The speed of light may have been broken.

[Motor Daddy]

I see you finally get it now.

 

[origin]

The paper itself mentions the process and shows diagram. Making the beam is actually far easier than detecting a small part of it after it has been made.

Thanks, I couldn't figure out how in the hell you are suppose to focus neutrinos! You focus the precursors... that makes sense.

 

[keith1]

I would like to add this pic I drew, to illustrate a thought I was having about the increase, then the corresponding decrease, in the mass (m2) above the particle course-way.
Perhaps hint of some unknown dynamic boost from a gravitational field assist?

 

[Walter L. Wagner]

So, here's a paper of about 200 authors showing neutrinos at having a speed being just barely above c:

http://arxiv.org/pdf/0706.0437v3

However, it is based on measurements of distance and time, and does not directly compare neutrinos and photons in a race. The authors of this paper are actually more interested in the rest-mass and relativistic mass of the neutrino. They were not trying to claim that c is exceeded, and they consider it within experimental error to have the speed barely above c.

The more recent article from CERN people, also of about 200 authors, shows neutrinos as substantially faster than c. Again, the speed of the neutrino is based on distance measurements and time measurements, and is not based on a race with photons. Here is that paper:

http://static.arxiv.org/pdf/1109.4897.pdf

In this paper, they ask for others to find an error in their distance or time calculations, for they claim that otherwise, they have evidence for neutrino speed substantially above c beyond experimental error.

In the 1987a supernova ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SN_1987A ), the speed of the neutrino was compared directly to that of photons, as they both departed from a supernova at close the same starting time. The neutrinos arrived first, but only by 3 hours, after having travelled about 168,000 light years. It is believed that they got a head-start of about 3+ hours during the star core collapse, when they were generated in abundance, but the shock-wave took three hours to reach the star surface, throwing off an abundance of photons that then started in the race with the neutrinos towards earth.

Unless there is a discrepancy between the speeds of muon-generated neutrinos as at CERN, and the rapid-fusion release of neutrinos as in the core-collapse, the more accurate measurement is the 1987a, which strongly implies the CERN data has a systematic error.

I'm sure that others are now looking at the difference between the mu-neutrinos of CERN, and the ones of the fusion reaction of 1987a, to seek whether that might allow for a speed discrepancy.

 

[OnlyMe]

So, here's a paper of about 200 authors showing neutrinos at having a speed being just barely above c:

http://arxiv.org/pdf/0706.0437v3

However, it is based on measurements of distance and time, and does not directly compare neutrinos and photons in a race. The authors of this paper are actually more interested in the rest-mass and relativistic mass of the neutrino. They were not trying to claim that c is exceeded, and they consider it within experimental error to have the speed barely above c.

The more recent article from CERN people, also of about 200 authors, shows neutrinos as substantially faster than c. Again, the speed of the neutrino is based on distance measurements and time measurements, and is not based on a race with photons. Here is that paper:

http://static.arxiv.org/pdf/1109.4897.pdf

In this paper, they ask for others to find an error in their distance or time calculations, for they claim that otherwise, they have evidence for neutrino speed substantially above c beyond experimental error.

In the 1987a supernova ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SN_1987A ), the speed of the neutrino was compared directly to that of photons, as they both departed from a supernova at close the same starting time. The neutrinos arrived first, but only by 3 hours, after having travelled about 168,000 light years. It is believed that they got a head-start of about 3+ hours during the star core collapse, when they were generated in abundance, but the shock-wave took three hours to reach the star surface, throwing off an abundance of photons that then started in the race with the neutrinos towards earth.

Unless there is a discrepancy between the speeds of muon-generated neutrinos as at CERN, and the rapid-fusion release of neutrinos as in the core-collapse, the more accurate measurement is the 1987a, which strongly implies the CERN data has a systematic error.

I'm sure that others are now looking at the difference between the mu-neutrinos of CERN, and the ones of the fusion reaction of 1987a, to seek whether that might allow for a speed discrepancy.

At first glance I had similar concerns between the 1987a event and the latest CERN results. One variable that could explain the difference would be the energy level of the neutrinos from the two events. I have not dug in sufficiently to verify this but would assume the 1987a event involved electron neutrinos. The mu-neutrinos in the CERN experiment are of a far higher energy level. It has been my understanding that theoretically neutrino velocity is a function of it's energy. That would give the mu-neutrinos a boost so to speak.

These were just among some of the random thoughts I have gone through since the CERN news release and as I said I have not yet gone to the trouble of verifying the neutrino type or the theoretical relationship between neutrino energy level and velocity. (too many things on the to do list...)

Perhaps one of those watching this thread a little closer to the subject might weight in?

 

[wellwisher]

When I first began writing my own theories in science, decades ago, one of my first models, I called the neutrino theory. This simple theory tried to accomodate a particle with the properties of neutrinos, going faster than C. The neutrino seemed the most likely candidate to do this so I named it after the neutrino. That was in 1986. It took a few decades for science to catch up. But in the mean time, being right was tough, since the caretakers of the traditions can be like jackels.

The model was based on a simple consideration. Picture a wheel with its center hub moving at C. The hub moves along the X-axis to the right. The wheel is also rotating clockwise. The point at 12 o'clock, has to move faster than C to get ahead of the hub and appear at 3 o'clock.

Due to the symmetry of the wheel, the point at 6 oclock since it is moving to the left is going slower than C. As it goes from 6 o'clock to 9 o'clock the point slows even more s. The net effect is, all rim velocities cancel, so the average speed of everything will be C.

But I still wondered about the 12 o'clock point traveling faster than C, whether although it mathematically cancels with 6 o'clock, whether the inertial C- effect and the C+ effect would cancel in terms of their impacts in inertial reference, or whether the C+ would have a slight anomalous advantage.

 

[Tach]

When I first began writing my own theories in science, decades ago, one of my first models, I called the neutrino theory. This simple theory tried to accomodate a particle with the properties of neutrinos, going faster than C. The neutrino seemed the most likely candidate to do this so I named it after the neutrino. That was in 1986. It took a few decades for science to catch up. But in the mean time, being right was tough, since the caretakers of the traditions can be like jackels.

Did you publish any of your revolutionary findings or are you just making up tall stories?

The model was based on a simple consideration. Picture a wheel with its center hub moving at C. The hub moves along the X-axis to the right. The wheel is also rotating clockwise. The point at 12 o'clock, has to move faster than C to get ahead of the hub and appear at 3 o'clock.

Due to the symmetry of the wheel, the point at 6 oclock since it is moving to the left is going slower than C. As it goes from 6 o'clock to 9 o'clock the point slows even more s. The net effect is, all rim velocities cancel, so the average speed of everything will be C.

But I still wondered about the 12 o'clock point traveling faster than C, whether although it mathematically cancels with 6 o'clock, whether the inertial C- effect and the C+ effect would cancel in terms of their impacts in inertial reference, or whether the C+ would have a slight anomalous advantage.

Ah, I see, total BS mixed with delusions.

 

[hardalee]

It’s a nice time to be alive.

Either a major advance is in the offing or 200 distinguished physicists will have to have crow for dinner. The jury is out, but what if they are right?

Thoughts of “imaginary mass”, made of particles’ that change their properties for currently unknown reasons, have mass but travel faster than light, the most populist particles in the universe, spread throughout the universe and very hard to detect.

Would imaginary mass be subject to going infinity at the speed of light? Someting is strange here.

Could they be related to the dark energy problem? Does imaginary mass, if it exists, repel rather than attract?

If the result holds, it will not mean just changing the speed of light, but a whole new physics to explain the reasons for the different speed.

Just spitballing here, but it’s interesting.

 

[quantum_wave]

So, you can't sensibly talk about FTL travel until you have confirmation of a framework which allows neutrinos to be localizable and faster-than-light and hold the rest of physics. If we only had confirmation that neutrinos are localizable and faster-than-light we still wouldn't have them unified in physical theory and they would stand outside physics, like magic, until we did understand them in a unified physical theory. But right now, we have a very complicated claim that a certain distance and a certain time interval was measured with certain associated precisions that lead one to conclude the claim is neutrinos travelled marginally faster than light. Not all parts of the claim are on the Internet -- many details are in one person's doctoral dissertation and it only takes one sign error or double-counting to render the claim invalid.

I respect your opinion on this and await the results. The reason I'm jumping in is that I can't find where you originally posted this:

areasys, if true, it's much worse than that.

All of physical observation to date is consistent with the framework of relativistic quantum field theory being true, which is that space-time has a certain structure of cause-and-effect and that it supports fields of particles in that space-time. Even through this framework supports faster-than-light phenomena, a mathematical theorem of this framework says changes to the quantum fields propagate only at speed c. This means while particles may move faster, slower or at the speed of light, observed signals cannot move faster than the speed of light. Faster-than-light particles, if they exist, in this framework, can carry energy and momentum, but must have a property of non-localization so that they cannot be used to send signals faster-than-light. Also, low-energy particles must travel faster than high-energy particles. Also the mass-squared must be negative.

And if not all of that is true, then neutrinos just don't obey the laws of physics as we understand them -- they would be super-natural relative to the reality we do understand and would require a completely new and superior model to hold both neutrinos and the rest of physics in a common framework. And that's the only way physics would make progress, because the history of physics has, since Newton, been about unification in theory -- there is only one universe, and its parts should have some common organizing principles.

But, neutrinos are not magic. Their existence was predicted from the reliable known laws of physics being inconsistent with energy and momentum studies with some types of particle decay. Their electroweak properties are well-modelled by reliable known laws of physics. So it is widely held that neutrinos are well described by the general framework of relativistic quantum field theory. And we don't have good evidence that they are magic or that all of the predictions of them being faster-than-light are in evidence.

Further, more sensitive observations over much longer distances contradict these current results.
http://scienceblogs.com/startswithab...laim_requi.php
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/ba...ow-down-folks/

It seems simpler to believe at this point is someone mismeasured an angle or the curve of the Earth, or ignored, double-counted or got the sign wrong on one of the corrections needed because the Earth is an inertial environment, nor is it homogenous and spherically symmetrical, and the end points of the experiment are in relative motion.

Was it posted in another thread or am I missing it in this thread? Either way, my question is about the spacetime framework. Does that framework exist as a result of the initial singularity or is that too simple an explanation?

 

[OnlyMe]

Either a major advance is in the offing or 200 distinguished physicists will have to have crow for dinner. The jury is out, but what if they are right?

If the result holds, it will not mean just changing the speed of light, but a whole new physics to explain the reasons for the different speed.

I don't think they wind up eating crow either way. If/when their experiment is reproduced and I am sure plans are already in the works..,

If proven right, they get recognition. If proven wrong, the new experiments will most likely identify anomalies in either the experiment or environment that explain the original results. They did a pretty good job of calling for outside verification.

I also don't think that even should a neutrino be determined to be capable of a v > c, it will have any adverse affect on the rest of physics. We already know that with the exception of this one experiment involving neutrinos, all other particles, with and without mass (to include the photon) obey the limitations of c. And the speed of a photon would not be altered by any discovery that a neutrino could travel faster than c.

Keep in mind that the neutrino is the smallest particle we know of with mass that can be considered independently stable. And where essentially all other particles in some way interact electromagnetically, the neutrino alone seems to interact only weakly and then only when directly impacting another particle.

I believe in the end should these results be confirmed it will open more doors than it closes. It will certainly change a great deal of how theoretical physics views the universe, but I do not believe that it on it's own will wind up challenging the fundamentally proven value of either GR or QM. Both GR and QM have been so successful at best overtime, only how we see the integration of these with the universe at large is likely to change.

 

[kira]

Yes, I do understand what you are saying.
The speed of light is a constant, and distance is defined by it.
So if a neutrino travels more than 299,792,458 metres in a second, the same as light in a vacuum, then it will be travelling faster than the speed of light.

But what I am saying is that the speed of light in a vacuum can only be estimated, not measured, so couldn't that estimation be wrong by a tiny amount.

That would in turn make the definition of distance wrong.
The definition is dependent upon the estimated speed, c, not the other way round.

I don't want to keep banging on about this.
@someone else.
Am I talking nonsense?

I am not a physicist and my knowledge of physics is limited to secondary school and Wikipedia, so I most likely wrong or over simplified everything

How did the speed of light determined? From wiki:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_of_light#Measurement

What I understand from that link is that, first, historically somebody from ancient Greece (Empedocles, 490–430 BC) theorized that light traveled at a finite speed. Long history, then somebody from Denmark (Rømer, 1676) demonstrated that light indeed traveled at a finite speed (by observing the motion of Jupiter) and he and his coworker came up with this number as the speed of light: 220,000 km/s. This was the first known quantitative measurement of the speed of light. There were then many attempts to measure the speed of light and the value was continuously revised. This is a screenshot of historical value of the speed of light which I took from wiki:

It was then getting more accurate after laser interferometry method was discovered. In the laser interferometry method, the speed of light is determined based on direct frequency and wavelength measurement. Here is an article about it (it is a pdf link):

http://nvl.nist.gov/pub/nistpubs/sp958-lide/191-193.pdf

As I understand from the wiki and that link, light is an electromagnetic wave, it has a length, say λ. When a source of light emits lights, the number of wavelengths emitted in a given time is called as frequency (f) and therefore the unit of frequency is "per unit time" (for example, "per second"). When you know the length and the frequency, the speed can then be calculated using the equation: c = λf. Edit: I think that I made a mistake over here, a speed must be related with traveled distance over a time period, maybe it should have been c = nλf (with n is the number of wavelengths), but as I understand from the article, the method has something to do with direct wavelength and frequency measurement >_>

From the pdf link, there was these people (Boulder group) that did the first direct measurement of the frequency of 633 nm line of the iodine-stabilized helium-neon laser, as well as a measurement of the frequency of 576 nm line in iodine. Those lights from the helium-neon laser has known wavelengths (633 nm and 576 nm) and known frequencies, and they calculated the speed based on these.

What they did in CERN, in which they fired the neutrinos over 730 km distance, they found that the neutrinos arrived some nanoseconds early (correspond to 18 meters distance) too early if it was light to travel that distance. In my opinion, maybe they should fired lights together with the neutrinos to see who arrives earlier to know for sure. The problem is that, maybe it's not possible to detect light using existing detector (unlike those giant detector which is used to detect the neutrinos?).

If there are too many basic mistakes in this post, please just ignore this post, I'll understand ^^

 

[hardalee]

Both GR and QM have been so successful at best overtime, only how we see the integration of these with the universe at large is likely to change.

You may be right, but we will have to state that E=MCsquared, "except for :" and then do a lot of expaining. The Lorentz contraction problems will also need some adjustments.

In any event, it is the most interesting real science I've seen in a long time

 

[OnlyMe]

At first glance I had similar concerns between the 1987a event and the latest CERN results. One variable that could explain the difference would be the energy level of the neutrinos from the two events. I have not dug in sufficiently to verify this but would assume the 1987a event involved electron neutrinos. The mu-neutrinos in the CERN experiment are of a far higher energy level. It has been my understanding that theoretically neutrino velocity is a function of it's energy. That would give the mu-neutrinos a boost so to speak.

I did dig a little and found that the SN 1987A event included a handful of neutrinos observed to be associated with the super nova. A bit more muon neutrinos than electron neutrinos but not by much considering the sample. It does appear from what I could dig up that the CERN neutrinos were in the range of 100 times more energetic than the SN 1987A neutrinos. If the neutrino velocity is proportional to energy level this could still be something to consider.

At this point, I am content to wait on confirmation of the CERN data, rather than dig blindly grasping at straws so to speak.

Still exciting stuff...

 

[OnlyMe]

You may be right, but we will have to state that E=MCsquared, "except for :" and then do a lot of expaining. The Lorentz contraction problems will also need some adjustments.

In any event, it is the most interesting real science I've seen in a long time

I don't think that E=mc^2 or the Lorentz transformations would be affected at all. In the end, it would be my guess that gravity will come to be explained as emerging from QM and with an EM particle field basis, gravity very likely could have a texture or graininess that is greater than the neutrino mass. And the association of gravity and inertia via the Equivalence Principal would extend that texture to inertia itself.

Neutrinos already slip through matter easier than we slip through air. It is not that big a stretch to seeing the neutrino as falling between the cracks as far as inertia is concerned, should gravity actually emerge from quantum phenomena. If the neutrino were not subject to the same laws of inertia that larger particles and matter in general are, there would be no problem with a neutrino speed greater than c.

It would have some big impact on what the theoretical fine structure of the universe might be and or give some clue to the fundamental origins of both gravitation and inertia.

Again take all of this as just free thinking, not as being based on any definitive data base.

 

[keith1]

Maybe not this hour...but it will be just like this.
Like the ultraviolet catastrophe came, so will this day come...eventually.
Abrupt it will come, and not unlike this feeling...of another experimental "happy accident"...that made classical, of which once stood out front.

 

[Captain Kremmen]

@kira
Thanks for trying to answer anyway.
The neutrinos travelled through the earth, so they could not have raced the two against each other, the earth being opaque.

There must be some method of precisely defining the speed of light in a perfect vacuum, and with respect to Motor Daddy, it is not by referring it to the definition of a metre, because the definition of a metre is defined by the speed of light.
Neither can it be by measuring it, because a perfect vacuum cannot exist.
What is it?

 

[Motor Daddy]

@kira
Thanks for trying to answer anyway.
The neutrinos travelled through the earth, so they could not have raced the two against each other, the earth being opaque.

There must be some method of precisely defining the speed of light in a perfect vacuum, and with respect to Motor Daddy, it is not by referring it to the definition of a metre, because the definition of a metre is defined by the speed of light.
Neither can it be by measuring it, because a perfect vacuum cannot exist.
What is it?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meter

The metre (or meter), symbol m, is the base unit of length in the International System of Units (SI). Originally intended to be one ten-millionth of the distance from the Earth's equator to the North Pole (at sea level), its definition has been periodically refined to reflect growing knowledge of metrology. Since 1983, it is defined as the length of the path travelled by light in vacuum in 1⁄299,792,458 of a second.[1]

What part of that do you not understand?

The speed of light is a result of defining the meter by light travel time, period!

According to the current definition of a meter as posted above, it is not possible for the speed of light to be different than 299,792,458 m/s. If you think it's possible for the speed of light to be different than 299,792,458 m/s, please explain.

 

[OnlyMe]

@kira
Thanks for trying to answer anyway.
The neutrinos travelled through the earth, so they could not have raced the two against each other, the earth being opaque.

There must be some method of precisely defining the speed of light in a perfect vacuum, and with respect to Motor Daddy, it is not by referring it to the definition of a metre, because the definition of a metre is defined by the speed of light.
Neither can it be by measuring it, because a perfect vacuum cannot exist.
What is it?

While a perfect vacuum cannot be had, a vacuum sufficient that some of the photons in a beam of light would not have interacted with any stay atoms is possible.

I am pretty sure that Fizeau did measure the speed of light using a vacuum tube, as well as through moving liquids, mid 1800s. I don't think he was the first to measure the speed of light in a laboratory, but he does seem to get the credit.

Methods improved all the way to 1970-1980, and even probably continue today.

The main point being that a perfect vacuum is not required, only vacuum sufficient that some of the light can pass through without interacting with any electrons. After that all that matters is how accurate your method of timing is.

 

[Motor Daddy]

While a perfect vacuum cannot be had, a vacuum sufficient that some of the photons in a beam of light would not have interacted with any stay atoms is possible.

I am pretty sure that Fizeau did measure the speed of light using a vacuum tube, as well as through moving liquids, mid 1800s. I don't think he was the first to measure the speed of light in a laboratory, but he does seem to get the credit.

Methods improved all the way to 1970-1980, and even probably continue today.

The main point being that a perfect vacuum is not required, only vacuum sufficient that some of the light can pass through without interacting with any electrons. After that is all a matter of how accurate your method of timing is.

I'll say it again,

It is not possible for the speed of light to be anything other than 299,792,458 m/s, according to the current definition of the meter. Do you not understand that?

 

[OnlyMe]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meter

What part of that do you not understand?

The speed of light is a result of defining the meter by light travel time, period!

That is only since 1983. How long do you think a meter was before that? And if they were really setting the length based on a light second why did they not just make it 1/300,000,000 of a second? Even numbers are easier.

The reason is that when they decided to standardize it to c, they already had a meter stick to start with and when they laid it out to measure a light second it took 299,792,458 meter sticks.....