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Faster than light; will the CERN finding be confirmed and Einstein defied, before the end of 2012?

Faster than light; will the CERN finding be confirmed and Einstein defied, before the end of 2012?

Asked by: Super Userkruijs in Science » Discoveries
Settled on 01/07/2013 14:50 Settled by Super Userkruijs
Winning option:No, findings refuted the surprising result was down to a loose fibre-optic cable linking a Global Positioning System satellite receiver to a computer.

Predictions

Yes, findings confirmed
Yes, findings confirmed
No, findings refuted
No, findings refuted

Background

Physicists at the lab near Geneva say they've observed subatomic particles moving faster than the speed of light. If confirmed, it would defy Einstein — and upend our understanding of physics.

"Basically, all of special relativity would be wrong," said Drexel University physics professor Dave Goldberg, referring to Einstein's 1905 theory establishing that light travels at a constant speed, regardless of how fast an observer is traveling, and that nothing in the universe can go faster than it. "If you have particles traveling faster than the speed of light, you can in principle go back in time. So you can be your own grandmother. As you can imagine, that causes some problems," said Stephen Parke, a theoretical particle physicist at Fermilab in Batavia, Ill.

In 2007, MINOS scientists also clocked neutrinos apparently moving faster than the speed of light, but the margin of error for that experiment was far greater than what was reported at CERN. MINOS scientists may perform experiments of their own in as soon as six months, said particle physicist and MINOS co-spokesperson Jenny Thomas.

Plans to test the CERN results in Japan's multinational T2K (Tokai-to-Kamioka) experiment are in the works, said neutrino physicist and T2K spokesman Chang Kee Jung.

http://www.latimes.com/news/science/la-sci-0923-speed-of-light-20110923,0,497738.story

Find similar: speed of light, cern

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   Super UserJosef Biesenberger

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2012/jul/04/higgs-boson-cern-scientists-discover

   Super UserPitchedOutsideLeg

Earlier on Wednesday, ScienceInsider, a website run by the respected American Association for the Advancement of Science, reported that the surprising result was down to a loose fibre-optic cable linking a Global Positioning System satellite receiver to a computer.

Gillies confirmed that a flaw in the GPS system was now suspected as a possible cause for the surprising reading. Further testing was needed before any definite conclusions could be reached, he added.

The faster-than-light finding was recorded when 15,000 neutrino beams were pumped over three years from CERN to an underground Italian laboratory at Gran Sasso near Rome.

"A possible explanation has been found. But we won't know until we have tested it out with a new beam to Gran Sasso," Gillies said in Geneva.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/technology/sci-tech/loose-cable-blamed-for-upending-einstein-theory-20120223-1tp7u.html#ixzz1nAWMceZR

   Super Userkruijs

The team behind the finding in September that neutrinos may travel faster than light has carried out an improved version of their experiment - and found the same result.

If confirmed by other experiments, the find could undermine one of the basic principles of modern physics.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-15791236

   Super Userkruijs

“Does E still equal MC squared?”, so asks the Irish band the Corrigan Brothers in a new song, “Einstein and the Neutrinos,” that is the latest rollicking riff on news that shocked the scientific world last month.

Neutrino time-travel jokes have proliferated on the Internet. Example: “We don’t serve faster-than-light neutrinos here,” said the bartender. A neutrino walks into a bar.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/25/science/25neutrinos.html

   Super Userkruijs

Faster-than-light neutrinos mean Einstein is wrong! At least, that’s what some popular press articles have suggested since researchers with the OPERA experiment in Italy presented evidence of neutrinos arriving 60 nanoseconds earlier than thought possible.

But scientists, quite intrigued by the anomalous results, have since been busy generating more measured responses. In the three weeks after the announcement, more than 80 explanations have been posted to the preprint server arxiv. While some suggest the possibility of new physics, such as neutrinos that are traveling through extra dimensions or neutrinos at particular energies traveling faster than light, many offer less revolutionary explanations for the OPERA experiment.

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/10/mundane-explanations-neutrinos/

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