[_ Old Earth _] Neutrino faster than light

[Potluck]

Ok, so this has been in the news. One experiment ascertained a neutrino traveling faster than the speed of light. A lot of opposition to that and of course with good reason. A claim like that warrants opposition, simple as that.
Another experiment supported the results of the first.
6 days ago opposition again. And yes, even the second warrants close scrutiny. Yet, that opposition uses theorems based entirely on the accepted premise and the mechanics thereof of the theory that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light.

Quite frankly I don't know what to make of all this. I'll leave open the possibility that we as humans can't know everything and past history in science has given us more than enough instances where current consensus has been upset by more technological advances. But this is, well, a bit mind-boggling to say the least.

I really haven't found much in the way something like this, if true, would impact current thinking. I don't know if scientists are reluctant to speculate or what but it seems the possibility and the repercussions are a bit much to think about much less publicize just now. Again, I really have no clue what to make of it.

So I'll ask the guru's here.
What say you? What would a finding like this mean if true?

 

[lordkalvan]

Ok, so this has been in the news. One experiment ascertained a neutrino traveling faster than the speed of light. A lot of opposition to that and of course with good reason. A claim like that warrants opposition, simple as that.
Another experiment supported the results of the first.
6 days ago opposition again. And yes, even the second warrants close scrutiny. Yet, that opposition uses theorems based entirely on the accepted premise and the mechanics thereof of the theory that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light.

Quite frankly I don't know what to make of all this. I'll leave open the possibility that we as humans can't know everything and past history in science has given us more than enough instances where current consensus has been upset by more technological advances. But this is, well, a bit mind-boggling to say the least.

I really haven't found much in the way something like this, if true, would impact current thinking. I don't know if scientists are reluctant to speculate or what but it seems the possibility and the repercussions are a bit much to think about much less publicize just now. Again, I really have no clue what to make of it.

So I'll ask the guru's here.
What say you? What would a finding like this mean if true?

I'm no physicist so am as boggled as yourself. My understanding is that, as of present, neither the original Opera team findings nor the Icarus team review have been formally published and reviewed by the scientific community. Nobel-winner Prof Sheldon Glashow and Andrew Sheldon have published a formal theoretical objection to the Opera team results based on the expectation that particles travelling at faster than light speeds should emit radiation, losing energy and slowing down as a result. Apparently no such observed radiation has been reported from the CERN experiments.

As to the implications? Well, I suppose that insofar as Newtonian physics remain a workable and useful tool for approximating many things about the physical Universe despite the fundamental changes introduced by Einsteinian physics, the same would remain true in regard to Einsteinian physics and any 'new' physics that may result from these observations. Like you I will be interested to read any comments from physicists on this phenomenon.

 

[Jam]

Original article (Measurement of the neutrino velocity with the OPERA detector in the CNGS beam, Adam et al, 2011): http://arxiv.org/abs/1109.4897

And here's a bunch of related papers if anyone's interested. The full pdf.s are available free for most of these:
http://arxiv.org/abs/hep-ph/0103051
http://arxiv.org/abs/hep-th/0201077
http://arxiv.org/abs/hep-ph/0203060
http://arxiv.org/abs/hep-ph/0306028
http://arxiv.org/abs/hep-ph/9810355
http://arxiv.org/abs/hep-ph/9607477
http://arxiv.org/abs/hep-th/9411230
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0370269385904605
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0370269386904806
http://arxiv.org/abs/hep-ph/0009291
http://arxiv.org/abs/hep-ph/9812418
http://arxiv.org/abs/hep-ph/9809521
http://arxiv.org/abs/0801.0287
http://arxiv.org/abs/hep-ph/0610324
http://arxiv.org/abs/1109.5687

As for the implications, I don't think anyone is quite sure, to be honest... it also depends upon what you mean by "true": are we saying that neutrinos do travel faster than the speed limit of causality, or that they travel faster than light but that this is actually lower than the speed limit of causality, or that they manage to cover distance x in time y, where x/y > c, but don't actually have this speed, or what?

There are all sorts of hypothesised explanations, but I think the implications of these are more or less irrelevant for most people's understanding of physics. I think lordkalvan is right: our understanding of physics now won't suddenly be wrong if the measurements are correct. It's more likely that Einstein's theories will simply turn out to be special cases of truth, as we now consider Newton's developments to be special cases of Einstein's. Really, I think only the theoretical physicists will be having the problems here;)

Interesting read for potential implications: http://motls.blogspot.com/2011/09/superluminal-neutrinos-from.html

 

[lordkalvan]

Thanks for those links, Light, and for your interesting comments.

 

[Potluck]

Nobel-winner Prof Sheldon Glashow and Andrew Sheldon have published a formal theoretical objection to the Opera team results based on the expectation that particles travelling at faster than light speeds should emit radiation, losing energy and slowing down as a result. Apparently no such observed radiation has been reported from the CERN experiments.

Yes, that was a week ago.
But again, the objection is based on relativity as we understand it to be.
No losses. Communications would have quite a boost with something like that.

I believe we're still in the very early stages of infancy concerning nuclear physics. All we're doing right now on a practical basis is simply using the heat given off to produce steam that turns a wheel. Primitive. We were using heat to make steam do work a hundred years ago.

No losses.
THAT is intriguing to say the least.

I think only the theoretical physicists will be having the problems here;)

No kidding. That's already evident in those links you posted.

I think we're on the threshold of opening up a whole new field of investigation and study. Quantum mechanics is mind-numbing enough and now this Does anyone else get the feeling the two are related?

I'll admit, I had very little understanding, if any, what was being said in those links light posted. But that sure doesn't dampen my curiosity. Not a bit. Relativity is something I could grasp, at least the outer edges anyway. This is another animal altogether.
Great time to be in field of physics.

 

[jasoncran]

Yes, that was a week ago.
But again, the objection is based on relativity as we understand it to be.
No losses. Communications would have quite a boost with something like that.

I believe we're still in the very early stages of infancy concerning nuclear physics. All we're doing right now on a practical basis is simply using the heat given off to produce steam that turns a wheel. Primitive. We were using heat to make steam do work a hundred years ago.

No losses.
THAT is intriguing to say the least.



No kidding. That's already evident in those links you posted.

I think we're on the threshold of opening up a whole new field of investigation and study. Quantum mechanics is mind-numbing enough and now this Does anyone else get the feeling the two are related?

I'll admit, I had very little understanding, if any, what was being said in those links light posted. But that sure doesn't dampen my curiosity. Not a bit. Relativity is something I could grasp, at least the outer edges anyway. This is another animal altogether.
Great time to be in field of physics.

warp drive! and may in not be powered by antimatter but by protoculture or a zero point module(quantum singularity)

 

[Potluck]

warp drive! and may in not be powered by antimatter but by protoculture or a zero point module(quantum singularity)

You first. I'll take care of the countdown.

By remote control.

 

[jasoncran]

You first. I'll take care of the countdown.

By remote control.

lol. i say put some of the democrats in and let see.