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Science: Particles seen moving at FTL speeds (CERN) (non-climate change thread)


Old Man

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The OPERA experiment has repeated and confirmed their original FTL neutrino result, with some modifications that would seem to rule out certain sources of systematic error. http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/11/neutrinos-screw-einstein/

 

So while the result is still improbable it still can't be ruled out either. Next up is for MINOS and (facility in Japan whose name I can't remember) to try to verify the results themselves, sometime next year.

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Re: Science: Particles seen moving at FTL speeds (CERN) (non-climate change thread)

 

Pretty much. I'm wondering whether the duplication attempts will be just that, or if they'll try to improve the experiment. For example, we don't know if the neutrinos are actually going FTL or if they're teleporting a short distance and moving STL after that.

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Re: Science: Particles seen moving at FTL speeds (CERN) (non-climate change thread)

 

Pretty much. I'm wondering whether the duplication attempts will be just that' date=' or if they'll try to improve the experiment. For example, we don't know if the neutrinos are actually going FTL or if they're teleporting a short distance and moving STL after that.[/quote']

Either way, if they are going FTL all the way or if they are going lots faster than lght for a short jump then STL the rest of the way, current theory says they can't do that. Looks like we get to learn something new!

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Re: Science: Particles seen moving at FTL speeds (CERN) (non-climate change thread)

 

Either way' date=' if they are going FTL all the way or if they are going lots faster than lght for a short jump then STL the rest of the way, current theory says they can't do that. Looks like we get to learn something new![/quote']

And in the worst chase, it's just how to set our clocks properly when counting nanoseconds :)

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Re: Science: Particles seen moving at FTL speeds (CERN) (non-climate change thread)

 

Either way' date=' if they are going FTL all the way or if they are going lots faster than lght for a short jump then STL the rest of the way, current theory says they can't do that. Looks like we get to learn something new![/quote']

 

Current theory says neutrinos can't tunnel?

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Re: Science: Particles seen moving at FTL speeds (CERN) (non-climate change thread)

 

Been mre than a few decades since my last physics course. I was aware of claims of superluminal quantium tunneling' date=' are they now widely accepted?[/quote']

Wikipedia only has a short text:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_tunnelling#Faster_than_Light

 

The two only references are:

Mohsen Razavy, "Quantum Theory of Tunneling", pages 462-467. World Scientific Publishing Company, 2003

P.E. Low, Comments on apparent superluminal propagation, Ann. Phys, (Leipzig), 7, 1661, (1998)

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Re: Science: Particles seen moving at FTL speeds (CERN) (non-climate change thread)

 

If I'm reading the wiki correctly, while FTL tunneling is possible, it's the sort of thing that they would have checked for before making their claim. Nor, IIRC, can tunneling occur over distances large enough to explain the measured effect.

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Re: Science: Particles seen moving at FTL speeds (CERN) (non-climate change thread)

 

If I'm reading the wiki correctly' date=' while FTL tunneling is possible, it's the sort of thing that they would have checked for before making their claim. Nor, IIRC, can tunneling occur over distances large enough to explain the measured effect.[/quote']

I am not up to date on that specific topic, but afaik the longest tunneling (STL) so far detected was about 1m.

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  • 2 months later...

Re: Science: Particles seen moving at FTL speeds (CERN) (non-climate change thread)

 

Sounds pretty solid for me. And like I said earlier, when stopping neutrinos travel time you better are very, very certain your clock goes right.

 

Either way' date=' if they are going FTL all the way or if they are going lots faster than lght for a short jump then STL the rest of the way, current theory says they can't do that. Looks like we get to learn something new![/quote']

 

And in the worst chase' date=' it's just how to set our clocks properly when counting nanoseconds :)[/quote']
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Re: Science: Particles seen moving at FTL speeds (CERN) (non-climate change thread)

 

According to sources familiar with the experiment, the 60 nanoseconds discrepancy appears to come from a bad connection between a fiber optic cable that connects to the GPS receiver used to correct the timing of the neutrinos' flight and an electronic card in a computer.

 

...oh crud.

 

I know loose connections can take forever to locate (trouble-shooting nightmare!) but when the entire world is debating over your results, you might wanna, idunno, look harder. :nonp::stupid::tsk:

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Re: Science: Particles seen moving at FTL speeds (CERN) (non-climate change thread)

 

I did give a sardonic laugh when I read the explanation. Loose cable? Really? Layer 1 issues should be among the first things checked when troubleshooting any strange network behavior.

Well if it was a Layer 1 error that wasn't found, it propably was actually a Layer 8 Error.

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Re: Science: Particles seen moving at FTL speeds (CERN) (non-climate change thread)

 

People keep saying that Einsteins Special Relativity says that nothing can go faster than light.

 

This is not true!

 

What it says is that nothing can cross the light-speed barrier.

 

any particle that starts going faster than light can and must continue to go faster than light until it is destroyed

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Re: Science: Particles seen moving at FTL speeds (CERN) (non-climate change thread)

 

Well, there has yet to be any detected interaction between an FTL particle and a slower-than-light particle. This is the empirical way of saying that (1) that no FLT particle has yet been detected, and (2) there is no evidence that FTL particles exist.

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Re: Science: Particles seen moving at FTL speeds (CERN) (non-climate change thread)

 

I'd have to think about that, at least partly because there's no reason to believe FTL particles exist in the first place, let alone how they might or might not interact with particles that we do know exist.

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