Philosophy
The physicists who claimed to see neutrinos moving faster than light are moving quickly to replicate their experiment, hoping to substantiate their results before submitting them for publication. Since announcing their bizarre, seemingly impossible findings last month, physicists around the world have offered a few possible explanations. But perhaps the best test will be a retest.
The OPERA experiment sends a beam of neutrinos from CERN in Geneva, through the mountains to Italy’s Gran Sasso National Laboratory. The point is to look for flip-flops in neutrino flavor, which requires precisely measuring and averaging the chargeless particles’ arrival and departure times. It was in this routine timing that a team led by Antonio Ereditato found particles apparently moving faster than light. They were arriving at Gran Sasso about 60 nanoseconds earlier than the time it would take light to travel the same distance.
This violates the known laws of physics, but the OPERA collaborators saw it happen so frequently that it couldn’t be a fluke; they released their findings to the greater scientific community, hoping for some insight. Several other physicists have since proposed new theoretical explanations, including the possibility that the clocks on the GPS satellites used for the precise arrival-departure timing do not themselves account for relativistic motion. Other researchers have said the OPERA team must be committing some unknown and repeated systematic error. This is part of the team’s motivation for rechecking their findings, according to BBC News. CERN research leader Sergio Bertolucci said the team is sending a different time pattern, which will allow OPERA to repeat the measurement with different data. This could remove some of the possible systematic errors, he said.
Bertolucci said the experimenters would not “fool around,” given the physics-shattering implications of the results.
The new measurements will fire protons in super-short bursts (one or two nanoseconds), then wait about 500 nanoseconds before firing another burst. The short burst will allow for precise measurements and efficient neutrino monitoring, Bertolucci told BBC. Originally, the protons were fired in a long beam lasting a comparatively long 10 microseconds. This new beam run will end in November, when CERN has to switch the type of particles it is accelerating. Then the team will re-check its calculations and submit their findings for publication, BBC says.
“They actually planned to make the results public in 2015, but they traveled faster than light and came out last month,” says Associate Editor Paul.
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Philosophy
The way it is done...neutrino experiment
"European Physicists Will Race Neutrinos Again, Trying to Reproduce Faster-Than-Light Results"
by
Rebecca Boyle
October 31st, 2011
POPSCI
by
Rebecca Boyle
October 31st, 2011
POPSCI
The physicists who claimed to see neutrinos moving faster than light are moving quickly to replicate their experiment, hoping to substantiate their results before submitting them for publication. Since announcing their bizarre, seemingly impossible findings last month, physicists around the world have offered a few possible explanations. But perhaps the best test will be a retest.
The OPERA experiment sends a beam of neutrinos from CERN in Geneva, through the mountains to Italy’s Gran Sasso National Laboratory. The point is to look for flip-flops in neutrino flavor, which requires precisely measuring and averaging the chargeless particles’ arrival and departure times. It was in this routine timing that a team led by Antonio Ereditato found particles apparently moving faster than light. They were arriving at Gran Sasso about 60 nanoseconds earlier than the time it would take light to travel the same distance.
This violates the known laws of physics, but the OPERA collaborators saw it happen so frequently that it couldn’t be a fluke; they released their findings to the greater scientific community, hoping for some insight. Several other physicists have since proposed new theoretical explanations, including the possibility that the clocks on the GPS satellites used for the precise arrival-departure timing do not themselves account for relativistic motion. Other researchers have said the OPERA team must be committing some unknown and repeated systematic error. This is part of the team’s motivation for rechecking their findings, according to BBC News. CERN research leader Sergio Bertolucci said the team is sending a different time pattern, which will allow OPERA to repeat the measurement with different data. This could remove some of the possible systematic errors, he said.
Bertolucci said the experimenters would not “fool around,” given the physics-shattering implications of the results.
The new measurements will fire protons in super-short bursts (one or two nanoseconds), then wait about 500 nanoseconds before firing another burst. The short burst will allow for precise measurements and efficient neutrino monitoring, Bertolucci told BBC. Originally, the protons were fired in a long beam lasting a comparatively long 10 microseconds. This new beam run will end in November, when CERN has to switch the type of particles it is accelerating. Then the team will re-check its calculations and submit their findings for publication, BBC says.
“They actually planned to make the results public in 2015, but they traveled faster than light and came out last month,” says Associate Editor Paul.
- Faster Than The Speed Of Light?
Some months ago, news broke indicating that scientific measurements in Italy had determined that some neutrinos could travel faster than the speed of light. The media jumped on the hype bandwagon and declared the "death of Einstein's theory of relativity."...
- A Single Event Does Not Make A Law Invalid...neutrinos Vs Speed Of Light
"Take Heart, Einstein: ‘Earth-Shattering’ Science Is Relatively Rare?" by Adam Mann September 26th, 2011 Wired Science What began last week as whispered rumors posted on the physics blog Resonaances grew to a roar of articles around the world...
- Should Have Used Heathkit No. 4530949e
There is something to be said about being absolutely sure before a disclosure is announced."Faster-than-light neutrinos could be down to bad wiring"by Jason Palmer February 23rd, 2012BBC NewsWhat might have been the biggest physics story of the past century...
- Slow Down There Mr. Neutrino
"Particles Faster Than the Speed of Light? Not So Fast, Some Say" by Dennis Overbye October 24th, 2011 The New York Times “Does E still equal MC squared?” So asks the Irish band the Corrigan Brothers in a new song, “Einstein and the Neutrinos,”...
- Neutrino Speed Must Be Subjected To The "scientific Method"
"Not so fast, neutrinos" MIT physics professors examine the subatomic speed limit controversy by Stephanie Holden October 14th, 2011 The Tech On Sept. 23, European scientists announced that they had observed neutrinos, a class of subatomic particles,...