FTL Neutrinos Explained... Maybe 226
The Bad Astronomer writes "A new paper, recently posted on the arXiv physics preprint server, claims to have explained the faster-than-light neutrino experiment from last month. The author claims the motion of the GPS satellite introduces a relativistic dilation that accounts for the now-infamous 60 ns discrepancy in neutrino flight time. However, I'm not so sure; the original experimenters claimed to have accounted for relativistic effects. I don't think we've seen the end of this just yet."
Garbage (Score:5, Insightful)
This is another easy-to-digest paper written by someone who doesn't have the first clue about what was actually done in the experiment, trying to explain it with undergrad physics. And the press jumps on each and every one of these, no matter how bad they are.
In this case, GPS clock synchronization to nanosecond levels is regularly done in meteorology, the relativistic effects are well known and compensated for, because it wouldn't work at all if they weren't, and the synchronization was confirmed by a non-GPS method.
Absolutely nothing to see here.
Re:Give the researcher some credit (Score:4, Insightful)
I think it's fair to assume that the researcher would read the original paper before publishing a reaction to it,
The original paper does not go into detail about the procedures, because it beyond the scope of the paper. You are supposed to go look these things up for yourself, and the person who wrote this paper very clearly didn't.
Re:Gut feeling (Score:5, Insightful)
>we know jack and shit
This attitude is not helpful. This is part of the reason why biblical literalists get away with what they do. They say "hurp, we don't know anything at all, so you may as well believe Genesis word-for-word."
It is anti-reason and a cop-out.
And you cap it off with a complete misunderstanding about what a theory is.
Your post is a load of manure, sir.
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BMO