Thread: FTL Nutrinos ... what if it is proved that they did in face travel faster than light?

If the new evidence about FTL nutrinos is deemed to be true ( lets assume this for the purposes of this question ) then it will greatly change the way we look at mainstream physics.

What would be the first questions that would be asked? What are the greatest areas that would be affected?

Some of the questions I would have are:
1) Do these nutrinos start out at speeds > c or do they accelerate to speeds > c ?
2) Are there any additional fields that we dont know about that may affect the way we normally view space time ( can under certain circumstances the speed of light varry ? or is the universe that we observe a subset of possible configurations

Originally Posted by tom

If the new evidence about FTL nutrinos is deemed to be true ( lets assume this for the purposes of this question ) then it will greatly change the way we look at mainstream physics.

What would be the first questions that would be asked? What are the greatest areas that would be affected?

Some of the questions I would have are:
1) Do these nutrinos start out at speeds > c or do they accelerate to speeds > c ?
2) Are there any additional fields that we dont know about that may affect the way we normally view space time ( can under certain circumstances the speed of light varry ? or is the universe that we observe a subset of possible configurations

What new evidence? Care to post a citation, please....thanks, Tom.

Originally Posted by David E. Eaton Sr.

What new evidence? Care to post a citation, please....thanks, Tom.

Faster-Than-Light Neutrinos? Physics Luminaries Voice Doubts: Scientific American

Faster-Than-Light Neutrinos? Physics Luminaries Voice Doubts

We asked a number of physicists for their reaction to the announcement of neutrinos breaking the cosmic speed limit
By John Matson | September 26, 2011 | 39

• FULL HOUSE: Dario Autiero of the OPERA collaboration announced his team's surprising finding on the speed of neutrinos to a packed auditorium at CERN on September 23. Image: © CERN
  
  A few dozen nanoseconds, an imperceptibly slim interval in everyday life, can make all the difference in experimental physics. A European physics collaboration made a stunning announcement September 23, after having clocked elementary particles called neutrinos making the underground journey from a lab in Switzerland to one in Italy. The neutrinos made the trip 60 nanoseconds faster than they would have traveling at light speed, the researchers found. Faster, that is, than the rules of physics as we understand them would allow.
  
  If confirmed, the results from the OPERA (Oscillation Project with Emulsion-tRacking Apparatus) collaboration would be huge, a once-in-a-lifetime revolution in how we understand the universe. But there are plenty of reasons to believe that Albert Einstein​'s long-reigning theory of relativity will survive this challenge, as it has withstood so many in the past. (Read more about challenges to relativity in this article.)
  
  That is the opinion of a number of physicists we contacted, many of them on Scientific American's board of advisers. Their reactions to the OPERA announcement appear below.
  
  Astrophysicist and cosmologist Martin Rees of the University of Cambridge
  Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. I think it will be perceived in retrospect as an embarrassment that this claim received so much publicity—the inevitable consequence of posting a preprint on the Web. Neutrinos were observed from SN 1987A more or less coincidentally with the explosion—not four years earlier, as would have been the case if the velocity difference had been the same as is now claimed (though, of course, the energies of the supernova neutrinos are much lower).
  Theoretical physicist Steven Weinberg of the University of Texas at Austin, winner of the 1979 Nobel Prize in Physics
  The report of this experiment is pretty impressive, but it bothers me that there is plenty of evidence that all sorts of other particles never travel faster than light, while observations of neutrinos are exceptionally difficult.* It is as if someone said that there are fairies in the bottom of their garden, but they can only be seen on dark, foggy nights.
  Theoretical physicist Lawrence Krauss of Arizona State University
  It is an embarrassment as far as I am concerned. It was not unreasonable for the experimentalists to submit a paper with an unexplained result. But a press conference on a result, which is extremely unlikely to be correct, before the paper has been refereed, is very unfortunate—for CERN and for science. Once it is shown to be wrong, everyone loses credibility. Neutrino experiments are hard, and systematic errors at the limit of resolution can be significant. Moreover, because the experiment appears to violate Lorentz invariance, which is at the heart of so much known physics, one should be skeptical. One should be additionally skeptical because observations of SN 1987A showed, as I wrote in 1998, that neutrinos and photons travel at the same speed to one part in a billion, several orders of magnitude below the claimed effect. Now, the only way out of that is to have some energy-dependent effect, but all the ones that make sense don't wash here.
  
  
  
  
  
  Originally Posted by David E. Eaton Sr.

  What new evidence? Care to post a citation, please....thanks, Tom.

Originally Posted by tom

Faster-Than-Light Neutrinos? Physics Luminaries Voice Doubts: Scientific American

Thanks, Tom...that's the one I thought you were referring to although I read the original paper and not the article. [That paper can be found here --> Measurement of the neutrino velocity with the OPERA detector in the CNGS beam for those interested.]

There was another paper submitted 27 Sep 2011 (5 days later) by Pfeifer and Wohlfarth that seems to be of the opinion that it may be possible. That paper can be found here --> Beyond the speed of light on Finsler spacetimes.

I'm still not sure as I've yet to digest everything...

It looks like the number of authors on that paper is close to 175 (+/- 2 with 65% confidence) so if each scientist has a 2% chance of error, this result has a 97% chance of being wrong.

Originally Posted by grapes

It looks like the number of authors on that paper is close to 175 (+/- 2 with 65% confidence) so if each scientist has a 2% chance of error, this result has a 97% chance of being wrong.

There's another paper just released by Ciborowski and Rembielinski that disagrees with both the original paper and Pfeifer and Wohlfarth's 'supporting' paper. This (new) paper can be found here --> Comments on the recent velocity measurement of the muon neutrinos by the OPERA Collaboration if you're interested.

Originally Posted by David E. Eaton Sr.

There's another paper just released by Ciborowski and Rembielinski that disagrees with both the original paper and Pfeifer and Wohlfarth's 'supporting' paper. This (new) paper can be found here --> Comments on the recent velocity measurement of the muon neutrinos by the OPERA Collaboration if you're interested.

OK, it's only three pages (less actually). It's a tachyon analysis, appears to be a jokenot very serious attempt at addressing the issues.

It appears that the alleged excess in speed of neutrinos over that of light is a quite small fraction of the speed of light. That alone suggests experimental error as the source of the result. If neutrinos had been found travelling at twice the speed of light, that would be notable.

Originally Posted by Atomic-S

It appears that the alleged excess in speed of neutrinos over that of light is a quite small fraction of the speed of light. That alone suggests experimental error as the source of the result. If neutrinos had been found travelling at twice the speed of light, that would be notable.

I like that. Think of the variances between 0 and the speed of light to observe. Must be at least that much starting with the speed of light to whever that goes.