Neutrinos Break The Law?
The BBC reports on the possibility of a major problem for physics: Speed-of-light experiments give baffling result at Cern
Puzzling results from Cern, home of the LHC, have confounded physicists – because it appears subatomic particles have exceeded the speed of light.
Neutrinos sent through the ground from Cern toward the Gran Sasso laboratory 732km away seemed to show up a tiny fraction of a second early.
The result – which threatens to upend a century of physics – will be put online for scrutiny by other scientists.
In the meantime, the group says it is being very cautious about its claims.
“We tried to find all possible explanations for this,” said report author Antonio Ereditato of the Opera collaboration.
“We wanted to find a mistake – trivial mistakes, more complicated mistakes, or nasty effects – and we didn’t,” he told BBC News.
“When you don’t find anything, then you say ‘Well, now I’m forced to go out and ask the community to scrutinise this.'”
We know that sub-atomic particles are weird, but if any of them can travel faster than light, it is back to the drawing board for a lot of what we think we know.
16 comments
Strange indeed (and I don’t mean the quark-related term “strange”). As tiny as they are, neutrinos have mass, and if I remember right, heretofore only massless particles have been known to travel at c. And as far as I know, no matter has been known to exceed c. IIRC, a particle would have to have imaginary mass to exceed light speed. (Don’t quote me on that; it’s been a long time since I thought about this stuff.)
Maybe Ursula Leguin’s ansible is right around the corner with this discovery (followed closely by the transgalactic wrong number)… or maybe, as some have suggested, there’s an overlooked human error in the design of the experiment.
Most of the limits are based on the ability of humans to build detectors, i.e. the materials we have readily available only function within set limits. Just as mass changes from gas to liquid to solid as the temperature drops, it is possible that there is a state beyond gas that we can’t measure because we lack the instruments.
Limits have always been based on our ability to observe, and as we expand that ability we may find that what works on the atomic level, doesn’t always hold on the sub-atomic level.
Of course, we may have stumbled across the basis for a ‘warp drive’, so there is always hope. [There could be dilithium crystals in the Italian Alps 😉 ]
What we don’t know is always more interesting than what we do. [You don’t get tested on it for a start.]
One thing is clear, since we’re talking neutrinos, is that we’re not talking about *humans* going faster than light. Stripping us down to subatomic particles in order to accelerate us at whatever speeds these neutrinos were accelerated at would result in, uhm, not us arriving at the destination :).
Bryan, the speed of light limit is based on theory, not observation. Einstein was dissatisfied with the then-existing “ether” theories of electromagnetic propagation which described the phenomenon with about as much accuracy as the earth-centric models of the solar system, and devised his new model based on mental exercises thinking about how things could move in space-time, not on anything he observed in reality, then went to see whether the data actually fit his new theory. Observations over the past umpty-ump years prior to this last experiment fit the theory, but if this observation holds and can be replicated, we’re going to need a new theory, because there isn’t one right now that would explain this.
Note that the theory needed would basically need to explain time travel, because these neutrinos are appearing before they should appear — they’ve basically traveled backwards in time. We have no theory of space-time that would allow that. On the other hand, we don’t have one that would prohibit that either. Physics is going to be an exciting field for a few years if this experiment can be replicated… there’s going to be wild theories flying around all over the place, and hopefully funding enough to verify/validate some of them. Hopefully we’re not all going to disappear into a black hole in the process 😛 .
– Badtux the Scientific Penguin
Just as well the neutrinos don’t get a speeding ticket from the Timecops!
Material for a TV series about the Particle Mafia… “The Neutrinos”?
Once upon a time the “experts” believed the earth was flat, that the sun revolved around the earth, and that bleeding a sick man removed the illness. What makes today’s experts more reliable? But than, it really is not the expert at fault, just the political class for taking what the experts believe and work towards proving, and instead claiming it as concrete fact. Yeah, my mileage does vary……….
Steve also perhaps a spin off series about compulsive particle thieves called the Kleptons
Hey, Badtux, we are still waiting for all the stuff that we know how to do, so there are probably a few ‘details’ to be worked out. The big thing is to discover that it can be done, so people can then figure out how to do it. The ‘fun’ begins when things move from science to engineering. Of course, this is occurring in Europe where they still believe in basic research.
Don’t worry, Rook, as long as the Repubs sit in Congress, there is no danger of science being done in the US, it takes too long to generate a profit.
So now we have expanded into sub-atomic particle puns – there is no lower limit…
“So now we have expanded into sub-atomic particle puns – there is no lower limit…”
The Planck length?
“Of course, this is occurring in Europe where they still believe in basic research.”
The great Steven Weinberg (whose daughter married my best friend; I played at the wedding) once wrote something about the Superconducting Super Collider to the effect that before its location was chosen, it had the support of 100 U.S. senators, and after the location was chosen, it had the support of 2 U.S. senators. All too true, I’m afraid.
The reality is that people enter politics these days to be elected from their own state or district, and have no regard for the nation as a whole. There are very few people left in office who are actually interested in the General Welfare.
Funny, but I always thought of Planck as a ‘Max’ kind of guy.
Yeah, but nobody ever talks about Max’s length… it’s just possible that it doesn’t get any smaller than that.
It may be time to consider walking the Planck.
BTW. a good cartoon on the neutrino matter…
I think that xkcd had it right. As for me, the more I read about the possible margin of errors in both time-keeping and distance measurement, the more I think that everyone should check-fire until there are a few confirmation experiments conducted.
Hell, when you are talking about measurements this precise you have to start checking the length of the circuit traces on the controls. You really need a target on the moon to figure out if the times are real, because distances on earth are too small.
I would be really happy for a lot of physics students if it was real, because it is a golden doctorate thesis and a possible Nobel, but it may turn out to be an ‘equipment problem’.
Yes, xkcd is a great site that should be on my blogroll.