Warp Speed may be possible

[Arakhor]

Jim Al-Khalilli, a professor of physics at the University of Surrey, has said that he will eat his boxer shorts on live TV if these neutrinos have actually broken the speed of light.

 

[timtofly]

Jim Al-Khalilli, a professor of physics at the University of Surrey, has said that he will eat his boxer shorts on live TV if these neutrinos have actually broken the speed of light.

And one day it may be possible to see him do it before he actually does?

 

[uppi]

I had a look at the paper. They can distinguish the neutrinos from CERN from background neutrinos by measuring the background and then seeing a large increase when CERN sends neutrinos their way. The shape of that pulse matches the shape of the creation beam, so one can safely say, that they are detecting neutrinos from CERN unless you consider it likely that background neutrinos suddenly show a sharp spike every time the CERN beam is switched on and for some reason those background neutrinos are also distributed exactly as you would expect from the beam.

The evidence looks solid to me and they seem to have thoroughly checked their results. The effort to calibrate the whole thing is tremendous (e.g. their GPS is accurate enough to monitor the continental drift). So there are several possibilities what these results could mean:

1) there was an embarrassing experimental error (like the extra cable I mentioned)
2) they make a very subtle error when determining the timing of neutrino creation at CERN (neutrino creation involves high energy collisions, and getting the description of those right isn't easy.)
3) they have overlooked a known effect that would explain the difference (which was theoretically described by a Russian physicist in an obscure journal in the 1980ies)
4) there is a new effect that explains the discrepancy
5) neutrinos surprise us once again and are really faster than light.

There are two ways this can go forward: Either somebody finds the error, or the explanation for the result. Or new data from this experiment or another experiment gives clear evidence for one option.

 

[Eat_Up_Martha]

Word on the street is that if the neutrinos took a shortcut through other dimensions then c remains functionally intact.

 

[bhsup]

So...tesseract??

 

[dirtyparrot]

I was reading somewhere that going faster than the speed of light (c) is theoretically possible so long as the object was always moving above c. What's not possible is to accelerate an object from under c to above it.

 

[EnglishEdward]

I was reading somewhere that going faster than the speed of light (c) is theoretically possible so long as the object was always moving above c. What's not possible is to accelerate an object from under c to above it.

They may not have accelerated past c.

A few lucky neutrinos travelling just below c may have simply quantum jumped
past c in much the same way particles can quantum tunnel through matter.

 

[GoodSarmatian]

I was reading somewhere that going faster than the speed of light (c) is theoretically possible so long as the object was always moving above c. What's not possible is to accelerate an object from under c to above it.

I think you mean tachyons. Some guy was playing around with Einstreins formulas, and as it turns out if the mass of an object is complex (a+bi) it always moves faster than light and it would take an infinite amount of energy to decelerate it to c.
I call mathematical sheananigans with no relevance to actual physics.

 

[Perfection]

They may not have accelerated past c.

A few lucky neutrinos travelling just below c may have simply quantum jumped
past c in much the same way particles can quantum tunnel through matter.

Link to video.

 

[Luckymoose]

Physicists are just butthurt and Tesla already said this like 80 years ago.

 

[dutchfire]

I had a look at the paper. They can distinguish the neutrinos from CERN from background neutrinos by measuring the background and then seeing a large increase when CERN sends neutrinos their way. The shape of that pulse matches the shape of the creation beam, so one can safely say, that they are detecting neutrinos from CERN unless you consider it likely that background neutrinos suddenly show a sharp spike every time the CERN beam is switched on and for some reason those background neutrinos are also distributed exactly as you would expect from the beam.

The evidence looks solid to me and they seem to have thoroughly checked their results. The effort to calibrate the whole thing is tremendous (e.g. their GPS is accurate enough to monitor the continental drift). So there are several possibilities what these results could mean:

1) there was an embarrassing experimental error (like the extra cable I mentioned)
2) they make a very subtle error when determining the timing of neutrino creation at CERN (neutrino creation involves high energy collisions, and getting the description of those right isn't easy.)
3) they have overlooked a known effect that would explain the difference (which was theoretically described by a Russian physicist in an obscure journal in the 1980ies)
4) there is a new effect that explains the discrepancy
5) neutrinos surprise us once again and are really faster than light.

There are two ways this can go forward: Either somebody finds the error, or the explanation for the result. Or new data from this experiment or another experiment gives clear evidence for one option.

I saw the webcast yesterday, it seems like they were really thorough. Hopefully similar techniques can be used at the Fermilab and Kamiokande experiments. If they get similar results, then it is looking promissing. Also, all the attention they are now getting will probably mean they will have the possibility to do some of their experiments even better. (E.g. the location of the detector deep in the rock could probably be measured better.)

Anyway, probably in the next couple of years, there will either be experimental confirmation of this effect at other labs, earning these people an almost certain Nobel prize, or an error in their methods will be found.

 

[Lillefix]

The evidence looks solid to me and they seem to have thoroughly checked their results. The effort to calibrate the whole thing is tremendous (e.g. their GPS is accurate enough to monitor the continental drift). So there are several possibilities what these results could mean:

1) there was an embarrassing experimental error (like the extra cable I mentioned)
2) they make a very subtle error when determining the timing of neutrino creation at CERN (neutrino creation involves high energy collisions, and getting the description of those right isn't easy.)
3) they have overlooked a known effect that would explain the difference (which was theoretically described by a Russian physicist in an obscure journal in the 1980ies)
4) there is a new effect that explains the discrepancy
5) neutrinos surprise us once again and are really faster than light.

There's also a sixth one. Hoax. It's happened before in science.

 

[Leoreth]

Word on the street is that if the neutrinos took a shortcut through other dimensions then c remains functionally intact.

Good thing that scientist and writer for Star Trek are still different professions.

I think you mean tachyons. Some guy was playing around with Einstreins formulas, and as it turns out if the mass of an object is complex (a+bi) it always moves faster than light and it would take an infinite amount of energy to decelerate it to c.
I call mathematical sheananigans with no relevance to actual physics.

Funny thing is, many mathematical shenanigans that had no experimental basis turned out to be physically correct afterwards. Parts of our current "particle zoo" were predicted this way, for example.

Anyway, probably in the next couple of years, there will either be experimental confirmation of this effect at other labs, earning these people an almost certain Nobel prize, or an error in their methods will be found.

I hope it doesn't take 30 years in this case then.

 

[J-man]

I still betting that there is some error in their measurements that they have overlooked.

 

[NinjaCow64]

I knew it!

That means that faster-than-light-travel may be possible! Look out universe, here we come!!!

 

[innonimatu]

If it is confirmed they'll just move on to a new consensus that neutrinos have no mass.

 

[Thorgalaeg]

Ludicrous speed!

 

[uppi]

If it is confirmed they'll just move on to a new consensus that neutrinos have no mass.

No. That would not solve the problem of neutrinos faster than light, because "particles" without mass should travel exactly at the speed of light. And then it would invalidate the theory for neutrino oscillations. So we would gain nothing, but we lose a theory in the process.

If anything, one could argue that neutrinos have negative mass (whatever that means). This would allow them to travel faster than light and would still be compatible with neutrino oscillations. But that would come with its own bunch of theoretical problems.

 

[ParadigmShifter]

I thought the mass is squared in the equation, meaning negative mass still means light speed is the limit? Isn't that why proposed tachyons would have imaginary/complex mass?

 

[kiwitt]

My maths is a bit hazy now. If E=MC2 what does M = ?