# Einstein wrong?



## Philip

"_*Scientists at the European Organization for Nuclear Research, or CERN, the world's largest physics lab, say they have clocked subatomic particles, called neutrinos, traveling faster than light, a feat that, if true, would break a fundamental pillar of science, the idea that nothing is supposed to move faster than light, at least according to Einstein's special theory of relativity: The famous E (equals) mc2 equation. That stands for energy equals mass times the speed of light squared. The readings have so astounded researchers that they are asking others to independently verify the measurements before claiming an actual discovery.*_"

http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-09-cern-faster-than-light-particle.html

What are the implications?


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## regressivetransphobe

So let's cut to the chase, are we going to use this data to kill people better, or make a better kind of cell phone?


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## Ukko

As the CERN guys suggest, lets not pile on this bandwagon just yet.

_regressive_, if perhaps the 4th dimension (time) is also not restrained by the speed of light, it may be possible for one of your enemies to travel back in time and kill your grandmother (either one) while she is still a virgin.

Do you see the significance *now?*

:devil:


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## Taneyev

If she were my mather's mather, it'll be no great lost.


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## graaf

Philip said:


> "_*Scientists at the European Organization for Nuclear Research, or CERN, the world's largest physics lab, say they have clocked subatomic particles, called neutrinos, traveling faster than light, a feat that, if true, would break a fundamental pillar of science, the idea that nothing is supposed to move faster than light, at least according to Einstein's special theory of relativity: The famous E (equals) mc2 equation. That stands for energy equals mass times the speed of light squared. The readings have so astounded researchers that they are asking others to independently verify the measurements before claiming an actual discovery.*_"
> 
> http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-09-cern-faster-than-light-particle.html
> 
> What are the implications?


Career opportunities for physicists?

It used to happen before that people thought that they accomplished speed faster than c, but it turned out they didn't interpret the result of the experiment properly. Now, this is CERN, so it does sound very real. As they said, time will tell. In the meantime, my life is still mostly Newtonian, I need Einstein only when I go for an X-ray. On the other hand, Tesla, Turing and von Neumann allowed me to type this. For people trying to _explain reality_, this might sound very _sisyphean_, I guess...



regressivetransphobe said:


> So let's cut to the chase, are we going to use this data to kill people better, or make a better kind of cell phone?


Probably both. I'd like to see cheaper, safer energy source. I'm probably asking too much.


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## Ukko

Odnoposoff said:


> If she were my mather's mather, it'll be no great lost.


 Excellent! In my neck of the woods it would go: "If 'twere me mar's mar, 'twould be no big matter."


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## Philip

graaf said:


> Career opportunities for physicists?


yes, perhaps pseudo-physicists and popularizers. but i'm afraid the implications are much deeper than that...


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## graaf

Philip said:


> yes, perhaps pseudo-physicists and popularizers. but i'm afraid the implications are much deeper than that...


Are you saying that it's not a career opportunity for physicists? I'm not saying that it's the only implication, but surely one of them?

By the way, popularizers will always have things to write about. Even serious physicists like Hawking and Mlodinow like to write a book, put a bit of "God or no God" in it, like it's the field of physics or something. I guess they are not pseudo-physicists?


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## Kopachris

The implications of this, should it be confirmed, are more than just the speed of light not being an absolute speed limit. Theoretically, if the neutrino went faster than _c_, it would have arrived before it was sent. However, it should be noted that the speed of light is not absolute. The constant _c_ represents the velocity of light in a vacuum, and is supposed to be an absolute speed limit. Particles have been detected traveling faster than light in other media before, which is by no means an (even theoretical) impossibility. The article doesn't address whether the researchers were going by _c_ or by the velocity of light in air.


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## jalex

Kopachris said:


> The article doesn't address whether the researchers were going by _c_ or by the velocity of light in air.


It does - 'faster than the 186,282mph [=c] speed limit'. Obviously there would be nothing to write about if the neutrino was measured with greater speed than light's in air.


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## Philip

graaf said:


> Are you saying that it's not a career opportunity for physicists? I'm not saying that it's the only implication, but surely one of them?


what is a "career opportunity" in physics anyway... your post was just one big tautology, stating the obvious, sorry for picking on it.



Kopachris said:


> The implications of this, should it be confirmed, are more than just the speed of light not being an absolute speed limit. *Theoretically, if the neutrino went faster than c, it would have arrived before it was sent.* However, it should be noted that the speed of light is not absolute. The constant _c_ represents the velocity of light in a vacuum, and is supposed to be an absolute speed limit. Particles have been detected traveling faster than light in other media before, which is by no means an (even theoretical) impossibility. The article doesn't address whether the researchers were going by _c_ or by the velocity of light in air.


that doesn't make any sense


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## graaf

Philip said:


> what is a "career opportunity" in physics anyway... your post was just one big tautology, stating the obvious, sorry for picking on it.


No problem, it actually was "one big tautology", probably because it was an attempt of mine to kill some time on the forum...

But regarding "the implications are much deeper than that..." part, the question is for whom it will have such deep implications? It sure will have huge implications to the particular scientific communities, but for me it will have about the same implications as forum wars over contemporary music on my listening habits - which is to say none at all.

Don't get me wrong, I don't want to put down your thread, I see from your avatar that you are physics fan (or maybe even professional?), but this hardly has any implications on everyday life of most of us. And we kind of mined your thread with our superficial replies. But, on the other hand, I'd really like your opinion of people like Hawking and Mlodinow writing books dabbling in God question, when that's hardly question for physics. And please bear in mind that I'm not religious or anything, so feel free to write openly (or at least PM me, to avoid possible zealots reading the post).


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## Guest

I always knew Albert was wrong but nobody believed me


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## Kopachris

@jalex: I figured whoever wrote the article put that in there. Most people I've talked to aren't even aware that light changes velocity in different media. The point is that there are a lot of variables in this (including relativistic effects) that we can't be sure the researchers accounted for unless we see their research.

@Philip: See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_relativity. The theory says that _c_ is exactly the same for all observers in all reference frames. As you go faster, _c_ according to you stays exactly the same as _c_ according to an outside observer. Therefore, an outside observer would see that time passes more slowly for you to compensate for your increased speed (this has been confirmed with high-precision clocks). Following the equations through, time would appear to an outside observer be at a standstill for you should you reach exactly _c_ and would appear to pass in reverse for you should you exceed _c_ (making you arrive before you leave). See also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tachyon


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## mmsbls

This result is obviously potentially quite interesting, but as others here have mentioned, many physicists familiar with the experiment assume there are systematic errors in the measurement that will invalidate the result.

For anyone interested, the paper by the OPERA collaboration can be found here. The paper is quite technical.

It's interesting that the main purpose of the experiment was not to understand the timing of the neutrinos but rather to look at a particular unusual feature of neutrinos - the 3 neutrino types morph into other types as they travel. Timing the neutrinos was important to understand this feature.

Two other experiments have measured the velocity of neutrinos. A similar experiment in the US showed neutrinos velocities to be essentially the same as that of light, but the overall uncertainty was much larger and consistent with the result from the OPERA experiment. Measurements of neutrinos from supernovas showed that high energy neutrinos and light have the same velocity to one part in a billion. The OPERA experiment shows neutrinos faster by about 2.5 parts in 10,000.

The last neutrino controversy (from solar neutrinos) started in the 1960s and was not conclusively settled until 2001. I doubt this issue will take anywhere near that long, but perhaps there is new physics which won't be found for some time.


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## HarpsichordConcerto

mmsbls said:


> ... the paper by the OPERA collaboration.


I always knew opera, particle physics and CERN were always related. The Grand Unified Theory right here at Talk-Classical.


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## Kopachris

Thank you for finding the paper, mmsbls. I'm going to bed now, but I may read it in the morning.

I think that, should the OPERA results be confirmed, the implication would be far less radical than Einstein's theories of relativity being discredited, since those have been experimentally verified numerous times. Perhaps something new from quantum mechanics, instead?


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## Aksel

Philip said:


> that doesn't make any sense


Relativity generally never does.


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## mmsbls

Kopachris said:


> I think that, should the OPERA results be confirmed, the implication would be far less radical than Einstein's theories of relativity being discredited, since those have been experimentally verified numerous times. Perhaps something new from quantum mechanics, instead?


I'm sure there are theorists working on new theories right now, and certainly if the OPERA result is confirmed, string theory will take a back seat to understanding this phenomenon.

I do suspect the result will turn out to be flawed; however, if there are extra dimensions of space, as predicted in string theory for example, neutrinos could travel through those extra dimensions and _appear_ to travel faster than light. Generally theorists believe certain particles (gravitons) should be able to travel through the extra dimensions but neutrinos should not. But who knows?


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## Shamit

Scientist have been theorizing faster than light travel for quite some time. Now the problem with actually proving this is the massive bulk of uncertainty that comes with it(Damn you Heisenberg!!); The uncertainty principle state the position and momentum/velocity of a particle can not be both know with 100% accuracy. So how is CERN planning to determine the velocity of a particle that is not limited by the same laws and equations as the instruments and procedures they are using and even if they succeed how accurate would their results be. the very idea is that the particle is now bound by the fabric of space-time. This is a very serious claim indeed.


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## Fsharpmajor

The observation that the neutrinos travel only a tiny fraction faster than light speed makes me suspect that it is a measurement error. If they travelled many times faster than light, I would be much more inclined to believe it.


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## schigolch

I'd say that, being very high energy particles, and moving faster than the speed of light, the right thing for them is to move only at a tiny fraction faster.


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## Almaviva

I knew that OPERA one day would change the world!
[Alma, hoping that he'll travel back in time and meet Anna before she got married]


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## itywltmt

A couple of things to note:

1 - "speed" is expressed in two different ways when we talk about waves (or wave-like) entities. There's "group" velocity, and there's "phase" velocity. The latter is key - think of a wave on water: phase velocity is the speed of the "crest" of the wave. There have been several reports (dating back to the days I was studying Physics in University) where the _group _velocity of radiation exceeds the speed of light - _Tchernenkov _radiation in nuclear reactors, I believe. However, there has never been measurements of _phase _velocity that exceeds c. I'd have to read the article to see if that's what's being claimed.

2 - The two precepts of Special relativity are (1) there is no such thing as Absolute Space (ie, there is no such thing as a previleged vantage point, or absolute coordinate set) and (2) the speed of ligyt is constant for all observers - that is the only absolute.

3 - I recommend viewing the Nicholas Roeg film _Insignificance_, which starred Theresa Russell playing Marilyn Monroe, Gary Busey playing Joe DiMaggio (or a surrogate of him) and some guy - Michael Emil- playng Einstein (There's also Tony Cuyrtos playing Sen McCarthy - but as I recall, the actual names are never used). The premice of the film is Marilyn meeting Einstein, and finding him more desirable than her famous jock husband. There is an UNFORGETTABLE scene where Monrooe wants to prove to Einstein that she is not a "dumb blonde" and she gives him a expose on Special Relativity, the classic "train car" analogy, and she nails it! A must see for anybody who fancies him/herself a geek or a geekophile.

4 - If the CREN claim is indeed breaking the secind precept of Special Relativity, it is very significant, but probably opens the door to yet more abstract Mathematics required to "reconcile" sub-c and super-c behaviour... That will keep CERN, FermiLab and other Super Collider installations busy for decades to come!


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## Fsharpmajor

itywltmt said:


> "speed" is expressed in two different ways when we talk about waves (or wave-like) entities. There's "group" velocity, and there's "phase" velocity. The latter is key - think of a wave on water: phase velocity is the speed of the "crest" of the wave.


This thought experiment may have some bearing on what you've said. Or it may not--I don't know enough about the subject to certain:

*http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/Relativity/SR/scissors.html*


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## SuperTonic

It seems there are some posters here who are knowledgeable in the area of physics. Is there a possiblity that relativity is essentially right about there being an absolute upper limit to speed, but wrong in pegging it to speed to light? Maybe the actual upper limit is just a little faster than light?
Assuming this is not just a measurement error (which it might be), wouldn't that be a way of reconciling this observation without throwing out or requiring a massive revision of all of the science that has been verified by observation?


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## itywltmt

SuperTonic said:


> It seems there are some posters here who are knowledgeable in the area of physics. Is there a possiblity that relativity is essentially right about there being an absolute upper limit to speed, but wrong in pegging it to speed to light? Maybe the actual upper limit is just a little faster than light?
> Assuming this is not just a measurement error (which it might be), wouldn't that be a way of reconciling this observation without throwing out or requiring a massive revision of all of the science that has been verified by observation?


I think people have it wrong: Special Relativity does not _conclude _that the speed of light is the "upper limit" to the speed of all things. It merely makes it a _basic principle_.

This is fuzzy to me (bear with me - it's not like I have been a _Relativity _practitioner in my Physics career, but merely used the math and princples of Relativity in other subject areas in Physics - most notably Electrimagnetic theory, atomic and quantum physics) but I seem to recall most of the _Gedanken _(thought) experiments that make up the teaching of Special Relativity have to do with "observations", and since we can only observe what we see, we simply equate the "speed of the cues being oobserved" to the speed of light. It is not inconceivable that other "cues" could be used in thought experiments that aren't light, and that these cues travel at a speed greater than c.

That having been said, all of the mathematics and transformations (e.g., the Lorentz transform) are predicated on ratios that involve the speed of light. One of the guiding principles of Special Relativity is what we call "the constancy of the interval", which mathematically is expressed as s^2 = x^2 + y^2 + z^2 - (ct)^2, where t is time - this introduces the concept of a "fourth dimension" (that of time) and it is mathematically expressed as a "purely complex" number. This is probably jibberish for non-geeks, but noite the implication of the speed of light in what is commonly referred to as the "space-time" continuum... The constancy of the interval is at the heart of some of the most basic "observed evidence" of Special Relativity - that is _time dilation _and _length contraction_. If "c" isn't the speed of light, then you can see what the implications are: how then do you reconcile what we have accepted as Gospel Truth for almost 100 years and the downwind implications of these new observations.


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## Chris

I don't think there's a problem with Einstein's theory. If these neutrinos are travelling faster than light they must be going backwards in time so they will soon reach Einstein himself. Einstein was a Swiss citizen for many years and so probably in possession of a decent watch. Assuming he spots these neutrinos, he will time them, work out they are going faster than light, and adjust his theory accordingly. We just have to be patient while that bit of history catches up with us.


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## itywltmt

Chris said:


> I don't think there's a problem with Einstein's theory. If these neutrinos are travelling faster than light they must be going backwards in time so they will soon reach Einstein himself. Einstein was a Swiss citizen for many years and so probably in possession of a decent watch. Assuming he spots these neutrinos, he will time them, work out they are going faster than light, and adjust his theory accordingly. We just have to be patient while that bit of history catches up with us.


If that were TRUE, then wouldn't it have been fixed already? I should drop everything, go to the crawl space in my basement, and find my old Uni text book to see if that was fixed...


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## Chris

itywltmt said:


> If that were TRUE, then wouldn't it have been fixed already? I should drop everything, go to the crawl space in my basement, and find my old Uni text book to see if that was fixed...


To get hold of your revised textbook you will have to put your hand through a quantum wormhole, and that might not be comfortable.


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## Kopachris

Okay, I read the paper. Let me clarify a few things:

They accounted for measurement uncertainty and delays caused by their equipment (answering some of your proposals).

They did assume speed of light in a vacuum (answering one of my earlier questions).

The time-of-flight was calculated with an equation that neglects both relativistic and quantum mechanical effects (answering another of my questions), based on the timing of two extraction events (don't ask me what that means; all I know is that it's something to do with protons) (which are themselves probability functions because of the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle). The time-of-flight was not calculated by the time difference between emission and detection.

Should the OPERA experiment's result be confirmed, it wouldn't even necessarily break special relativity--faster-than-light travel of non-information has been observed before and is a well-known and well-understood phenomenon (for both group velocity and phase velocity). This is just another case of journalism catching one little phrase and blowing it out of proportion.


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## itywltmt

Chris said:


> To get hold of your revised textbook you will have to put your hand through a quantum wormhole, and that might not be comfortable.


1 - You haven't been into MY crawl space... Believe me, that's uncomfortable enough!
2 - I have some oven mitts at home that will do just fine!


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## itywltmt

Kopachris said:


> Okay, I read the paper. Let me clarify a few things:
> 
> They accounted for measurement uncertainty and delays caused by their equipment (answering some of your proposals).
> 
> They did assume speed of light in a vacuum (answering one of my earlier questions).
> 
> The time-of-flight was calculated with an equation that neglects both relativistic and quantum mechanical effects (answering another of my questions), based on the timing of two extraction events (don't ask me what that means; all I know is that it's something to do with protons) (which are themselves probability functions because of the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle). The time-of-flight was not calculated by the time difference between emission and detection.
> 
> Should the OPERA experiment's result be confirmed, it wouldn't even necessarily break special relativity--faster-than-light travel of non-information has been observed before and is a well-known and well-understood phenomenon (for both group velocity and phase velocity). This is just another case of journalism catching one little phrase and blowing it out of proportion.


You said that with such aplmb and authority, that I will sleep well tonight, confident that all those speepless nights doing Lorentz transforms and Klepsch-Gordon coefficients will not have been time wasted.

Thanks a lot!


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## mmsbls

This thread has become much more technical than I ever expected. I certainly never expected to meet anyone on TC who knew what Clebsch-Gordan coefficients were (much less had actually used them).



SuperTonic said:


> Is there a possiblity that relativity is essentially right about there being an absolute upper limit to speed, but wrong in pegging it to speed to light? Maybe the actual upper limit is just a little faster than light?


The reason that the speed of light, c, is an upper limit comes from the relativistic equations for energy and momentum. Basically as particles with mass increase speed, their energy increases as a function of 1/square root(1-(v/c)^2). As the velocity, v, approaches c, this term goes to infinity. Thus, to reach the speed of light, massive particles would need to acquire infinite energy. To exceed c massive particles would need more than infinite energy. These relativistic equations have been precisely tested in accelerators around the world (such as CERN) for many decades.

A few other comments:
The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle places limits on the precision of knowing both the momentum (related to velocity) and the position of particles. Those limits are much, much smaller than what is needed for the OPERA experiment. In other words the accuracy quoted in the paper is not limited by the Uncertainty Principle.

The extraction events refer to the process of removing the protons from the accelerator ring, where they are accelerated up to high energy. The protons are extracted in bunches over an interval of 10.5 microseconds. The protons then travel to a target to produce mesons (which ultimately decay to neutrinos). Thus, each "bunch" of neutrinos that travels to the OPERA detector arrives over a period of 10.5 microseconds. The time of a neutrino interaction with the OPERA detector is precisely measured, but there is no way to determine when the proton that created that particular neutrino was extracted (except to within 10.5 microseconds). They get around this problem by using high statistics and understanding the time distributions of the original extracted protons. This is by no means a simple calculation.


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## kv466

jalex said:


> It does - 'faster than the 186,282mph [=c] speed limit'. Obviously there would be nothing to write about if the neutrino was measured with greater speed than light's in air.


Miles per second,...not 'mph'.


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## Shamit

im still very curious on how the neutrino actually moved faster than photons, since neutrinos are known to have mass(although very little) this does not allow it to travel at light speed. i thought of an explanation, what if neutrinos can achieve some sort of ''exotic state'' that makes them behave like tachyons(hypothetical fermions that travel faster than light). tachyons theories suggest velocity of tachyons are inversely proportional to energy, although tachyons have been dismissed by causality in particle physics, Ashoke Sen's advancement in string theory suggests that tachyons may in fact exist and carried by open strings of D-branes in string theory. But the question remains how do you observe a particle that follows a principle exact opposite to every other particle. Damn can anybody confirm if the naughty neutrino in question is tachyonic in nature, that would make a lot of sense

Come to think of it the results of this experiment would end proving some parts of string theory. Unfortunately time travel is still hopeless.


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## itywltmt

mmsbls said:


> This thread has become much more technical than I ever expected. I certainly never expected to meet anyone on TC who knew what Clebsch-Gordan coefficients were (much less had actually used them).


What can I say - we were stuck four hours at San Francisco airport with nothing better to do. Slide rules rule, baby!


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## Ukko

The folks at CERN haven't figured out the similarity between a neutrino and a sperm: you just can't be 100% sure about either of them.


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## Philip

Kopachris said:


> @Philip: See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_relativity. The theory says that _c_ is exactly the same for all observers in all reference frames. As you go faster, _c_ according to you stays exactly the same as _c_ according to an outside observer. Therefore, an outside observer would see that time passes more slowly for you to compensate for your increased speed (this has been confirmed with high-precision clocks). Following the equations through, time would appear to an outside observer be at a standstill for you should you reach exactly _c_ and would appear to pass in reverse for you should you exceed _c_ (making you arrive before you leave). See also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tachyon


ok i see what you did there, you took some theory and ran away with it, highlighting a paradox...

regardless, we're talking about experimental physics here. the experiment in question is quite simple: you divide a traveled distance by a time interval... under these conditions, it indeed "doesn't make any sense" to say that the particle arrives before it is emitted, for this is the result of a thought experiment.

the meaning with which you tint a mathematical framework such as special relativity is purely interpretational, therefore i simply found it unrigorous on your part to claim that such a measurement directly implies a contradiction.


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## Philip

Shamit said:


> im still very curious on how the neutrino actually moved faster than photons, since neutrinos are known to have mass(although very little) this does not allow it to travel at light speed. [...]


it works if neutrinos have an imaginary mass... but the causality paradox persists


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## Philip

graaf said:


> [...]But, on the other hand, I'd really like your opinion of people like Hawking and Mlodinow writing books dabbling in God question, when that's hardly question for physics. And please bear in mind that I'm not religious or anything, so feel free to write openly (or at least PM me, to avoid possible zealots reading the post).


i think most scientists (or at least physicists) refer to "god" as the set of rules that govern the universe, rather than a personal god or creator. of course, it also works well for the promotion of books... but i've yet to see a context in which religion itself had its place in science.

however, other scientists and people of technical fields sometimes like to motivate the existence of a creator by underlining the complexity of nature, i dismiss this view by asking: complexity with respect to what?


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## Kopachris

Philip said:


> ok i see what you did there, you took some theory and ran away with it, highlighting a paradox...
> 
> regardless, we're talking about experimental physics here. the experiment in question is quite simple: you divide a traveled distance by a time interval... under these conditions, it indeed "doesn't make any sense" to say that the particle arrives before it is emitted, for this is the result of a thought experiment.
> 
> the meaning with which you tint a mathematical framework such as special relativity is purely interpretational, therefore i simply found it unrigorous on your part to claim that such a measurement directly implies a contradiction.


I agree that to say that the neutrino would have arrived before it departed doesn't make sense. That's why I said that the experiment would have broken special relativity: because it _didn't_ arrive before it departed. However, I think we can lump this under the category of a quantum mechanical phenomenon. It doesn't involve information going faster than light and doesn't break causality.


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## Philip

SuperTonic said:


> [...]Is there a possiblity that relativity is essentially right about there being an absolute upper limit to speed, but wrong in pegging it to speed to light? Maybe the actual upper limit is just a little faster than light?
> Assuming this is not just a measurement error (which it might be), wouldn't that be a way of reconciling this observation without throwing out or requiring a massive revision of all of the science that has been verified by observation?


if i recall correctly, special relativity mainly comes from Einstein looking at Maxwell's equations, predicting with a little algebra that c = 1/√ε0μ0 , where ε0 and μ0 are the electric and magnetic constants, respectively.

so the upper limit has to be v < c for real mass objects. travelling at exactly v = c is undefined mathematically: division by 0 in the Lorentz factor. nonetheless, travelling over c is theoretically possible since the Lorentz factor _is_ defined for v > c, but it becomes imaginary...


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## Philip

Kopachris said:


> I agree that to say that the neutrino would have arrived before it departed doesn't make sense. That's why I said that the experiment would have broken special relativity: because it _didn't_ arrive before it departed. However, I think we can lump this under the category of a quantum mechanical phenomenon. It doesn't involve information going faster than light and doesn't break causality.


yes but remember that time going backwards _can_ but doesn't necessarily happen in every frame of reference...


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## graaf

Philip said:


> i think most scientists (or at least physicists) refer to "god" as the set of rules that govern the universe, rather than a personal god or creator. of course, it also works well for the promotion of books... but i've yet to see a context in which religion itself had its place in science.
> 
> however, other scientists and people of technical fields sometimes like to motivate the existence of a creator by underlining the complexity of nature, i dismiss this view by asking: complexity with respect to what?


Many scientists do use word "god" with their own meaning (mystery of nature, universe itself and stuff like that), but some actually go after the whole creator question (whether creator is needed or not), why universe exists in the first place - although many "why questions" are not scientific in the first place (why gravity decreases with square of distance instead of cube and such). It seems to me to be intellectually dishonest to offer answers to creator or personal god questions while calling upon one's credentials in physics. Same with claiming god's existence because of "fine tuning", complexity you mentioned and so on. When it comes to creator, or any other supervising god that meddles with our affairs, give me Russell's teapot over "Grand Design" any day, which is to say give me logic/philosophy over physics.


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## Fsharpmajor

There's no way in science to prove whether a creator exists or does not. The concept is never used in biology, chemistry, and physics, except in refutative arguments.


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## Shamit

Philip said:


> it works if neutrinos have an imaginary mass... but the causality paradox persists


 yes imaginary mass and thus i made my tachyon argument


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## Shamit

Fsharpmajor said:


> There's no way in science to prove whether a creator exists or does not. The concept is never used in biology, chemistry, and physics, except in refutative arguments.


may be not but if M-theory and String Theory are proven correct then we would know where the universe comes from and thus the god model will become insignificant.


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## Operafocus

When I saw this, I remembered a quote from a film:

"What if I were to tell you that according to a man named Einstein, that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light?"
"I would say that you misread Einstein. You see, what Einstein actually said was that nothing can accelerate to the speed of light because its mass would become infinite. Einstein said nothing about entities already traveling at the speed of light or faster."


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## haydnfan

This discussion has branched off in a few different directions... but I wanted to say that the results are not precise enough to reach a conclusion that neutrinos are superluminal. Also it needs to be independently verified. I would be curious to know if they included the gravito-magnetic effects (from general relativity this is a gravity effect not a magnetic effect), because I believe they would be significant enough that not including them would caste significant doubt on the accuracy of the results.


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## regressivetransphobe

I would like to take this theological discourse as an opportunity to say I only put my faith in Odin, and will laugh as you all knock on the golden gates of Valhalla.


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## Philip

Operafocus said:


> When I saw this, I remembered a quote from a film:
> 
> "What if I were to tell you that according to a man named Einstein, that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light?"
> "I would say that you misread Einstein. You see, what Einstein actually said was that nothing can accelerate to the speed of light because its mass would become infinite. Einstein said nothing about entities already traveling at the speed of light or faster."


k-pax, i enjoyed that movie


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## jalex

kv466 said:


> Miles per second,...not 'mph'.


Oh bugger.


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## Guest

Operafocus said:


> When I saw this, I remembered a quote from a film:
> 
> "What if I were to tell you that according to a man named Einstein, that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light?"
> "I would say that you misread Einstein. You see, what Einstein actually said was that nothing can accelerate to the speed of light because its mass would become infinite. Einstein said nothing about entities already traveling at the speed of light or faster."


Thank you so much for your post, A few years ago I read that there could be particles that could not exist below the speed of light but I have never been able to find this reference again, now I know I was not imagining it.


----------



## Couchie

regressivetransphobe said:


> I would like to take this theological discourse as an opportunity to say I only put my faith in Odin, and will laugh as you all knock on the golden gates of Valhalla.


I'm sorry to inform you that place burned down some time ago. Dwarf stole some gold from a river, caused a lot of trouble.


----------



## Aksel

Couchie said:


> I'm sorry to inform you that place burned down some time ago. Dwarf stole some gold from a river, caused a lot of trouble.


But at least the river's still there.


----------



## itywltmt

Robert Park of the University of Maryland writes a weekly newsletter for the American Physical Society to which I subscribe. Here's a verbatim section from this week's mailing:



> 3. EINSTEIN: EARLY ARRIVAL OF CERN NEUTRINOS CAUSES CONFUSION.
> It was a page-one science story in major papers around the world: neutrinos beamedd from Geneva were detected 454 miles away in Italy in less time than light would take to make the same trip. Everyone was excited, except the physicists. Interviewed by the Washington Post, Drew Baden, chair of the U. Maryland Physics Department, called the result, "a flying carpet," not to be taken very seriously without strong independent confirmation, and maybe not then. The goal of physics is to identify natural laws that govern the universe. Einstein's 1905 explanation of the photoelectric effect, for example, casts strong (overwhelming?) doubt on epidemiological evidence that purports to show that cell phone radiation is linked to cancer.


Read the complete newsletter at http://www.bobpark.org/


----------



## Lukecash12

Fsharpmajor said:


> There's no way in science to prove whether a creator exists or does not. The concept is never used in biology, chemistry, and physics, except in refutative arguments.


I presume you are referring to things like the Anthropic Principle:



> We should emphasize once again that the enormous improbability of the evolution of intelligent life in general and Homo sapiens in particular does not mean we should be amazed we exist at all. This would make as much sense as Elizabeth II being amazed she is Queen of England. Even though the probability of a given Briton being monarch is about 10-8, someone must be. Only if there is a monarch is it possible for the monarch to calculate the improbability of her particular existence. Similarly, only if an intelligent species does evolve is it possible for its members to ask how probable it is for an intelligent species to evolve. Both are examples of WAP self-selection in action.110


That's the only refutation I've actually seen, and it doesn't classify as the orthodox "science" that people are proponents of today. That argument has it's basis in Socratic dialectics.

But if you are seriously referring to a refutation like these unorthodox cosmology models that have been sprouting up recently, then all I have to say is that they haven't even gotten past the inevitable fact of entropy. Thus, not only do these new models still necessitate a immaterial cause, but they needlessly compound the issue by begging the question of what _unobserved_ mechanism is causing our universe to be cyclical.

"There's no way in science to prove whether a creator exists or does not." What view of science do you subscribe to? Let me guess, the view science that considers itself above and different from philosophy? Well, it just so happens that the empirical sciences of today are a modern day practice of Platonic Forms, and it uses the same propositional logic and abstract methodology (math, as an abstract form for measuring idea), that even modal logic uses. Thus, observations made by arguments such as the Kalam Cosmological argument don't _a priori_ fall short at all of these cosmological models that only violate Ockham's Razor and invite entropy into the picture.

Not to mention that the Law of Thermodynamics is on the side of intelligent design proponents, which seriously dampers the attempt to make a cosmological model in the hopes of proving the universe is static.

And as for the claim that the concept is never used in biology or chemistry either, if only to refute intelligent design, I'd like to point out to you that there are arguments made from irreducible complexity and atomic mass, and several teleological arguments made from observations about the characteristics of neutrons, electrons, and protons. So, as far as the claims in that post have worked up to this point, it's been shown that science is used for arguments in biology, chemistry, and physics all.


----------



## Lukecash12

itywltmt said:


> Robert Park of the University of Maryland writes a weekly newsletter for the American Physical Society to which I subscribe. Here's a verbatim section from this week's mailing:
> 
> Read the complete newsletter at http://www.bobpark.org/


Thanks for contributing that.


----------



## Lukecash12

Operafocus said:


> When I saw this, I remembered a quote from a film:
> 
> "What if I were to tell you that according to a man named Einstein, that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light?"
> "I would say that you misread Einstein. You see, what Einstein actually said was that nothing can accelerate to the speed of light because its mass would become infinite. Einstein said nothing about entities already traveling at the speed of light or faster."


And so Einstein wins another argument without even being in it, hehe.


----------



## Fsharpmajor

Lukecash12 said:


> I presume you are referring to things like the Anthropic Principle:
> 
> That's the only refutation I've actually seen, and it doesn't classify as the orthodox "science" that people are proponents of today. That argument has it's basis in Socratic dialectics.
> 
> But if you are seriously referring to a refutation like these unorthodox cosmology models that have been sprouting up recently, then all I have to say is that they haven't even gotten past the inevitable fact of entropy. Thus, not only do these new models still necessitate a immaterial cause, but they needlessly compound the issue by begging the question of what _unobserved_ mechanism is causing our universe to be cyclical.
> 
> "There's no way in science to prove whether a creator exists or does not." What view of science do you subscribe to? Let me guess, the view science that considers itself above and different from philosophy? Well, it just so happens that the empirical sciences of today are a modern day practice of Platonic Forms, and it uses the same propositional logic and abstract methodology (math, as an abstract form for measuring idea), that even modal logic uses. Thus, observations made by arguments such as the Kalam Cosmological argument don't _a priori_ fall short at all of these cosmological models that only violate Ockham's Razor and invite entropy into the picture.
> 
> Not to mention that the Law of Thermodynamics is on the side of intelligent design proponents, which seriously dampers the attempt to make a cosmological model in the hopes of proving the universe is static.
> 
> And as for the claim that the concept is never used in biology or chemistry either, if only to refute intelligent design, I'd like to point out to you that there are arguments made from irreducible complexity and atomic mass, and several teleological arguments made from observations about the characteristics of neutrons, electrons, and protons. So, as far as the claims in that post have worked up to this point, it's been shown that science is used for arguments in biology, chemistry, and physics all.


Whoa. I can see what you're trying to do.

I'm out of here.


----------



## Philip

Lukecash12 said:


> I presume you are referring to things like the Anthropic Principle:
> 
> That's the only refutation I've actually seen, and it doesn't classify as the orthodox "science" that people are proponents of today. That argument has it's basis in Socratic dialectics.
> 
> But if you are seriously referring to a refutation like these unorthodox cosmology models that have been sprouting up recently, then all I have to say is that they haven't even gotten past the inevitable fact of entropy. Thus, not only do these new models still necessitate a immaterial cause, but they needlessly compound the issue by begging the question of what _unobserved_ mechanism is causing our universe to be cyclical.
> 
> "There's no way in science to prove whether a creator exists or does not." What view of science do you subscribe to? Let me guess, the view science that considers itself above and different from philosophy? Well, it just so happens that the empirical sciences of today are a modern day practice of Platonic Forms, and it uses the same propositional logic and abstract methodology (math, as an abstract form for measuring idea), that even modal logic uses. Thus, observations made by arguments such as the Kalam Cosmological argument don't _a priori_ fall short at all of these cosmological models that only violate Ockham's Razor and invite entropy into the picture.
> 
> Not to mention that the Law of Thermodynamics is on the side of intelligent design proponents, which seriously dampers the attempt to make a cosmological model in the hopes of proving the universe is static.
> 
> And as for the claim that the concept is never used in biology or chemistry either, if only to refute intelligent design, I'd like to point out to you that there are arguments made from irreducible complexity and atomic mass, and several teleological arguments made from observations about the characteristics of neutrons, electrons, and protons. So, as far as the claims in that post have worked up to this point, it's been shown that science is used for arguments in biology, chemistry, and physics all.


----------



## Almaviva

Moderator warning:
If this thread derails into another theological debate, it will be locked.
According to Krummhorn, site administrator, further derailments of threads will have consequences for the members doing the deed.


----------



## Lenfer

I'm not sure if this has been said already but they are asking other labs to check and see if this is indeed right. It could prove *Einstein * wrong but it could just mean that *Einstein * is right but only in 4 dimentions the foruth being time.

It could prove the existence of other dimensions and thus the "*neutrinos*" may not be traveling faster than light but simply taking a short cut through another dimension. Think *Bugs Bunny* digging to *China * much faster than a flight with * B.A*.

If he is wrong I think it's very good news we could indeed travel at speeds faster than the speed of light making interstellar space flights theoretically possible.


----------



## Lukecash12

Lenfer said:


> I'm not sure if this has been said already but they are asking other labs to check and see if this is indeed right. It could prove *Einstein * wrong but it could just mean that *Einstein * is right but only in 4 dimentions the foruth being time.
> 
> It could prove the existence of other dimensions and thus the "*neutrinos*" may not be traveling faster than light but simply taking a short cut through another dimension. Think *Bugs Bunny* digging to *China * much faster than a flight with * B.A*.
> 
> If he is wrong I think it's very good news we could indeed travel at speeds faster than the speed of light making interstellar space flights theoretically possible.


Einstein said that nothing accelerates faster than light. Let me restate that so everyone here can get that: Anything that is currently not traveling at the speed of light, can not speed up to a point where it is going faster than light.

That supposition doesn't preclude the idea that something may already be going faster than light. Thus, Einstein definitely wasn't wrong.


----------



## Lenfer

Lukecash12 said:


> Einstein said that nothing accelerates faster than light. Let me restate that so everyone here can get that: Anything that is currently not traveling at the speed of light, can not speed up to a point where it is going faster than light.
> 
> That supposition doesn't preclude the idea that something may already be going faster than light. Thus, Einstein definitely wasn't wrong.


I'm not saying your wrong I understand what youir point but if what your saying is right then the neutrinos must have started off at a speed not greater than the speed of light. Then exhilarated to a speed were they can only have been traveling faster than the speed of light if they went from A to B the normal way.

Otherwise I'm sure someone would have pointed this out to them before anyone would have had a chance to post this thread. I thought his theory of special relativity stated that *nothing* could travel faster than the speed of light.


----------



## Lukecash12

Lenfer said:


> I'm not saying your wrong I understand what youir point but if what your saying is right then the neutrinos must have started off at a speed not greater than the speed of light. Then exhilarated to a speed were they can only have been traveling faster than the speed of light if they went from A to B the normal way.
> 
> Otherwise I'm sure someone would have pointed this out to them before anyone would have had a chance to post this thread. I thought his theory of special relativity stated that *nothing* could travel faster than the speed of light.


1. The thread was mistaken from the start. We merely detect neutrinos, and have a hard time interacted with them other than observing what they do. As far as we know, neutrinos always move faster than the speed of light.

2. His theory of special relativity stated that nothing could accelerate faster than the speed of light. That was the actual term used.

http://www2.slac.stanford.edu/vvc/theory/relativity.html


----------



## Philip

Lukecash12 said:


> 1. The thread was mistaken from the start. We merely detect neutrinos, and have a hard time interacted with them other than observing what they do. As far as we know, neutrinos always move faster than the speed of light.
> 
> 2. His theory of special relativity stated that nothing could accelerate faster than the speed of light. That was the actual term used.
> 
> http://www2.slac.stanford.edu/vvc/theory/relativity.html


oh please, the "thread is mistaken" but, of course, you are right...

1. actually, as far as we know, neutrinos move to a speed _consistent_ with the speed of light, hence these extraordinary new findings.

2. no, the exact terms were:

"_For the velocity v = c we should have √(1 - v2/c2) = 0 and for still greater velocities the square-root becomes imaginary. From this we conclude that in the theory of relativity the velocity c plays the part of a limiting velocity, which can neither be reached nor exceeded by any real body.

Of course this feature of the velocity c as a limiting velocity also clearly follows from the equations of the Lorentz transformation, for these became meaningless if we choose values of v greater than c._"
Albert Einstein: "Relativity: The Special and General Theory" (Translated: Robert W. Lawson), Methuen & Co Ltd, 1920.


----------



## Fsharpmajor

Lukecash12 said:


> His theory of special relativity stated that nothing could accelerate faster than the speed of light. That was the actual term used.


I think you are confusing acceleration with velocity.


----------



## Philip

Fsharpmajor said:


> I think you are confusing acceleration with velocity.


he was probably referring to the discontinuity at c in the Lorentz factor, but his view is generally distorted nonetheless...


----------



## HerlockSholmes

I didn't know that the members of TC were also Physics professors.


----------



## Fsharpmajor

Recall that Borodin was, besides being a composer, an erudite chemist. Perhaps scientists tend to like classical music because it is an intractable problem.


----------



## mmsbls

Fsharpmajor said:


> I think you are confusing acceleration with velocity.


I believe Lukecash12 was saying that nothing can accelerate to the speed of light or to speeds faster than the speed of light. Technically, as many people here have pointed out, particles could conceivably _always_ travel faster than the speed of light. Those particles cannot decelerate to (or below) the speed of light.


----------



## mmsbls

Fsharpmajor said:


> Recall that Borodin was, besides being a composer, an erudite chemist. Perhaps scientists tend to like classical music because it is an intractable problem.


I'm not sure if scientists in general tend to like classical music, but there is certainly anecdotal evidence that scientists in fields dealing heavily with math (physics and astronomy, for example) seem to like classical music more than average. My personal experience with other physicists has borne that out. The reasoning seems to be that music is based strongly on mathematical relationships, and those who love or study math are then drawn to it. I'm not sure whether that theory has much validity.

Of course, polls have shown that classical music listenership is correlated with education (the more education , the higher the percentage of classical music listeners). It's hard to be a physicist or astronomer without significant education.


----------



## mmsbls

Fsharpmajor said:


> Recall that Borodin was, besides being a composer, an erudite chemist. Perhaps scientists tend to like classical music because it is an intractable problem.


Borodin was a great composer who was a strong scientist. William Herschel (1738-1822) was a great astronomer and a reasonable composer (he wrote 24 symphonies). I just learned that Herschel was a composer of some note a few weeks ago. Xenakis was trained as an engineer but more an architect. He used advanced mathematical ideas for his compositions.

I don't know if there are other examples.


----------



## Almaviva

HerlockSholmes said:


> I didn't know that the members of TC were also Physics professors.


I don't know whether you're being sarcastic or not, but in case you are, no, some of the members here are not playing at sounding like Physics professors out of some sort of Google search or Wikipedia; they *are* indeed Physics professors and _bona fide _real-life scientists (e.g., mmsbls; we know this from the various biographic / personal questions threads that we've had in the past). We do have some amazing members here, many of them highly educated and leading professionals in their respective fields. The fact that someone is a real-life scientist doesn't prevent the person from liking classical music and joining a site like this one.


----------



## Guest

It would be great if people in this category entered it on their profile page or even gave a blog/home page link, it is something to be very proud of IMO


----------



## mmsbls

Andante said:


> It would be great if people in this category entered it on their profile page or even gave a blog/home page link, it is something to be very proud of IMO


Since it's relevant to this thread, I will say that I was a particle physicist before changing fields roughly 18 years ago. I worked at Fermilab (the US equivalent to CERN). My thesis actually involved studying a particle decaying to an electron and neutrino. Interestingly, as for example Lukecash12 has discussed, neutrinos don't interact with other particles very easily so we "detected" the lack of the neutrino (i.e. missing energy or momentum) rather than the presence of a neutrino.

I'm not sure I'd say I'm proud of my background. I just loved doing it. Physics is simply the most interesting and beautiful thing in the world (for some of us ).


----------



## Guest

I only wish I had the necessary cleavers to understand it, I would be immensely proud.


----------



## Lukecash12

Fsharpmajor said:


> I think you are confusing acceleration with velocity.


Well let's see:



> "For the velocity v = c we should have √(1 - v2/c2) = 0 and for still greater velocities the square-root becomes imaginary. From this we conclude that in the theory of relativity the velocity c plays the part of a limiting velocity, which can neither be reached nor exceeded by any real body.
> 
> Of course this feature of the velocity c as a limiting velocity also clearly follows from the equations of the Lorentz transformation, for these became meaningless if we choose values of v greater than c."
> Albert Einstein: "Relativity: The Special and General Theory" (Translated: Robert W. Lawson), Methuen & Co Ltd, 1920.


1. Key phrase: "Which can neither be reached nor exceeded by any real body". That end of that statement keys into my point number 2, but my first point to make is that the usage of "reached" and "exceeded" seems consistent to me with acceleration to a velocity.

2. The theory of relativity has to do with the distortion of matter, you could say. It's been postulated that neutrinos don't have any mass, and that "neutrinos" are phenomena. I'd like to hear mmsbls' take on that postulation, because I have a keen respect for professionals and am more than willing to concede on this matter.


----------



## Almaviva

mmsbls said:


> Physics is simply the most interesting and beautiful thing in the world (for some of us ).


I respectfully disagree. Anna Yur'yevna Netrebko is the most interesting and beautiful thing in the world.


----------



## mmsbls

Almaviva said:


> I respectfully disagree. Anna Yur'yevna Netrebko is the most interesting and beautiful thing in the world.


I hope your wife has a good sense of humor.

I've always told people that I went into physics for the money and the babes, but somehow they don't believe me.


----------



## Lukecash12

Almaviva said:


> I respectfully disagree. Anna Yur'yevna Netrebko is the most interesting and beautiful thing in the world.


When women close their eyes just right, and show a little teeth, men become pawns in diabolical plots. A little good photography or staging, and I guess I have to give in to the urge to kill potential competitors. Are you a competitor, Almaviva?


----------



## mmsbls

Lukecash12 said:


> 2. The theory of relativity has to do with the distortion of matter, you could say. It's been postulated that neutrinos don't have any mass, and that "neutrinos" are phenomena. I'd like to hear mmsbls' take on that postulation, because I have a keen respect for professionals and am more than willing to concede on this matter.


Neutrinos were thought to be massless, but in 1998 evidence was found indicating that they do have mass. The details are complicated because the experiments do not actually measure the neutrino mass. Instead they determine that neutrinos actually turn into other types of neutrinos (this is called neutrino oscillations or mixing). Theoretically, mixing can only occur if neutrinos have mass. The OPERA experiment was actually designed to detect and measure details of this mixing effect. There are limits to the mass neutrinos have, and they are probably smaller than any other known particle (other than massless particles such as the photon).

Since neutrinos have mass, they must always travel slower than the speed of light according to special relativity (I'm ignoring the possibility of tachyons - particles that always travel faster than light). All particles that are massless (e.g. photons which make up light) _must_ travel at the speed of light according to special relativity.

I'm not sure what you mean by phenomena. Neutrinos are considered particles just like electrons and photons but with different properties (mass, electric charge, etc.). In my thesis experiment we detected the decay of a particle called the W into one electron and one neutrino.


----------



## Lukecash12

mmsbls said:


> Neutrinos were thought to be massless, but in 1998 evidence was found indicating that they do have mass. The details are complicated because the experiments do not actually measure the neutrino mass. Instead they determine that neutrinos actually turn into other types of neutrinos (this is called neutrino oscillations or mixing). Theoretically, mixing can only occur if neutrinos have mass. The OPERA experiment was actually designed to detect and measure details of this mixing effect. There are limits to the mass neutrinos have, and they are probably smaller than any other known particle (other than massless particles such as the photon).
> 
> Since neutrinos have mass, they must always travel slower than the speed of light according to special relativity (I'm ignoring the possibility of tachyons - particles that always travel faster than light). All particles that are massless (e.g. photons which make up light) _must_ travel at the speed of light according to special relativity.
> 
> I'm not sure what you mean by phenomena. Neutrinos are considered particles just like electrons and photons but with different properties (mass, electric charge, etc.). In my thesis experiment we detected the decay of a particle called the W into one electron and one neutrino.


If you could refer to me the OPERA study you've mentioned, and what journal it appeared in, I would appreciate it because I certainly don't want to be that far out of date when it comes to the subject.


----------



## Philip

http://www.citebase.org/abstract?identifier=oai:arXiv.org:hep-ex/9805021


----------



## Shamit

mmsbls said:


> Since it's relevant to this thread, I will say that I was a particle physicist before changing fields roughly 18 years ago. I worked at Fermilab (the US equivalent to CERN). My thesis actually involved studying a particle decaying to an electron and neutrino. Interestingly, as for example Lukecash12 has discussed, neutrinos don't interact with other particles very easily so we "detected" the lack of the neutrino (i.e. missing energy or momentum) rather than the presence of a neutrino.
> 
> I'm not sure I'd say I'm proud of my background. I just loved doing it. Physics is simply the most interesting and beautiful thing in the world (for some of us ).


You worked in Fermilab, that is incredible, did you get to poke around the tevatron ? I will be studying physcs in stony-brook university next year, great to meet a fellow physics guy in this forum.


----------



## itywltmt

HerlockSholmes said:


> I didn't know that the members of TC were also Physics professors.


Not all of us are professors, merely Physicists.


----------



## itywltmt

Almaviva said:


> I respectfully disagree. Anna Yur'yevna Netrebko is the most interesting and beautiful thing in the world.


She may be, but can she explain the N-body problem?


----------



## itywltmt

Andante said:


> It would be great if people in this category entered it on their profile page or even gave a blog/home page link, it is something to be very proud of IMO


My profile does... And even my Blog this week talks about Philip Glass and how I came to associate his musical style to the superposition of Waves.


----------



## science

I won't weigh in on the debate because I don't have the expertise, but I do very much look forward to seeing whether the results are duplicated.


----------



## itywltmt

More from Bob Park in this week's _What's New_ - I think that may be the end of this...



> 4. JUST IN: NEUTRINO VELOCITIES AND FLYING CARPETS.
> I am told that Andrew Cohen and Sheldon Glashow in arXiv:1109.6562v1 make
> the observation that superluminal neutrinos would radiate by the same
> effect as Cerenkov radiation when particles exceed c/n. That makes it
> clear, if it wasn't already, that the claim of superluminal neutrinos was
> wrong. No one knows why.


I have not looked up the reference to Cohen and Glashow, but I did bring up Cerenkov radiation in an earlier contribution to this post - radiation that travels faster than light in that medium, a phenomenon related to group vs phase velocity (I think).


----------



## Kopachris

I think Andrew Cohen and Sheldon Glashow are mistaken. Cherenkov radiation originates when a charged particle exceeds c/n in a dielectric medium. Neutrinos are not charged, and so wouldn't emit Cherenkov radiation.


----------



## mmsbls

Shamit said:


> You worked in Fermilab, that is incredible, did you get to poke around the tevatron ? I will be studying physcs in stony-brook university next year, great to meet a fellow physics guy in this forum.


We "users" (i.e. those who worked on experiments rather than the accelerator itself) did not have much to do with the Tevatron. I spent almost all my time in our experimental building where our detector was housed. There were many details of accelerator physics about which I was ignorant.

I actually almost went to Stony Brook for graduate school. If I had, I would have worked on the "other" main experiment, known as D0, at Fermilab. Luckily, I ended up working on the CDF experiment which ran several years earlier than D0 so I could get my doctorate sooner.


----------



## mmsbls

I looked at the Cohen and Glashow paper. The process they describe is not Cherenkov radiation but rather bremsstrahlung of electron-positron pairs. Essentially if neutrinos can exceed the speed of light, they will radiate an electron positron pair. The radiation of the electron positron pair is only kinematically allowed if the neutrinos travel faster than light and the electrons cannot exceed the speed of light. The neutrinos will radiate enough electron positron pairs that they will lose significant energy. When they reach the OPERA detector, their energy would be below the energy actually measured by the detector.


----------



## Lukecash12

Well, I perused this over the weekend (http://www.citebase.org/fulltext?format=application/pdf&identifier=oai:arXiv.org:hep-ex/9805021), and I concede that the idea that neutrinos don't have mass, is incorrect at this point. I would like to read it some more, and maybe discuss it with you later this week, mmsbls, if you'd like, and ask for other references to some more current studies on neutrinos.


----------



## Lukecash12

Well gentlemen, what do you think of the Lorentzian school of thought on this issue?



> According to Einstein it has no meaning to speak of motion relative to the aether. He likewise denies the existence of absolute simultaneity.
> 
> It is certainly remarkable that these relativity concepts, also those concerning time, have found such a rapid acceptance.
> 
> The acceptance of these concepts belongs mainly to epistemology . . . It is certain, however, that it depends to a large extent on the way one is accustomed to think whether one is attracted to one or another interpretation. As far as this lecturer is concerned, he finds a certain satisfaction in the older interpretations, according to which the aether possesses at least some substantiality, space and time can be sharply separated, and simultaneity without further specification can be spoken of. In regard to this last point, one may perhaps appeal to our ability of imagining arbitrarily large velocities. In that way, one comes very close to the concept of absolute simultaneity.
> 
> Finally, it should be noted that the daring assertion that one can never observe velocities larger than the velocity of light contains a hypothetical restriction of what is accessible to us, [a restriction] which cannot be accepted without some reservation.


H. A. Lorentz, A. Einstein, H. Minkowski Das Relativitätsprinzip, Fortschritte der mathematischen Wissenschaften 2, mit Anmerkungen von A. Sommerfeld und Vorwort von O. Blumenthal (Leipzig: B. G. Teubner, 1920), p. 23 (Pais translation).

I'm still caught up on whether or not Einstein postulated that objects cannot accelerate from subliminal to superliminal velocities. I'd like it spelled out a little better, that my viewpoint is misinformed when it comes to that.


----------



## Kopachris

New development: turns out OPERA didn't account for small differences in the Earth's gravitational field. I had thought about that before, but I didn't think the differences would be big enough to account for the 60ns. Well, they might be big enough. Links: http://***.lanl.gov/abs/1109.6160 and http://www.nature.com/news/2011/111005/full/news.2011.575.html.

Speculate!


----------



## mmsbls

Lukecash12 said:


> I'm still caught up on whether or not Einstein postulated that objects cannot accelerate from subliminal to superliminal velocities. I'd like it spelled out a little better, that my viewpoint is misinformed when it comes to that.


In his original paper, _On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies_, Einstein calculates the kinetic energy of an electron in section 10. The energy, W, goes as 1/sqrt(1 - v^2/c^2) where sqrt is the square root, and the term V^2 (c^2) means velocity squared (speed of light squared). As v goes to c, this term becomes infinite.

Einstein explicitly states, "Thus, when v=c, W becomes infinite. Velocities greater than that of light have-as in our previous results-no possibility of existence."

The relativistic energy of all particles has the same form as that calculated for the electron. This equation has been tested for decades in particle accelerators around the world. Particles such as electrons, positrons, protons, anti-protons, and even some heavy ions (gold, uranium) have been accelerated to speeds very close to c, and the energy follows Einstein's equation.

To accelerate a particle from .9999999c to .999999999999999c (an increase of 0.00001% in speed) requires an increase of 10,000 in energy and it only gets worse from there. There appears to be excellent evidence that particles traveling below the speed of light can not ever reach, much less exceed, the speed of light.


----------



## mmsbls

Kopachris said:


> New development: turns out OPERA didn't account for small differences in the Earth's gravitational field. I had thought about that before, but I didn't think the differences would be big enough to account for the 60ns. Well, they might be big enough. Links: http://***.lanl.gov/abs/1109.6160 and http://www.nature.com/news/2011/111005/full/news.2011.575.html.
> 
> Speculate!


Apparently Carlo Contaldi, who suggested that including gravitational effects would change the OPERA results, believes that properly including gravitation would reduce the statistical significance of the OPERA result from 6 standard deviations to 2-3. Six is considered very significant while 3 is borderline.

I think the OPERA result will continue being discussed for awhile, but I do suspect that very few physicists have much confidence in the result at this time. In other words they believe that a problem will be found in he experimental design or analysis rather than that neutrinos can actually travel faster than light.


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## Almaviva

itywltmt said:


> She may be, but can she explain the N-body problem?


The N-body, as in the Netrebko-body?
I think she can.
She does it here (pay attention to the lyrics):


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## Kopachris

Almaviva said:


> The N-body, as in the Netrebko-body?
> I think she can.
> She does it here (pay attention to the lyrics):




Isn't the N-body problem that of finding a single equation like Newton's law of gravitation to describe gravitation between an arbitrary number of bodies?


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## itywltmt

Kopachris said:


> Isn't the N-body problem that of finding a single equation like Newton's law of gravitation to describe gravitation between an arbitrary number of bodies?


I think the topic applies to both classical and quantum mechanics. When I was in Grad School, the "theorists" on the third Floor had about half a dozen of the solid-state guys looking at it.

However, Alma does have a more interesting angle with her new spokesperson...


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## graaf

Without Alma, this topic would be interesting only for a small bunch of members. This way, it is interesting for (male) half of the members.


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## itywltmt

mmsbls said:


> Apparently Carlo Contaldi, who suggested that including gravitational effects would change the OPERA results, believes that properly including gravitation would reduce the statistical significance of the OPERA result from 6 standard deviations to 2-3. Six is considered very significant while 3 is borderline.
> 
> I think the OPERA result will continue being discussed for awhile, but I do suspect that very few physicists have much confidence in the result at this time. In other words they believe that a problem will be found in he experimental design or analysis rather than that neutrinos can actually travel faster than light.


And why don't you throw in the _Coriolis _force? Those who have ignored it have had some unpleasant surprises... Read 



> The military normally knows all about the Coriolis force and thus introduces the appropriate correction to all missile trajectories. But in 1914, from the annals of embarrassing military moments, there was a World War I naval battle between the English and the Germans near the Falklands Islands off Argentina (52 degrees south latitude). The English battle cruisers Invincible and Inflexible engaged the German war ships Gneisenau and Scharnhorst at a range of nearly ten miles. Among other gunnery problems encountered, the English forgot to reverse the direction of their Coriolis correction. Their tables had been calculated for northern hemisphere projectiles, so they missed their targets by even more than if no correction had been applied. They ultimately won the battle against the Germans with about sixty direct hits, but it was not before over a thousand missile shells had fallen in the ocean.


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