Brian Cox on Cern's baffling light-speed find

[Firebird]

I seem to remember that they published their results with the caveat that they didn't quite believe it themselves, so they were hoping that someone could look through their data and find where they went wrong. My favorite line about this whole thing though:

CERN's director of research, Sergio Bertolucci, said of the neutrino findings, "I have difficulty to believe it, because nothing in Italy arrives ahead of time."

[Reprobate]

Brian Cox on Cern's baffling light-speed find

Puzzling results from Cern, home of the Large Hadron Collider, have confounded physicists - because it seems subatomic particles have beaten the speed of light.

Neutrinos sent through the ground from Cern toward the Gran Sasso laboratory 732km away in Italy seemed to show up a tiny fraction of a second early.

Something appears to be moving faster than the speed of light.

The light-speed limit only applies to particles that have mass. The Lorentz equation describes how mass increases as objects approach the speed of light. Accordingly, at light speed anything having mass would become infinitely massive, and infinities don't work in physics, but if a particle starts with zero mass its mass remains zero. In theory neutrinos have mass, but it's never been proven. This could just mean that that assumption is wrong. Of course, it could also be an error in the calculation. Neutrinos are classified as WIMPs (weakly interacting massive particles). Maybe they exist primarily in one of the theoretical extra dimensions. There could be space-time effects there that we can't comprehend.

[Crocoduck]

This is a good video, I like Professor Ed Copeland.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cezltcn9Mv0

[Tank]

Good find.

[Tank]

Icarus Experiment Measures Neutrino Speed: Even Neutrinos Are Not Faster Than Light

ScienceDaily (Mar. 16, 2012) — The ICARUS experiment at the Italian Gran Sasso laboratory has reported a new measurement of the time of flight of neutrinos from CERN to Gran Sasso. The ICARUS measurement, using last year's short pulsed beam from CERN, indicates that the neutrinos do not exceed the speed of light on their journey between the two laboratories. This is at odds with the initial measurement reported by OPERA last September.

"The evidence is beginning to point towards the OPERA result being an artefact of the measurement," said CERN Research Director Sergio Bertolucci, "but it's important to be rigorous, and the Gran Sasso experiments, BOREXINO, ICARUS, LVD and OPERA will be making new measurements with pulsed beams from CERN in May to give us the final verdict. In addition, cross-checks are underway at Gran Sasso to compare the timings of cosmic ray particles between the two experiments, OPERA and LVD. Whatever the result, the OPERA experiment has behaved with perfect scientific integrity in opening their measurement to broad scrutiny, and inviting independent measurements. This is how science works."

The Scientific Method, the only way to discover what's really going on.

[xSilverPhinx]

Icarus Experiment Measures Neutrino Speed: Even Neutrinos Are Not Faster Than Light

ScienceDaily (Mar. 16, 2012) — The ICARUS experiment at the Italian Gran Sasso laboratory has reported a new measurement of the time of flight of neutrinos from CERN to Gran Sasso. The ICARUS measurement, using last year's short pulsed beam from CERN, indicates that the neutrinos do not exceed the speed of light on their journey between the two laboratories. This is at odds with the initial measurement reported by OPERA last September.

"The evidence is beginning to point towards the OPERA result being an artefact of the measurement," said CERN Research Director Sergio Bertolucci, "but it's important to be rigorous, and the Gran Sasso experiments, BOREXINO, ICARUS, LVD and OPERA will be making new measurements with pulsed beams from CERN in May to give us the final verdict. In addition, cross-checks are underway at Gran Sasso to compare the timings of cosmic ray particles between the two experiments, OPERA and LVD. Whatever the result, the OPERA experiment has behaved with perfect scientific integrity in opening their measurement to broad scrutiny, and inviting independent measurements. This is how science works."

The Scientific Method, the only way to discover what's really going on.

It's a bit of a pity actually, we could've witnessed one of those huge revolutionary turnovers, such as when Darwin came into the biological scenario...

[Tank]

I agree. It would have been much more interesting if neutrinos did travel faster than light in a vacuum.

[xSilverPhinx]

Another link: http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/shortsharpscience/2012/03/another-nail-in-the-coffin-for.html

They're going to re-run the tests to put the final nail in the coffin.

[Tank]

Neutrino 'faster than light' scientist resigns

The head of an experiment that appeared to show subatomic particles travelling faster than the speed of light has resigned from his post.

Prof Antonio Ereditato oversaw results that appeared to challenge Einstein's theory that nothing could travel faster than the speed of light.

Reports said some members of his group, called Opera, had wanted him to resign...

[Amicale]

Neutrino 'faster than light' scientist resigns

The head of an experiment that appeared to show subatomic particles travelling faster than the speed of light has resigned from his post.

Prof Antonio Ereditato oversaw results that appeared to challenge Einstein's theory that nothing could travel faster than the speed of light.

Reports said some members of his group, called Opera, had wanted him to resign...

That's too bad. If it was an honest mistake and they realized what the problem was and why it happened, you'd think realizing their problem would maybe be valuable to future/other scientists so they wouldn't make the same mistake. I realize the guy's probably embarassed, but scientists are human. Even if his group members were ticked off at him, eh, shake it off and try and move on. Nothing to resign over, I wouldn't think... it's not like it would have ended their careers had he stayed.

[Siz]

Neutrino 'faster than light' scientist resigns

The head of an experiment that appeared to show subatomic particles travelling faster than the speed of light has resigned from his post.

Prof Antonio Ereditato oversaw results that appeared to challenge Einstein's theory that nothing could travel faster than the speed of light.

Reports said some members of his group, called Opera, had wanted him to resign...

That's too bad. If it was an honest mistake and they realized what the problem was and why it happened, you'd think realizing their problem would maybe be valuable to future/other scientists so they wouldn't make the same mistake. I realize the guy's probably embarassed, but scientists are human. Even if his group members were ticked off at him, eh, shake it off and try and move on. Nothing to resign over, I wouldn't think... it's not like it would have ended their careers had he stayed.

Quite right. Especially as, from the outset, they had questioned their own results and invited scrutiny of their methodology.

As Tank mentioned in an earlier post, this is science at its best, disproven or not.

[xSilverPhinx]

Neutrino 'faster than light' scientist resigns

The head of an experiment that appeared to show subatomic particles travelling faster than the speed of light has resigned from his post.

Prof Antonio Ereditato oversaw results that appeared to challenge Einstein's theory that nothing could travel faster than the speed of light.

Reports said some members of his group, called Opera, had wanted him to resign...

That's too bad. If it was an honest mistake and they realized what the problem was and why it happened, you'd think realizing their problem would maybe be valuable to future/other scientists so they wouldn't make the same mistake. I realize the guy's probably embarassed, but scientists are human. Even if his group members were ticked off at him, eh, shake it off and try and move on. Nothing to resign over, I wouldn't think... it's not like it would have ended their careers had he stayed.

I agree, poor guy if he felt he had to resign over this. It's not like he commited a crime or anything. 

[Amicale]

Neutrino 'faster than light' scientist resigns

The head of an experiment that appeared to show subatomic particles travelling faster than the speed of light has resigned from his post.

Prof Antonio Ereditato oversaw results that appeared to challenge Einstein's theory that nothing could travel faster than the speed of light.

Reports said some members of his group, called Opera, had wanted him to resign...

That's too bad. If it was an honest mistake and they realized what the problem was and why it happened, you'd think realizing their problem would maybe be valuable to future/other scientists so they wouldn't make the same mistake. I realize the guy's probably embarassed, but scientists are human. Even if his group members were ticked off at him, eh, shake it off and try and move on. Nothing to resign over, I wouldn't think... it's not like it would have ended their careers had he stayed.

I agree, poor guy if he felt he had to resign over this. It's not like he commited a crime or anything. 

Exactly. I wish he'd taken Mr. Edison's advice:

"After we had conducted thousands of experiments on a certain project without solving the problem, one of my associates, after we had conducted the crowning experiment and it had proved a failure, expressed discouragement and disgust over our having failed to find out anything. I cheerily assured him that we had learned something. For we had learned for a certainty that the thing couldn't be done that way, and that we would have to try some other way." - Thomas Edison, January 1921, American Magazine

[squidfetish]

Something appears to be moving faster than the speed of light.

John Petrucci's fingers?

[Firebird]

Something appears to be moving faster than the speed of light.

John Petrucci's fingers?

I wouldn't have gotten this joke until last year. Wish it hadn't taken me so long to discover Dream Theater
My impression is that this was about more than an inaccurate experiment. It sounded like there was discontent with him for other reasons. Who knows why, maybe management style?