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Science (non-SETI) :
OPERA experiment
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Author | Message |
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tullio Send message Joined: 9 Apr 04 Posts: 8797 Credit: 2,930,782 RAC: 1 |
It looks like the 60 ns anomaly in the time of flight of neutrinos from CERN to Gran Sasso was due to a faulty fiber optics cable. An official announcement is expected today. Tullio |
skildude Send message Joined: 4 Oct 00 Posts: 9541 Credit: 50,759,529 RAC: 60 |
they said they found 2 problems. One which would have made the time slow and the other which would have speeded the time up. Now I'm more than a bit curious as to the fix and retesting. In a rich man's house there is no place to spit but his face. Diogenes Of Sinope |
tullio Send message Joined: 9 Apr 04 Posts: 8797 Credit: 2,930,782 RAC: 1 |
Yes, they will retest in May. |
JLConawayII Send message Joined: 2 Apr 02 Posts: 188 Credit: 2,840,460 RAC: 0 |
Of course it was flawed. Everyone knew that almost immediately. This is why it's so important to properly review and confirm new information before going public with it, you don't need to get people all excited over nothing. It makes the entire scientific community look foolish. One of the most basic tenets of science is reproducibility. That means this result should be able to be produced again and again, preferably NOT on the same (apparently broken) equipment. Did they do this? Well they reproduced it, but they used the exact same equipment, in the exact same configuration. It stands to reason that they're probably going to get the same bogus result. Now if someone can actually corroborate these results and produce superluminal neutrinos, that's a whole different story. As it stands this is just another case of scientists seeking their 15 minutes of fame. |
skildude Send message Joined: 4 Oct 00 Posts: 9541 Credit: 50,759,529 RAC: 60 |
I wouldn't say people were getting excited. the reason for going public with the info was to ask for help figuring out exactly what was happening and where the flaws may occur. A good scientist will ask others for help. bad ones make up a story and stick with it even in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary In a rich man's house there is no place to spit but his face. Diogenes Of Sinope |
JLConawayII Send message Joined: 2 Apr 02 Posts: 188 Credit: 2,840,460 RAC: 0 |
I wouldn't say people were getting excited. the reason for going public with the info was to ask for help figuring out exactly what was happening and where the flaws may occur. A good scientist will ask others for help. bad ones make up a story and stick with it even in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary Yeah, people were fairly excited over it. I caught a blog on PhysicsWorld I think talking about some group that actually wrote it into a song. Here's a link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpMY84T8WY0 >:oP There were plenty of people at work talking about it, and what it meant to physics. To say the least the situation could have been handled more responsibly. If anything good came out of it, it's that it made people think critically about what we know, and what the flaws in our current fomulation of the laws of physics might be. I just hope the inevitable revelation that the experiment was probably in error doesn't put a damper on that. |
skildude Send message Joined: 4 Oct 00 Posts: 9541 Credit: 50,759,529 RAC: 60 |
a blog doesn't equate to scientists. I was interested and I also paid attention. They didn't point a finger and declare with absolute certainty that they had done it. Their report was more of, "we got a result, it repeats, but we aren't sure why." which is far from a definitive result. I cannot control what bloggers and non scientist alike get excited about. I found it interesting and like the scientists wanted others to attempt a replication of the test or at least provide a reason for the seemingly impossible result In a rich man's house there is no place to spit but his face. Diogenes Of Sinope |
musicplayer Send message Joined: 17 May 10 Posts: 2430 Credit: 926,046 RAC: 0 |
Are scientists ever supposed to be successful in what they are doing? Remember about all the fuzz about so-called cold fusion? In the end they were never able to conclude successfully that the principles regarding the physical principles behind the use of cold-fusion may actually have been working. |
tullio Send message Joined: 9 Apr 04 Posts: 8797 Credit: 2,930,782 RAC: 1 |
The ICARUS experiment led by Carlo Rubbia has confirmed that neutrinos do not travel faster than light. Rubbia was always dubious about the OPERA result. Tullio |
SciManStev Send message Joined: 20 Jun 99 Posts: 6651 Credit: 121,090,076 RAC: 0 |
Neutrinos may not travel faster than light, but this is a bit interesting. http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/2012/03/16/message-encoded-in-neutrino-beam-transmitted-through-solid-rock/?WT_mc_id=SA_CAT_physics_20120316 Steve Warning, addicted to SETI crunching! Crunching as a member of GPU Users Group. GPUUG Website |
Sarge Send message Joined: 25 Aug 99 Posts: 12273 Credit: 8,569,109 RAC: 79 |
Of course it was flawed. Everyone knew that almost immediately. This is why it's so important to properly review and confirm new information before going public with it, you don't need to get people all excited over nothing. It makes the entire scientific community look foolish. I think skildude responded well, but you do not seem to agree, and so I ask, how are scientists supposed to reproduce something they do not even know about it, because possible findings were not made public, hmmm? Catch 22. I am much more worried about criminal cases being discussed so much in the media and convictions (or failures to convict) in the court of public opinion that take place long before the actual trail even takes place! |
SciManStev Send message Joined: 20 Jun 99 Posts: 6651 Credit: 121,090,076 RAC: 0 |
Tullio is still correct. http://lightyears.blogs.cnn.com/2012/03/16/more-evidence-that-einstein-was-right-about-light-speed/?hpt=hp_c2 Steve Warning, addicted to SETI crunching! Crunching as a member of GPU Users Group. GPUUG Website |
tullio Send message Joined: 9 Apr 04 Posts: 8797 Credit: 2,930,782 RAC: 1 |
I have personally known Carlo Rubbia while at Trieste Area Science Park and know he is a very demanding person. He was building the Elettra Synchrotron accelerator as an X-ray source at nearby Basovizza on the Carso highland and when the UPS failed one hot summer Friday afternoon and all Area people but him and me had gone swimming, I had to explain what had happened. He wasn't happy having lost his terminal as all systems had failed. Tullio |
skildude Send message Joined: 4 Oct 00 Posts: 9541 Credit: 50,759,529 RAC: 60 |
Neutrinos may not travel faster than light, but this is a bit interesting.I'm betting the NSA or military will want to start using this to commjunicate with ships at sea. Knowing a ships location you could beam a message from Washington DC directly to the ship. Messages could be encoded but it would be unnecessary because the neutrinos wouldnt be detected unless someone setup a detector system between the ships and sender or beyond the ships themselves. either way the message would be unlikely to be detected by anyone other than the expected receiver. Can I sign up for a patent on this right now!!! In a rich man's house there is no place to spit but his face. Diogenes Of Sinope |
musicplayer Send message Joined: 17 May 10 Posts: 2430 Credit: 926,046 RAC: 0 |
Is the speed of light assumed to be a constant? How about the notion about time then? We know that strong gravitational fields is slowing time down. Einstein's famous equation E=mc2 "only" is trying to relate matter to the corresponding energy it represents, but what about a possible equation which relates time to the speed of light? Is time something which is having a definition at all? The second paragraph may imply that gravity and time is relating to each other. But any equation (I guess an equation neeeds constants, not variables) for this I really do not know about. |
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