A Small Glimmer of Hope For Faster-Than-Light Neutrinos 183
sciencehabit writes "The CERN particle physics laboratory in Geneva has confirmed Wednesday's report that a loose fiber-optic cable may be behind measurements that seemed to show neutrinos outpacing the speed of light. But the lab also says another glitch could have caused the experiment to underestimate the particles' speed. The other effect concerns an oscillator that gives its readings time stamps synchronized to GPS signals. Researchers think correcting for an error in this device would actually increase the anomaly in neutrino velocity, making the particles even speedier than the earlier measurements seemed to show."
Last Post (Score:5, Funny)
Well, if FTL works, it will have gone back in time to be sooner than that.
Re:Poor Quality Assurance does not boost confidenc (Score:5, Funny)
I should also add that I will be conducting my own experiments in my basement with a neutrino cannon, flashlight and stop watch. If I see anything interesting, I'll post the results here.
If you want anything done right, you have to do it yourself!
The new equation (Score:5, Funny)
E = MC^2 * (1 + ($M - $P ) / L ) + ( Ic/Ir )
Where:
E = Energy
M = Mass
C = Speed of light
M = Monster cable
P = PC Warehouse cable
L = Length of cable
Ic = Interval between calibration scheduled
Ir = Interval calibration required
Re:Poor Quality Assurance does not boost confidenc (Score:5, Funny)
sarcasm meter must be on the fritz again - all i pick up is asshole.
Re:A good side effect of all this (Score:5, Funny)
We might even advance the whole science of measurement.
And metrology, too!
Re:Poor Quality Assurance does not boost confidenc (Score:5, Funny)
Just reverse the tachyon field on your deflector array, and then inject a stream of polarons into the positronic matrix.
Jeez, do I have to do everything around here?
Re:Poor Quality Assurance does not boost confidenc (Score:5, Funny)
Only on Slashdot do you find scientists reading forums from their labs at 1AM on Saturday mornings while waiting for experiments to finish up.
*Looks over at refluxing reaction vessel*
Dammit.
Re:Poor Quality Assurance does not boost confidenc (Score:5, Funny)
Quoting ArcherB:
> "I should also add that I will be conducting
> my own experiments in my basement with a neutrino cannon,
> flashlight and stop watch. If I see anything interesting,
> I'll post the results here."
Actually, if you get any results, please put them in the first post so everyone can see them.
If I get any interesting results, I'll post them yesterday.
Re:Poor Quality Assurance does not boost confidenc (Score:5, Funny)
"It's the cleaning lady! She must have bumped into it!"
Re:In other news (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Poor Quality Assurance does not boost confidenc (Score:2, Funny)
*shrugs* It may be possible to travel faster than light. However, we do tend to have a good idea how fast various known particles DO travel. There may be unknown particles that do travel faster than light, and / or other methods that allow normal matter to traverse space / time much faster than what is currently considered feasible.
However, CERN wasn't, to our knowledge, using wormholes or exotic matter or what not that particular day (Thursdays are wormhole days, Fridays are black-hole days, Saturdays are the day that they perform tune-ups on the chips they implanted in the EU politicians' brains, Sundays are tapioca pudding days), so no one is taking the experimental results too seriously.