[SA Chris]

I find this whole thing fascinating - as its great to see how science works - by that I mean how you have a dominant theory around for ages, then someone comes along and suggests it may not all be right.. Then theres a mixture of people agreeing, saying its bollocks, partially agreeing and disagreeing etc.. And those who say we can explain this with existing theories. Its great to watch..

Anyway, AFAIK this finding could be fundamental as it throws up some whopper question marks about  Einsteins theory of relativity that has underpinned a huge chunk of physics for a number of years.. Never mind double dip recessions this could effect everything

I do too. Must have been like when people first saw what happend when the speed of sound was reached.

[Seb]

Everything Ive read seems to be people thinking there must have been a mistake somewhere in the measurement.
As far as I understand it neutrinos are so hard to control because they dont really interact with anything. So we wouldnt be able to use this for anything much even if itwas true.
As people have said though its a really interesting insight into science at work. Testing the theories and all that.

[robertostallioni]

Neutrino
Who's there?
Knock Knock.

[dobbin]

where you listening to radio 2 this morning per chance?

[robertostallioni]

 
Driving though the North Yorks paradise that is Keighley, I could only tune into BBC1 or 2, and I refuse to listen t that fat cunt Moyles. 30 minutes of soft rock 80's love songs later and normal service was resumed.

What's your excuse?

[dobbin]

I haven't got a good one. Erm, research into parenthood?!

[Jaspersharpe]

Surely you should have been listening to 6music then.

[tomtom]

Instead of E-MC^2....

 



 

[slackline]

I think that was a Slackers geeky joke

Yeah, joke's on me! I spent all of 10 minutes looking for the info. 

Only 10 minutes, I'll have to try harder next time. 

Everything Ive read seems to be people thinking there must have been a mistake somewhere in the measurement.
As far as I understand it neutrinos are so hard to control because they dont really interact with anything. So we wouldnt be able to use this for anything much even if itwas true.
As people have said though its a really interesting insight into science at work. Testing the theories and all that.

I don't think its the measurement of the neutrinos thats being questioned, as (if the beer drunk Friday evening hasn't addled my memory further) there were ~16000 of these measurements, but they only measured the location of the source of neutrinos and the sensor detecting it twice (and extrapolated their position underground from GPS locations on the surface was the gist I was getting), so a lot of the questions after the lecture on Friday were about how reliable the measurement of these was.  There was some data that the sensors had picked up a shift in 7cm caused by an earthquake part of the way through the run of firing ~16000 neutrinos, but 7cm would, I'd imagine being a non-physicist, have a  stonkingly huge distortion on measurements, and so getting the locations wrong by a fraction of this may well explain the discrepancy from the theoretical predictions.

[tomtom]

The time difference equates to 10cm in distance. But (from my geography sources) they recon they've got the exact distance nailed down.. (that was one of their first questions).

Edit: nice summary here http://www.wired.com/geekdad/2011/09/neutrinos-and-the-speed-of-light-a-primer-on-the-cern-study/

[slackline]

All a bit quiet since the initial furor, but just clocked that one likely explanation is that the predicted effects of Einsteins on the GPS satellites, which were themselves in motion, were not accounted for.

[Clart]

I think this paper might be worth a read for those interested. The abstract is certainly concise:

[slackline]

One source of error eliminated

[Eddies]

BOOM!

http://www.gizmag.com/opera-confirms-faster-than-light-neutrinos/20540/

[SA Chris]

Old Albert was never wrong

[slackline]

BOOM!

http://www.gizmag.com/opera-confirms-faster-than-light-neutrinos/20540/

Same as previous link above it.

Still don't think this has been covered.

[Stu Littlefair]

The paper referred to in that link was bollocks, basically just plain wrong, as the researchers did account for the GR effects mentioned, and say so in their paper.

No-one has yet come up with a convincing reason why the experiment is wrong, and the recent paper rules out a significant problem with the original experiment.

There *are* strong theoretical grounds for believing the experiment is wrong

a) neutrinos from distant supernovae don't arrive earlier than we expect
b) objects travelling faster than light emit radiation; this is not seen.

Neither of these are total killers however, since they hinge on assumptions about why the neutrinos appear to be travelling faster than light..

It's been an amazing week for science. Old Albert is running at 50/50 so far. Whilst the neutrino experiment got a little bit more plausible, a theoretical paper emerged that suggests that the "wave function" in quantum mechanics doesn't represent our ignorance of an electrons position and energy but (in some sense) *IS* the electron http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/1111.3328. Albert always argued against a statistical interpretation of quantum mechanics. I haven't managed to get to grips with the paper cited here yet, but if it's right, it's HUGE.

[slackline]

The paper referred to in that link was bollocks, basically just plain wrong, as the researchers did account for the GR effects mentioned, and say so in their paper.

Cheers, I got lost trying to read the original papers. 

[slackline]

Could be down to faulty cables

[slackline]

Neutrinos slow down.

Not clear to me if this is the same as earlier experiments which were with 'high energy neutrinos' or if they've refined the rate at which they are fired to improve resolution of measurements?

[Offwidth]

Could be magical realism explanation... no one told the neutrinos they couldn't go that fast underground where they thought no one was looking ...now they know, they will follow the rules ;-)

[fried]

Like the strong anthropic principle in reverse or summit like that.