or something faster/slower?

 

[Famine]

Light can be slowed in different media - and different wavelengths of light will travel at different speeds in those media. That is, after all, how a prism works and how rainbows are produced...

Light is about 0.03% slower in air than in a vacuum. I believe the current record for slowing light is 40mph, by passing light through supercooled sodium in a state called "Bose–Einstein condensate" (you know solid, liquid, gas, plasma? There's a few other exotic states and "Bose–Einstein condensate" is one of them).

 

[Vince_Fiero]

[*]5. The same as option 3 except with wildly overblown media speculation based on misunderstanding the results published and the difference between General and Special Relativity.[/list]


My money? I'll be putting 95% of it on #5, thanks.

It does seem the convenient bet.

I would add 6) There is a fundamental misunderstanding in what particles moved and in what framework (dimentions, ...) they moved. (I agree I can not forward a theory on this except for that it is the task of science to doubt their every theory).



1) I believe that most of the current theory (c as absolute limit) will be more then 98% of the population will ever need. e.g: If the earth were flat I do not see a difference in my current activities.
2) Kicking the principle that it needs to fit in "Relativity", might give some room for new improved theories (although we did gain a lot of understanding on relativity theories since they appeared).


The media attention is good, it might inspire some people to dive into fundamental mathematics in stead of smoking joints; although the effect on the person might be similar for people observing from a distance.

 

[PeterJB]

I found this fairly interesting:

 

[Krog]

This is why I love science. It sets out to disprove itself.

This is why I ignore science, except when it comes to religous beliefs(Atheism).

 

[Dennisch]

This is why I ignore science, except when it comes to religous beliefs(Atheism).

Care to explain it?

I don't get it.

 

[Krog]

Care to explain it?

I don't get it.

I generally ignore science, because I know it will be disproven and improved, but I trust science more than the bible.

 

[Dennisch]

I generally ignore science, because I know it will be disproven and improved, but I trust science more than the bible.

Ah. That makes sense.

 

[Krog]

Ah. That makes sense.

Do you understand, or agree?

 

[CMvan46]

I know it will be disproven and improved, but I trust science more than the bible.

I'd have to agree there.

 

[Krog]

When I first saw this thread I thought it said "CIEN breaks light speed barrier".

 

[PeterJB]

When I first saw this thread I thought it said "CIEN breaks light speed barrier".

Get the right setup and drive it down the Mulsanne and you're not far off!

 

[homeforsummer]

I generally ignore science, because I know it will be disproven and improved, but I trust science more than the bible.

Ah. That makes sense.

It explains what he meant but I wouldn't say it makes sense.

If you ignore science because it'll be continually dis-proven and improved upon, then you gain absolutely nothing from it. Whether a theory is proven wrong at any point is irrelevant - the idea is that it's the best explanation we have for something, and a new platform from which to explore further.

Science would never get anywhere if everyone decided that whatever they were researching is probably wrong regardless.

 

[Krog]

Get the right setup and drive it down the Mulsanne and you're not far off!

Yeah, why don't they make corvettes like that?