Faster-Than-Light Find Was Actually Loose Wire

Not so fast: Loose wire led to stunning, faster-than-light particle finding




A loose connection between a timer and a computer led some of the world’s smartest particle physicists to conclude that certain tiny particles called neutrinos moved faster than the speed of light -- a declaration that shocked the science world and would have called into questions Einstein’s theories.
Citing sources familiar with the experiment, Science magazine’s website reported Wednesday that the 60-nanoseconds discrepancy that led to the startling speed conclusion came from a bad connection in a fiber optic cable connecting a GPS receiver (used to correct the timing of the neutrinos' flight) and a computer.
After tightening the connection and then remeasuring the time it takes data to travel the length of the cable, researchers found that the data arrive 60 nanoseconds earlier than assumed, the website said. (More data will be needed to confirm this hypothesis, the site cautioned.)
Einstein theorized that the speed of light in a vacuum -- approximately 186,280 miles per second, or about 700 million miles per hour -- is an absolute speed limit, and used the value in his famous formula, E = mc2.
Rewriting the theories based on this speed limit would have made an array of science fiction ideas more plausible -- even time travel.
The theory that some tiny bits of matter were whizzing along faster than Einstein thought possible was announced in Sept. 2011, when physicists with the CERN lab in Switzerland said they observed neutrinos completing a 454-mile racecourse faster than a beam of light would.
CERN representatives did not immediately respond to FoxNews.com requests to confirm the faulty wiring diagnosis.
When announcing their follow-up finding in November, scientists at the Italian Institute for Nuclear Physics (INFN) said that their tests were intended to exclude one potential effect that may have affected the original measurement.
"A measurement so delicate and carrying a profound implication on physics requires an extraordinary level of scrutiny," said Fernando Ferroni, president of the INFN.
Apparently, yet more scrutiny was required.
"It's very hard to find an error by reading a paper," particle physicist Rob Roser of the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab) in Batavia, Ill., said Friday at an annual science meeting.
"What you need is for someone else to make the measurement. We'll see what happens."


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http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2012...-stunning-faster-than-light-particle-finding/

Ah well, at least they found the cause. I am still interested in the initial expansion of the universe, which supposedly happened quicker than the sol.


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Yep, it happens with killer drones all the time. I guess we won't be going to Mars in kit built by those dudes. Close maybe.......

 

Space isn't a physical object and so isn't bound by the SOL.

 

So, are you suggesting that space-time expanded, then matter/energy expanded behind it?

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Matter moves through space. Matter is physical, has mass. Space has neither.

 

Ah, but space has dimension.

 

So? It's not a physical object and thus not bound by relativity.

 

Beep Beep .
What is this SOl you keep referring to --I am guessing it is Speed of light , but to my horror I found there are way over 100 Acronyms of SOL in general use including the Statue of Liberty and Statute of Limitation .

As for Don's concern about Universe expansion exceeding the Speed of Light and notionally breaking Einstein's sacred law :-
You have to visualise space between things( galaxies) as being elastic ,swelling and hence expanding .
BUT then think of galaxies being carried by space , rather than themselves moving through it .
This allows speeds faster than light to be achieved .

 

@ the OP, I hate it when that happens.

I approach it objectively as a layman and claim no knowledge of science, so ridicule away (I don't care as you know).

How can space not have mass? Yes, it's a vacuum theory etc etc, but for example realistically how does a craft propel itself through space without some mass to push off against?

There is a recent theory that space is full of a type of liquid mass. This sounds common sense...

 

You're approaching it from the point of view that to walk on Earth you push against the ground as you walk. A spacecraft moves by throwing crap out the back which pushes it forwards.

 

If two objects in space are a kilometer apart, how much space is between them?

 

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/Newton's+laws+of+motion

 

makes you sorta wonder if there are any loose wires behind all this global warming data.

 

On neutrinos or any particles in space faster than C (Speed of Light), we could yet not measure, I've always felt was possibly the reason C is constant. That is if energy is moving through an ocean of particles, the speed in limited.

The newer BBT models, don't all claim a faster than C expansion, however the early expansion (fractions of a second) did indicate this, but into a nothingness (not defined) meaning modern physics would not apply.
Personally a believer in SSU (steady state universe or always existed) primarily under Fred Hoyles theories, which opposed BBT and the person who named the BB, mass had been being created via Hydrogen produced from sub-atomic (less than an atom) since time began. I feel hydrogen and a couple other elements are a result of natural element breakdown during solar formation or time. Most of today's known elements do break down, some in seconds.

By the way neutrino theory is not new and has been used to explain theories such as time travel, bending space and others....

 

Loose wires, burnt out fuses, and corrupted mother boards. They just keep adapting their theories to events, the earth stops warming - AGW, it`s proven that anthropogenically produced carbon amounts to next to zero climate affect - AGW, severe summer - AGW, severe winter - AGW.

Toooo easy.

 

Yes, loose wires could be the cause of many malfunctioning measurements. But that is an easy explanation for something that you don't know about. "How did she die sir". "Oh Just a loose wire in the Defibrillator". Don't always jump to the conclusion that a malfunction can disprove any theory.

 

A half heard radio programme was discussing Polar weather systems in the context of short term global warming ( yes, forget the claimed man made contribution) .
He was an expert in this area and sat up there year in and out playing with his ----- instruments .
I think the suggestion was , increased temperatures produce an increased size and velocity pressure area vortex at the Pole . It holds more water than previous which obviously can fall as water or snow ( not frogs) . Hence Hotter Summers directly leads to increased winter precipitation and colder weather .
Interesting , though you need to check it out as I was in and out of the car repeatedly and missed quite a bit .

 

Simple question. We observe objects in the universe such as quasars removed from us say by 12 billion light years, meaning the light they emitted has been travelling towards us for 12 billion years and was emitted when the universe was say, 10% of its current age.

But this poses a question. How can we observe light that has travelled for 12 billion years (that is 12 billion years old), since at the time this light was emitted, the emitter objects/quasars were only 1.2 billion light years away from us (12*0.1)? Since the speed of light never, ever changes/varies between any emitter and receiver/observer in the universe, doh, should the 1.2 billion light year distance not have been covered in 1.2 billion years rather than the whopping 12? Einstein would have said it's all due to time warps. But why do you need such a comlicated, unreal system? Why not just say that redshifts = reduction in light speed from emitter to observer, since it's given that redshifts indicate a receding velocity of emitter relative to observer. Why should the speed of light not be altered by the motion of its emitter relative to the observer?

 

Space expands and we're moving away from each other, quite rapidly. This means that even though it was emitted when both objects were closer together the light had to catch up with us since we were moving away and space in between expanded.

 

Sunshine, next time, lock the car's door before having sex

 

Then intra-atomic space expands as well? Intra-protonic, neutronic etc. Anything that's not point object, even though no experiment has yet established with a 100% certainty what such point objects are (electron is the top contendor, as may be quarks). How is it that the expansion/contraction of space was first postulated by Lawrence to justify the existance of aether as a consequence of the Michelson-Morley experiments? I.e. Earth would contract in the plane of its travel through aether according to Lawrence. Since the General T of R is a direct inheritor of the Lawrence equations, does it mean we still all believe in the existance of aether?

Einstein had this conception of a unified universe, where everything had to communicate somehow with everything else, as if connected by God. Since you won't have two objects communicating with each other if they exceed the speed of light relative to each other, nothing in the universe could exceed it according to Einstein. Was this a conceptual leap or a conceptual setback?

 

Moreover, the only difference between Einstein and Lawrence involved the following: Lawrence would say that objects contract, whereas Einstein would say the space contracts.

 

I'm approaching it from a point of view that I don't know any of the theory and I only have common sense. If your crap is pushing you forward, it must be pushing against something. If you are in a boat and you turn the engine on, it moves through water. If you are in a boat which is not in water and you turn the engine on, it has nothing to push against. Even if crap comes out of the back of your machine even when it is very forceful, it seems to me it is still pushing against something.

If you are in space and space is a vacuum containing nothing at all, why do you float? What holds you up? I realise there is no gravity to pull you down, but something is holding you in place or else would you not fly apart or disintegrate? Is there some kind of pressure needed to even hold your bits together and intact?

This is an unexpected development, I must say.

I read it and it seems to support the need for something to push off against...a force. No doubt I don't understand it as he intends it.

 

To recap, if space expands then it should also expand on subatomic level. Since the point particles do not expand, how would they maintain the same interactions, such as field strengths etc. over this enlarged atomic space?

 

You'll find that common sense doesn't apply to space since you're approaching it from your experience on Earth. You can't do that. That's actually not common sense.

Your bits hold themselves together through molecular bonds and the like. Gravity is actually the weakest of the forces.