cern researchers ask physics community to check their ftl neutrino findings!

**suciul** · September 22nd, 2011, 04:19 PM

HERE:

Scientists at the world's largest physics lab said Thursday they have clocked neutrinos traveling faster than light. That's something that according to Einstein's 1905 special theory of relativity - the famous E (equals) mc2 equation - just doesn't happen.

"The feeling that most people have is this can't be right, this can't be real," said James Gillies, a spokesman for the European Organization for Nuclear Research. The organization, known as CERN, hosted part of the experiment, which is unrelated to the massive $10 billion Large Hadron Collider also located at the site.

**Pennarin** · September 22nd, 2011, 06:41 PM

It's been challenged a half dozen times in the past 10-15 years. This is no biggie. Ex. waves may resonate in such a way that a waveform is created that travels faster than any of it's constituent waves, thus arrive at a detector timed in such a way as to appear to have traveled faster than c, if the distance between emitter and detector is precisely known.

Same as the age of the universe; it's impossible for stars to have appeared before a certain time from the Big Bang, yet older and older stars are found. Measurements and conclusions are faulty, either about the post-Big Bang era or the star's age measurement (i.e. it's distance from us).

**Shonsu** · September 22nd, 2011, 07:33 PM

That's the great thing about science. Absolutely everything we "know" is basically a theory.

**Nicolas** · September 23rd, 2011, 09:07 AM

It's a short notice I know, but the researchers at CERN are presenting their findings in a conference which is being broadcasted live, friday 23rd at 15:00 GMT.

Here is the link of the webcast:
http://indico.cern.ch/conferenceDisp...?confId=155620

**psikeyhackr** · September 23rd, 2011, 09:19 AM

Reality doesn't care what we think we know.

Too many people get fixated on the BELIEF that what we KNOW must be correct.

It is just the best guess so far. Real scientists should Love finding stuff that contradicts what they KNOW. It means we have stumbled across something new to figure out.

But it probably means most of the "scientists" won't be able to figure it out. It was more than 40 years before Einstein came along and explained the precession of the orbit of Mercury.

It's a short notice I know, but the researchers at CERN are presenting their findings in a conference which is being broadcasted live, friday 23rd at 15:00 GMT.

Are they going to announce when the first warp 2.0 drive will be ready?

psik

**mylinar** · September 23rd, 2011, 10:30 AM

Well we will see what shakes out of this. However extrordinary claims require extrordinary proof. I am betting this is experimental error. The reason I think this is that if Light were not the immutable barrier we thought then why have we not seen things that are 2X, 3X or even 100X faster? After analysis I bet the results fit into a statistical margin of error.

However, if so that would be kind of a shame. It would be tremendous to think that the Stars are not as 'far' away as we believe.

Psik. IBM had OS/2 Warp out years ago.

**Radone** · September 23rd, 2011, 11:04 AM

Originally Posted by mylinar

Well we will see what shakes out of this. However extrordinary claims require extrordinary proof. I am betting this is experimental error. The reason I think this is that if Light were not the immutable barrier we thought then why have we not seen things that are 2X, 3X or even 100X faster? After analysis I bet the results fit into a statistical margin of error.

It may turn out to be experimental error. That often turns out to be the case. Or misinterpretation of data. As for why haven't we seen things moving faster...well, perhaps we haven't had a good enough clocks and detectors until now. With better tools, you can build better stuff and do more advanced science.
An earlier poster thought this whole FTL neutrino thing was no biggie. He/she may be right, but I would hope that professional scientists aren't so boxed in by their training that they wouldn't have considered such an obvious cause of measurement error.

**offog** · September 23rd, 2011, 04:35 PM

One of the problems as stated here is that the neutrinos from Supernova 1987A arrived three hours ahead of the photons but that's probably because they left that much earlier (neutrinos being so small they hardly interact with the matter of the exploding star). If they were going as fast as CERN is saying they should have arrived five years ahead! The title subject of the article gives another theory on the time difference that doesn't require FTL travel but rather shortening the distance. Interesting stuff.

**Radone** · September 23rd, 2011, 06:41 PM

Interesting link. As a science, cosmology is difficult. For instance, the distance from Earth of SN 1987A is measured/estimated based on red shift. What if red shift isn't quite what we think it is? Or what if the universal constants aren't completely identical in all regions of space ie there are areas of space where light speed is different than in our area?
I look forward to seeing what the physicists find out.

**Asimovking** · September 25th, 2011, 08:15 AM

Originally Posted by Shonsu

That's the great thing about science. Absolutely everything we "know" is basically a theory.

Yes sir

**psikeyhackr** · September 25th, 2011, 10:32 AM

They are talking about a 60 nanosecond variation over a distance of 450 miles.

If my calculations are correct that is about 1/500th of 1% faster than light.

Warp 2.0 will take a while.

I find it curious that I could not find an article that provided a simple expression of how much faster than light it was supposed to be.

psik

**The Void** · September 25th, 2011, 10:33 AM

My heart says, "Please, let it be true."
My skeptic side says, "Huh? No way in this universe!"

Phil Plait's blog about it: Faster-than-light travel discovered? Slow down, folks.

**offog** · September 25th, 2011, 11:34 AM

Originally Posted by psikeyhackr

I find it curious that I could not find an article that provided a simple expression of how much faster than light it was supposed to be.

That's what I was looking for. Somebody said it'd be 231,475,000 km further in a year I'm not going to check the math on that, not because I'm too lazy but I don't trust myself not to get it wrong.

Distance traveled in trillions of kilometers in one year if the above number is correct.

l.y. = 9.460730
n.y. = 9.460961

**psikeyhackr** · September 25th, 2011, 01:29 PM

Originally Posted by offog

That's what I was looking for.
Distance traveled in trillions of kilometers in one year if the above number is correct.

l.y. = 9.460730
n.y. = 9.460961

That would be 1/400th of 1% faster than light

psik