OPERA Group Repeats Faster-Than-Light Neutrino Results 442
gbrumfiel writes "Earlier this year, the OPERA experiment made the extraordinary claim that they had seen neutrinos traveling faster than the speed of light. The experiment, located at Gran Sasso in Italy, saw neutrinos arrive 60 nanoseconds earlier than expected from their starting point at CERN in Switzerland. Others have doubted OPERA's claim, but in a new paper, the group reaffirms its commitment to the measurement. 'It's slightly better than the previous result,' OPERA's physics coordinator Dario Autiero told Nature News. Most members of the collaboration who didn't sign the original paper out of skepticism have now come on board. But scientists outside the group still aren't sure. 'Independent checks are the way to go,' says Rob Plunkett, co-spokesman of a rival experiment called MINOS."
Re:Supernovas (Score:4, Insightful)
That's exactly why I am not just sceptical but quite openly dismissive of any claims of superluminal neutrinos.
Re:Supernovas (Score:3, Insightful)
And thus you are no longer speaking of science, but religion.
Re:Supernovas (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Supernovas (Score:4, Insightful)
He's not speaking religion. There's nothing metaphysical in his statement. He didn't say god wouldn't allow Neutrinos to be faster of light, or something like that. You cannot divide things just into science and religion. Some things are neither.
Re:Supernovas (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh, come on, seriously? You're going to insist that we watch 5000 supernovas before you'll accept this as a valid point? A single carefully measured *truly independent* data point is more valuable than a thousand repetitions of the same experiment.
Or to put it another way: say you measure the voltage of a battery 100 times with a voltmeter, and measure 0 volts every time. I hook it to a light bulb and the bulb lights up. Are you going to insist that my single observation is useless, or is it possible your voltmeter is broken?
Re:Supernovas (Score:5, Insightful)
His point (which should be modded up) is that God or no God, the essential difference between religion and science is that religion puts articles of faith before observed data. Which is exactly what the post he was responding to was doing.
Don't get me wrong: I think the OPERA experiment will turn out to be wrong. But neutrinos are so poorly-understood and poorly-observed that any blanket dismissal of OPERA's results counts as an act of faith.
Re:General Relativity is Wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
That objects can't travel faster than light is in special relativity, which does not contradict quantum mechanics.
Re:Supernovas (Score:3, Insightful)
1987a was 168,000 ly from Earth. The anomalous neutrinos had a excess speed of 1/40,000 c. So I'd expect them to arrive four years (ok, 50 months) prior to the light.
Re:More tests please. (Score:5, Insightful)
Whatever it is, I give them props for trying to solve this in the most honest, transparent way possible and remaining open to being wrong. They're exemplifying "good" scientific method and that makes them more credible to begin with.
Re:Supernovas (Score:5, Insightful)
You can't tell anything to those guys.
Re:Supernovas (Score:5, Insightful)
If real, qualified physicists are pondering this issue, it is a bit early for us mere mortals be openly dismissive.
Re:Supernovas (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Supernovas (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Supernovas (Score:0, Insightful)
Which part of science runs on belief, again?
I think you went and made the point you were trying to refute there, chief.
Re:Supernovas (Score:5, Insightful)
There have already been four credible ideas posted in this discussion as to why the measurements we are seeing could differ from prior ones, without either being wrong. Different energies, different neutron flavors, interactions with gravity, interactions with mass, etc. Neutrons are still not completely understood, and since their predictions/discovery we have had to change the standard model twice (that I am aware of) to match new observations, and we will likely have to again in light of growing evidence of flavor oscillations. Non-baryonic matter is very much at the ragged edge of what experimental physics can observe, and finding unexpected things should be expected.
I'm skeptical of their results, and think that there is probably something that hasn't been accounted for in their timing. But if you flat-out dismiss new evidence because it doesn't agree with your models based on past evidence, then you have crossed the bounds from scientific skepticism to personal belief.
Re:Supernovas (Score:5, Insightful)
"much harder to refute" how about no
- Neutrinos through Interstellar medium vs. neutrinos through "planet earth" (almost the same thing to neutrinos, sure, still, almost)
- Neutrino interactions with interstellar medium
- Neutrino oscillations
- Neutrino generation process in a supernova event How do we know the level of neutrino generation didn't begin to raise 4 years before it went supernova? Far fetched yes, impossible, no.
Re:Supernovas (Score:5, Insightful)
Stop being closed minded. Lets look at the science.
1) They got a result that defies are current understanding
2) The people performing the tests assume it's an experiment error, but can't find it
3) The people performing the tests were like " Hey scientific community*, we know this can't be right, but we can't find out where the error is, how about a little help?
4) The scinetific community is like " what about this this and this
5) Those are great. we checked and no, no and no? here is the results
6) Well, ceck all youtr quipement and try again
7) OK, oh look the same result just better refined.
So keep an open mind. Not a 'Hey man, anything is possible." open mind, but a mind that looks at the actual evidence.
Remember, about 125 year ago, someone came up with ideas that where complete outside out understanding of the universe as we know it. If everyone just dismissed bohr, then where would we be?
Whether or not this is true, it is a great example of science and it' workings.
For the record, I am skeptical of the findings, but I expected the community to have found something wrong.
Neutrinos change around for reason we don't know either. So it's not like we complete understand them.
*Scientific community: The proper experts in the proper fields.
Re:Supernovas (Score:5, Insightful)
Indeed, new experiments should not be taken at face value. This is why skepticism is encouraged. Dismissal, not so much.
Re:Supernovas (Score:5, Insightful)
Your statement is so vague it's meaningless.
What he wrote was:
"I am saying that this is an experiment that is much harder to refute [blogspot.com] and that it trumps OPERA."
If you believe that to be a religious statement, or even dogma, you simply do not understand those concepts.
Re:Or the other option is... they're just wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
Ok, several stuff there.
Unlikely (but way more likely than FTL neutrinos). They check that stuff a lot, they know how to do the math... But they are still humans, so there can be a problem somewhere. Nobody was able to find it up to now, people are still trying.
It is a mathematical consequence of some models of the universe. Other models don't bring it as a consequence. Remember, we don't know how the universe behaves, we just have clues.
I was corrected recently here on /. while saying that. Ends up that you can't keep current physics at all, so any prediction based on current physics (and yours is based on Relativity and Maxell laws) is not reliable.
Can you prove it? I'm trying to for a time, but it seems that it doesn't follow from the postulate of paradox-free time travel.