# Neutrinos still faster than light in latest version of experiment



## entropy13 (Nov 18, 2011)

The scientists who appeared to have found in September that certain subatomic particles can travel faster than light have ruled out one potential source of error in their measurements after completing a second, fine-tuned version of their experiment.

Their results, posted on the ArXiv preprint server on Friday morning and submitted for peer review in the Journal of High Energy Physics, confirmed earlier measurements that neutrinos, sent through the ground from Cern near Geneva to the Gran Sasso lab in Italy 450 miles (720km) away seemed to travel faster than light.

The finding that neutrinos might break one of the most fundamental laws of physics sent scientists into a frenzy when it was first reported in September. Not only because it appeared to go against Albert Einstein's theory of special relativity but, if correct, the finding opened up the troubling possibility of being able to send information back in time, blurring the line between past and present and wreaking havoc with the fundamental principle of cause and effect.



Full article here.


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## Marineborn (Nov 18, 2011)

sweet, time travel here i come, lol


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## magibeg (Nov 18, 2011)

It's still not a sure thing yet of course. There is a lot of timing factors to tackle next. Darn science... why can't you be faster!


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## D4S4 (Nov 18, 2011)

this is awesome. i really hope to be reincarnated now to experience the space colonization and exploration era.


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## Drone (Nov 18, 2011)

Umm so what? Pasts are as blur and undefined as futures, quantum mechanics says so.


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## Beertintedgoggles (Nov 18, 2011)

Well in that case I want to send an email to my past self with some investment suggestions!


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## cadaveca (Nov 18, 2011)

I got hit with a link to this first thing this morning.

Interesting stuff, for sure.


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## W1zzard (Nov 18, 2011)

Beertintedgoggles said:


> Well in that case I want to send an email to my past self with some investment suggestions!



stock market would break down before the email would reach you, which is one of the most reliable indicators that time travel to the past has been invented


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## cadaveca (Nov 18, 2011)

From what I get from the published stuff is that they need to account for the possiblity of some weird gravitational time distortion that may have affected the results, something Einstein accounted for(ie. time is slower in orbit as gravitaitonal forces are weaker).

That made me think..is it possible that there are places in the planet that time moves slower, and yet others that it moves faster, and all this experiment has done is found one of those places?

I mean, based on the response from MINOS(Fermilab), that's what they could be suggesting...


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## DannibusX (Nov 18, 2011)

All seriousness aside, there are places in Louisiana and Wisconsin that appear to move slower than other areas of the planet.  Canada too.


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## cadaveca (Nov 18, 2011)

DannibusX said:


> All seriousness aside, there are places in Louisiana and Wisconsin that appear to move slower than other areas of the planet.  Canada too.



Technically, given the right planetary surface environment, elevation is enough to distort time, uh...right?

It's just weird to me that a scientist much suggest so, without proof of such. Or maybe there is proof, and I'm clueless(very likely).

But maybe it was possibly reference gravitional effects form teh moon? I mean, the moon affects tides...

Anywya, jsut show me where time travels the fastest. That's what I want to see.


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## Beertintedgoggles (Nov 18, 2011)

cadaveca said:


> Technically, given the right planetary surface environment, elevation is enough to distort time, uh...right?
> 
> It's just weird to me that a scientist much suggest so, without proof of such. Or maybe there is proof, and I'm clueless(very likely).
> 
> ...



On a very small scale yeah since at higher altitudes your rotational velocity (due to the rotation of the Earth) will be faster.  And the faster you travel time slows down (so from the reference frame of someone traveling slower the person traveling faster will age slower).  Obviously time dialation is more observable when an object is traveling a significant percentage of the speed of light.


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## Jack Doph (Nov 18, 2011)

Time travel is a perceptional illusion and Einstein already eluded to that: you may be able to witness it, but are never able to interact with it.
One of Einstein's detractors put it best when noting the very important fact of an observer's point of view:
"If a bus travels at the the speed of light, but an occupant runs from the back to the the front of a bus, he, in theory, would appear to move faster than light".
Now, we all know that's not correct, but to the observer, this would seem to be the case.

Relativity still reigns supreme..
More investigation is required


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## Easy Rhino (Nov 18, 2011)

if time travel were possible then wouldn't people from the future have already visited us? or maybe they already have but are secretive about it! or maybe every time we catch on the visitors from the future scrub time somehow so we never find out. or maybe they are trying to prevent the coming robot apocalypse. omg run!!!111


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## Jack Doph (Nov 18, 2011)

Easy Rhino said:


> if time travel were possible then wouldn't people from the future have already visited us? or maybe they already have but are secretive about it! or maybe every time we catch on the visitors from the future scrub time somehow so we never find out. or maybe they are trying to prevent the coming robot apocalypse. omg run!!!111



Exactly.
It's why statements like "observation without interference" are simply not possible. The mere fact you are there, already changes that scene.
Et cetera


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## Inceptor (Nov 19, 2011)

"faster than light"
It was literally billionths of a second faster.
As to what that means, who knows?
Maybe just a miniscule localised fluctuation in 'c'; something the neutrinos interacted with along their path?
Microscopic wormholes that allowed the neutrinos to jump unimaginably small distances occasionally, making it appear that they were travelling faster than light?
Quantum fluctuations of some kind could account for it... maybe.

I don't see how you can translate this into travelling faster than light...
As far as I know, although tachyons are theoretically possible, there is no evidence that they exist, even with these neutrino experiments.  Some kind of state shift from neutrino-to-tachyon-to-neutrino?  Who knows.
Maybe such things are possible on the small scale, just as apparent teleportation seems to be possible with single particles, but scaling it up to a macro scale that is usable by us would be astronomically more difficult if not impossible.


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## LAN_deRf_HA (Nov 19, 2011)

I thought we already knew to account for time dilation in these measurements? Or are science fiction writers more on top of this shit than scientists?


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## cadaveca (Nov 19, 2011)

Inceptor said:


> Maybe such things are possible on the small scale, just as apparent teleportation seems to be possible with single particles, but scaling it up to a macro scale that is usable by us would be astronomically more difficult if not impossible.




Enter Half-Life 2, and destruction before teleportation. Create a field that slows time, and possibly both the destruction and "re-assembly" of matter is possible.


Manipulation of time doesn't need to be for time travel, in the sense that it's commonly though of. It could have many, many uses.


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## Inceptor (Nov 19, 2011)

LAN_deRf_HA said:


> I thought we already knew to account for time dilation in these measurements? Or are science fiction writers more on top of this shit than scientists?



Time dilation does not play a role.  Time dilation only plays a role if YOU are the one travelling close to the speed of light, not if you are measuring from outside.


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## LAN_deRf_HA (Nov 19, 2011)

Inceptor said:


> Time dilation does not play a role.  Time dilation only plays a role if YOU are the one travelling close to the speed of light, not if you are measuring from outside.



Then what is the word I'm looking for? Time gradient? Differential?


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## magibeg (Nov 19, 2011)

Inceptor said:


> Time dilation does not play a role.  Time dilation only plays a role if YOU are the one travelling close to the speed of light, not if you are measuring from outside.



That's not entirely true. When making measurements that are as precise as these ones are time dilation from one part of the earth to another can throw off the measurements enough to imply things that may not be true. The effect is simply greater when you increase gravity/speed. In this case it's time dilation caused by variation in the earths gravity.

That being said the scientists in charge of the experiments have apparently already accounted for that.


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## twilyth (Nov 19, 2011)

Yes.  Plus they've changed the beam topography so that there are very short bursts followed by long pauses (under 50ns I think and over 500ns for the pauses)


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## bostonbuddy (Nov 19, 2011)

http://api.ning.com/files/XS1ysUZ0j...yMDTAxLVY6tKSmoIHrrFPo/DethKloktimetravel.jpg


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## Drone (Nov 22, 2011)

http://www.csmonitor.com/Science/20...neutrinos-Not-so-fast-say-new-findings.-Video

So it wasn't faster than light, finally someone said something sane:



> Neutrinos pumped down from CERN, near Geneva, *should have lost most of their energy if they had traveled at even a tiny fraction faster than light*. But in fact, the ICARUS scientists say, the neutrino beam as tested in their equipment registered an energy spectrum _fully corresponding with what it should be for particles traveling at the speed of light and no more_.


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## Easy Rhino (Nov 22, 2011)

darn, i was hoping to go back to the future.


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## DannibusX (Nov 23, 2011)

How large are neutrinos?  I mean, this can probably explain why I'm so quick in bed.

Where does time travel the quickest?  My girlfriends vagina.


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## Drone (Nov 23, 2011)

DannibusX said:


> My girlfriends vagina.



Was it a supermassive black hole?


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## DannibusX (Nov 23, 2011)

No, because I was able to escape it.


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## twilyth (Nov 23, 2011)

Drone said:


> http://www.csmonitor.com/Science/20...neutrinos-Not-so-fast-say-new-findings.-Video
> 
> So it wasn't faster than light, finally someone said something sane:


I'm just curious about something.  Doesn't their conclusion depend on relativity being 100% correct.  And don't the results call precisely that premise into question?  It seems like a circular argument.


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## Drone (Nov 23, 2011)

They all rely on relativity more or less. However now OPERA and ICARUS argue with each other who's wrong and who's right. The only way to find out is just to see who can replicate this experiment and we probably just grab some pop corn and watch the show. How strange that it's XX1st century and there's a lot of things we can't be sure of.


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## Drone (Dec 9, 2011)

http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-12-faster-than-light-particles-science-drama.html

scroll to the bottom of the page:



> Many papers noted that the tiniest technical inaccuracy would have skewed the outcome. *Some questioned whether the OPERA team had properly tagged the pulses of neutrinos so that the particles could be identified at the start and end of their flight*.



I admit I was thinking about this before.



> The OPERA team have now finetuned the neutrino beam to tag the particles better, but say they still have the same result. And they are looking at using a fibre optic cable, rather than GPS, to synchronise the timing. In the coming 12 months, Einstein could be confirmed on his mighty pedestal, or worrying cracks may appear in it.



But yeah like they say maybe those neutrinos just used extra dimensions as a shortcut and ain't superluminal at all.

Whatever grab popcorn, we won't find out until 2012.


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## Steevo (Dec 9, 2011)

Perhaps we just mis-measured the speed of light and neutrinos are the only particle we know of and can measure that doesn't interact with dark matter.


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## twilyth (Dec 9, 2011)

Neutrinos have mass so they would have to interact.  Even photons which are supposed to be massless are affected by gravity.


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## Drone (Dec 10, 2011)

^ True. Even Space-Time itself is affected by gravity. Just nobody knows the mass of neutrinos, like we don't know the mass of PBH. They can only _narrow down_ the possible range. 

Two interesting links:



> The best researchers have been able to do is narrow the mass down to a window, with each new experiment shrinking the range a bit further. The upper limit has gone from 7.0 to 1.3 to 0.58 electron volts, and the lower limit from zero to about 0.05 electron volts. To push the limits closer, a research group turned its gaze to the Universe as a whole.



http://arstechnica.com/science/news...of-a-mystery-thanks-to-deep-space-imaging.ars



> Evidence for neutrino mass
> 
> In 1998, a convincing evidence was reported that neutrinos have mass. The Standard Model has fallen after decades of invincibility. The evidence comes from experiments deep underground in pitch darkness with many thousands of tonnes of water housed in mines.
> 
> ...



http://ctp.berkeley.edu/neutrino/neutrino5.html





_We don't know much about neutrinos, we don't know much about PBH and we don't know much about gravity, dark matter, dark energy._ ... I can go on ... We don't even know are there other extra dimensions or not. The more I read about this the more I realise how everything is strange and unstudied.


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## twilyth (Dec 11, 2011)

Shouldn't we be able to predict the mass?  I was going by the fact that neutrinos oscillate and therefore must have mass (according to the std model??? IDK).

Some else speculated about this, but if they turn out to be superluminal, my guess is that this is related to the oscillations. {shrug}


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## bucketface (Dec 11, 2011)

maybe there just isn't a universal speed limit, maybe its just really, really hard to go faster than light and time doesn't start doing weird stuff... anyway isn't the speed of light variable red goes faster than blue and so has higher frequency? maybe neutrinos are faster than some light.


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## twilyth (Dec 11, 2011)

I think the loophole is the fact that relativity only says you can't travel AT the speed of light.  Think of a function that is asymptotic to the y axis.  As you approach zero on the x-axis from either side, the value approaches infinity.  But just because you approach infinity from one side doesn't mean you can't get to the other side.


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## NinkobEi (Dec 12, 2011)

If a particle that has mass travels the speed of light, doesnt it gain infinite mass? At least that is what I understand about trying to achieve traveling at the speed of light. THe faster you go, the heavier you are. Maybe that is just for propulsion equations. 

How does a Neutrino get to traveling faster than the speed of light? And is it capable of traveling slower than the speed of light as well?

Fact is we really dont know anything about how the universe works. We just have theories based on some obvious observations. Maybe time starts to flow backwards once you hit above the speed of light. After all the laws of physics allow for things to happen in reverse. It is just by chance that we experience time in the way we perceive as Forward. Maybe our forward is other particles backwards. WE JUST DONT KNOW lol


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## Drone (Dec 12, 2011)

Ninkobwi said:


> If a particle that has mass travels the speed of light, doesnt it gain infinite mass? At least that is what I understand about trying to achieve traveling at the speed of light. THe faster you go, the heavier you are.


No that's not true. The principle says that to accelerate something so it could gain the speed faster than the *speed of light in the vacuum* (note the word vacuum) you need to apply infinite energy. For that exists the law of *Conservation of Energy*.



> How does a Neutrino get to traveling faster than the speed of light?



Traveling FTL was never a problem for any medium. Particles always could travel FTL in some processes. Sun produces gazillions of electron neutrinos (the only type of neutrinos Sun can produce) everyday. Physicists use them in their experiments. For example the neutrinos  that pass through the detector filled with the heavy water can produce electrons that travel faster than the *speed of light in the heavy water*.

Traveling FTL in vacuum is another thing. Because scientists believe that vacuum is full of particles called Higgs bosons. Everything that collides with them acquires mass. They didn't detect these bosons yet and now no one knows how when and why was the Universe created and how come that everything acquired mass.

It's perfectly can be seen in this picture. Every particle that hits the Higgs bosons (small crosses) changes its handedness and can't accelerate to the speed of light. The heavier the thing is the harder and more frequently it collides with Higgs bosons and slows down. Only gamma (light) is unaffected.



> And is it capable of traveling slower than the speed of light as well?


All the time. An observer moving at the speed of light (if he or she could ever do that lol) could overtake the moving neutrino and would see it moving in the opposite direction. Well actually everything I said here was in the pdf I posted just few posts above.


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## NinkobEi (Dec 12, 2011)

Drone said:


> No that's not true. The principle says that to accelerate something so it could gain the speed faster than the *speed of light in the vacuum* (note the word vacuum) you need to apply infinite energy. For that exists the law of *Conservation of Energy*.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



So does the Higgs Boson completely screw up the law of conservation of mass? Or is that mass already in existence but just somewhere else?


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## Drone (Dec 12, 2011)

> So does the Higgs Boson completely screw up the law of conservation of mass? Or is that mass already in existence but just somewhere else?



That darn Higgs Boson (HB) screws up everything and not only the standard model but also the law of conservation of mass. Scientists don't even know for sure. The nature of mass just like the nature of gravity is unknown. 

Basically they all say that everything has mass because of that friggin' HB. We collide with HB and dang ... we have mass! *Simply put*: HB (if it really exists) is some kind of DRM (lol funny I know) made by some god, nature, quantum mechanics or someone else that _makes everything material and limits its speed_. So if there weren't HB then everything could be faster than light and wouldn't be material. Just like gravity (another DRM) prevents from moving in time or having a party in different dimensions.

HB (mass giving thingy) and gravity (a curvature of space-time) are like cage for us. They won't let us cheat or use godmode. And we can't just jailbreak it.


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## NinkobEi (Dec 13, 2011)

Sorry, but which particles collide with the HB to gain mass? Photons dont. Would it be only other particles that already have mass? Thereby just increasing the mass they already have?


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## Drone (Dec 13, 2011)

Ninkobwi said:


> Sorry, but which particles collide with the HB to gain mass?



....



> Photons dont.


Right. Gamma (photons) are unaffected, only gravity can affect them. You can see it in the picture, the first particle from top. As you can see the top quark (*t*, fourth from top) always collides with HB, hence it's the heaviest quark. While *lefthanded neutrino* very slightly interacts with HB (section b in the picture), hence the lightest lepton. 

Higgs postulate says that *Higgs field* (which permeates entire space/vacuum) gives *all elementary subatomic particles* that interact with it their mass. These particles are the 12 particles of matter see the link below

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Standard_Model_of_Elementary_Particles.svg

6 quarks and 6 leptons - they are bricks of all matter in the universe, everything that can have mass is made of them. However, Higgs field which confers mass on quarks and leptons, causes only a tiny portion of the masses of other heavy subatomic particles, such as protons and neutrons. In these case those heavier particles acquire their mass through *gluons* (strong interaction) that bind quarks together. Protons and neutrons are made of quarks.



> Would it be only other particles that already have mass?


They think that *righthanded neutrinos unlike other neutrinos have a mass of their own without relying on the HB*. And they are really really heavy, *ridiculously heavy*. The problem is ... no one ever detected righthanded neutrinos. 

Two possible explanations:

1st: Lefthanded neutrinos collide with HB and acquire mass, in this very moment for a *very short time interval* they transform into righthanded neutrinos which transform back to lefthanded neutrinos which collide with HB again ... and so on. No one knows how on Earth it's possible to detect them. It's called seesaw mechanism. 

and 2nd: Some physics argue that righthanded neutrinos are not trapped in 3D space in the same way that we are, rather they can move in the extra dimensions.

Seesaw vs extra dimensions. Will anyone ever find out, I don't know.
Will it ever be possible to break through the 3D space to see what happens outside.


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## unsmart (Dec 13, 2011)

didn't read the link[sure it's over my head anyway] but how do they know there the same  Neutrinos an not Neutrinos that where pushed forward? 
if you could picture a dam breaking,the water that's already in the river below the dam will be pushed ahead of the mass released in the break. You would have a surge that would appear faster then the released water travels.


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## Drone (Dec 23, 2011)

The drama goes on:



> When an international collaboration of physicists came up with a result that punched a hole in Einstein's theory of special relativity and couldn't find any mistakes in their work, they asked the world to take a second look at their experiment.



Let's recall those events again:



> The neutrinos in the experiment were created by slamming speeding protons into a stationary target, producing a pulse of pions - unstable particles that were magnetically focused into a long tunnel where they decayed in flight into muons and neutrinos. The muons were stopped at the end of the tunnel, but the neutrinos, which slip through matter like ghosts through walls, passed through the barrier and disappeared in the direction of Gran Sasso.



If anyone cares here's the Feynman diagram which represents pion decay. It helps to understand the process:







http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/particles/piondec.html






Now the *IceCube* - a neutrino observatory in Antarctica - is checking and comparing the results. So they could say was OPERA wrong or right.




> IceCube detects these neutrinos when they collide with other particles generating muons that leave trails of light flashes as they plow into the thick, clear ice of Antarctica.
> IceCube has seen neutrinos with energies 10 000 times higher than those the OPERA experiment is creating. Thus, the energies of their parent pions should be correspondingly high. Simple calculations, based on the conservation of energy and momentum, dictate that the lifetimes of those pions should be too long for them ever to decay into superluminal neutrinos. *But the observation of high-energy neutrinos by IceCube indicates that these high-energy pions do decay according to the standard ideas of physics, generating neutrinos whose speed approaches that of light but never exceeds it.*



http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-12-pions-dont-faster-than-light-neutrinos.html


*By the way can anyone change the title of this thread? Because it's not a fact yet.*


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