Posted on 06/08/2012 8:33:17 PM PDT by presidio9
Eight months after the multinational Opera research team caused an uproar among physicists with its findings that some neutrinos appeared to travel faster than light, its findings have been officially refuted.
CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, on Friday said that four experiments have found that neutrinos actually travel no faster than the speed of light.
Opera's original measurements can be attributed to a faulty element of its experiment's fiber optic timing system, CERN said.
The findings were announced at the 25th International Conference on Neutrino Physics and Astrophysics in Kyoto, Japan, by CERN research director Sergio Bertolucci.
Life in the Fast Neutrino Lane
Opera's initial findings, announced in September, triggered skepticism among the scientific community because, if validated, they could have meant that Einstein's theory of special relativity was wrong. Special relativity will only hold true when space-time is flat, and if the theory is wrong, it could mean that the curvature of space is hidden somehow.
Another possibility suggested by faster-than-light neutrinos was that special relativity doesn't apply to neutrinos. That would have impacted quantum theory because it's based on the balance between quantum behavior and special relativity.
A neutrino is an electrically neutral elementary subatomic particle with a small mass that usually travels close to the speed of light.
The Opera Experiment
The Opera team shot a high-intensity, high-energy beam of muon neutrinos produced at the CERN SPS accelerator in Geneva at the LNGS underground laboratory at Gran Sasso in Italy, 730 km (454 miles) away and measured the speed at which the neutrinos emitted traveled.
Preparations for the experiment were apparently meticulous. The Opera team worked with experts in metrology, or the science of measurement, from CERN and other institutions to measure the distance between CERN SPS and LNGS with an uncertainty of 20 cm (7.9 inches) over 730 km. Advanced GPS systems, atomic clocks and other sophisticated instruments were used to ensure the scientists could measure the neutrinos' time of flight to within less than 10 nanoseconds of accuracy.
The neutrinos' velocity was determined using high-statistics data collated by the Opera neutrino detector at LNGS from 2009. This detector consists of two identical Super Modules, each being an instrumented target section with a mass of about 625 tons followed by a magnetic muon spectrometer.
It took the neutrinos about three milliseconds to travel the 730 km. This is a measure of the time distribution of protons each time the beam was fired, aggregated and normalized. It's not possible to precisely measure the time of flight of any single neutrino because any proton might produce the neutrino detected by the Opera detector.
E=MC2, Dammit!
Four teams conducted experiments at Gran Sasso in May to check Opera's findings. They are Opera, Borexino, Icarus, and LVD.
Borexino, Icarus, Japan's T2K experiment and the United States' Minos experiment were originally slated to conduct the cross-checks, and it's unclear why the lineup was changed.
"Each experiment necessarily has its own timing system to record the time of its events," Michael Witherell, vice chancellor for research at the University of California Santa Barbara's physics department, told TechNewsWorld.
Opera's discovery of problems with its timing system was announced on Feb. 23, Witherell said. "At that time, CERN said that Opera would have their first neutrino run with the repaired timing system in May. Apparently, all four experiments ran in that May run, and all say transit times were consistent with the speed of light."
Into the Sun
In October,
In your dreams. AND I mean that literally.
ON the other hand, if the theories of the BIG BANG are true, then essentially all of space is expanding at the speed of light, and any noticeable movement (light, matter, etc) must be faster than the speed of light.
For instance, it is known that YOU are moving at over 1,000,000 mph, at a very minimum.
Come to think of it, would the inside or the 'event horizon' of a black hole qualify?
I go off into imaginary space every night. So far, I keep coming back.
Imagine trying to find a thread, edge-on, somewhere between here and the moon.
They used to say it was almost impossible to find a needle in a haystack.
But... I found that a magnet works rather well.
The possibilities (which I first learned when I was 10 years old):
1. Finite and bounded
2. Finite and unbounded
3. Infinite and bounded
4. Infinite and unbounded
You’ve clearly got some reading to do, boy. Start with Gamow. Get back to me when you’ve worked your way up at least to the beginning of Guth.
An analogy is trying to push particles suspended in air pass the speed of sound using a boom box...
Massive particles are energy that is localized in the vacuum and must be given more energy to propagate, or "move". In order for them to propagate through the vacuum, their frequency, which is a measure of their energy must increase from the rest energy/frequency. Once the frequency increases to some value, the particle moves at a constant speed.
The interaction that allows particles to exist as localized entities is called the Higgs mechanism. The Higgs mechanism is an exchange of energy between the vacuum and the particle which allows the particle to have a continued existence. Without the exchange, which is described as the capture of a Higgs boson by the particle, the particle would have no mass and would dissipate. What that means is, that the particle at rest is an energy configuration of the vacuum.
Your insults are like water to a duck.
You CLAIM you can PROVE the Universe in FINITE, yet all you have DONE is list the Combination of probabilities, which are something just about any child can grasp.
BTW, by the time I was 7, I had built my own computer, and was helping my dad repair TV and Radio sets. I had to learn to read schematics (Sam's Photofacts, remember those?), and pull tubes out and test them in portable tube testers. (We had two different models). My dad bought a HOME TRAINING COURSE for ELECTRONICS from our neighbor. I studied it, took the tests (and passed) and built all the equipment that accompanied the course (including an oscilloscope).
Then my dad made me rebuild a POWERGLIDE transmission for our '57 Chevy. During all this, we built a cabin at a nearby lake, doing everything OURSELVES from digging the hole in the ground, pouring concrete and finishing it, to the walls, the wiring, the plumbing, and the roof. I loved to build 'models' and one of them was a model of the Cape Canaveral Launchpad. My father had subscriptions to Popular Mechanics and Popular Science and for years, I read EVERY ISSUE. I was in Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts, became an Eagle Scout, and had earned every merit badge available at the time. In school, I spent a lot of time in the Library, reading every science and science fiction book I could get my hands on.
Man, we kids used to be really well educated at an early age, didn't we?
SO... either you can back up your claim and prove the Universe is 'finite', or you cannot. Which is it?
Your posts on this subject have been infantile, including the one with the deadend sign.
You clearly know nothing of this subject. To ask someone to “prove the universe isn’t infinite” is an infantile post, so I just put the word “yes” and you took that literally... because on this subject you are infantile.
Like I said, it’s time for you to do some reading, little boy. You obviously know zip about this subject, despite being a good car mechanic.
(ask for a window seat -do NOT order tea)
Your posts on this subject have been infantile, including the one with the deadend sign.
Why, Thank you. I do my best. : )
You clearly know nothing of this subject.
You are correct. I know nothing.
Your posts on this subject have been infantile, including the one with the deadend sign.
Look, if you don't know how to post a picture with HTML, just say so, and I am sure many Freepers will be glad to help you out.
You clearly know nothing of this subject.
You keep repeating that. Is that like "if you tell a lie often enough, eventually you believe it's true?"
To ask someone to “prove the universe isn’t infinite” is an infantile post, so I just put the word “yes” and you took that literally... because on this subject you are infantile.
With most people, if you say the word 'yes', they assume you mean it literally. In 'your world', does YES mean "I'm just saying 'yes', but only in the figurative sense of the word" ?
So, after you quit frothing at the mouth over your obsession with the word 'infantile', your 'answer' is that you have no answer, no proof, and were lying when you said yes. Doesn't that just about summon it up?
Like I said, it’s time for you to do some reading, little boy. You obviously know zip about this subject, despite being a good car mechanic.
Well, being a good car mechanic comes in very handy, but it's not what I do for a living.
Perhaps you should read more, because your education seems to have stopped after you were ten years old, based on you inability to SELECT and DEFEND one of the four 'possibilities' for the 'makeup' of the Universe that you did learn.
You mistake my intentions if you think I wish to blindly argue with you to PROVE to you the Universe is infinite.
I have no proof, either way, but I was hoping to hear your 'proof' because it might be something of value and could alter my 'beliefs' about the Universe.
So far, your replies have been lacking in any 'information' whatsoever, and have descended further and further into 'infantile' personal attacks.
Does that work for you in the 'outside' world?
Repairing cars is a great skill. I’m not knocking it. More power to you.
But on this subject, you really have to read more, if you’re interested.
If not, don’t.
That’s fine, too. You certainly don’t need to understand the writings of Alan Guth to be able to change spark plugs.
More power to you, literally and figuratively.
I wonder if it possible to expand space within space.....
Damn, where’s my bong...
Instead of expanding space within space how about we figure a way to contract a set amount of space within already established space?
That way one can skip right across.....
Yea, i found my bong.
Only kidding
: )
When confronted with the fact that newer observations of the Universe didn't fit their 'theories' (Odd how neither one of them ever claimed, like you have, that they had PROOF), they made up new 'theories' and invented hypothetical (and still unproven) states of matter and energy to help support their 'paradigm' (model of inflation).
This is where the concepts of Dark Matter and Dark Energy came from. Superglue to try and put Humpty Dumpty back together again.
Maybe you should read up on Steinhardt and Turok, as their 'theory' fits the latest observations of the Universe much better. It was 'announced' recently that our 'theories' on the amount of matter in the known Universe have changed . This was due to the continual advancement of detection technologies. Funny how as our ability to 'see' farther increases, our estimation of the 'size' of the Universe does too. At one time, in our history, scientific consensus was that the Milky Way Galaxy was the entire extent of the Universe. But we 'know better' now.
If our 'estimations' on the 'density' of the Universe are 'off' (and that has been proven, time and time again) then we just change our theories. We have not gotten to the point where we can be totally assured that our measurements are exactly correct, ergo we may yet again find we are 'wrong'. The only plausible 'conclusion' then, is that at this time, no one has been able to PROVE whether the Universe is finite or infinite, as our 'data' is incomplete, and often erroneous.
Gee, wasn't it just recently that we found out that protons were a little smaller than we 'thought' they were? Not that being off by 0.00000000000003 millimetres is really a big deal.
"The difference is so infinitesimal that it might defy belief that anyone, even physicists, would care. But the new measurements could mean that there is a gap in existing theories of quantum mechanics. "It's a very serious discrepancy," says Ingo Sick, a physicist at the University of Basel in Switzerland, who has tried to reconcile the finding with four decades of previous measurements. "There is really something seriously wrong someplace."
The Proton shrinks in size (it just took a cold shower)
Back to the principals who were the basis (and a good one) of your education. Neither Guth nor Garnow were ever able to prove the Universe was finite, and much of their theories actually include the presumption that the Universe is infinite or exists within an unexplained and undefinable form (either of matter and energy or perhaps negative-matter and negative-energy, or perhaps non-matter and non-energy), that is infinite.
Even Alan admitted that he likes to keen an OPEN MIND on the subject.
"While I cannot see any viable alternative to the general idea of inflation, there is still much work to be done before a detailed picture is established. And I suspect that there is room for many new important ideas."
-Alan H. Guth
-------------------------------------
Samtheman: "More power to you, literally and figuratively."
Awesome comeback.
Only if you go at night.
...or during an eclipse.
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