LHC portal

for those of us in the UK, there is a programme about this on BBC2 in an hours time (9 PM) + on the BBC Iplayer later

Dave

Thank you all for your comments. The advantage to this method is that there is nothing complex about it like moving clocks. (I.e. how fast you moved the clock) and it can be monitor for a couple of days.
The communication infrastructure should be willing to set this up for a few days just for the good will.

I was reminded of a time when a colleague. in a rush and heading in the opposite direction. asked me to "turn around and walk backwards" because there was something he wanted to discuss with me. He was very surprised when I did exactly as he asked.

Speedy neutrino mystery likely solved, relativity safe after all.
http://dvice.com/archives/2011/10/speedy-neutrino.php

From Tara Shears on Twitter.
There's still much discussion of speedy neutrinos - 43 papers on arXiv with "opera" in the title in last month:
http://inspirehep.net/search?ln=en&ln=e ... sc=0&of=hb
At least everybody is having a good think about this.

Apparently the suggestion that Opera use shorter Neutrino pulses to try to resolve the superluminal issue has been has been followed and data is being taken.
http://profmattstrassler.com/2011/10/26 ... pera-news/

And the official word from The Bulletin on the changes to the Neutrino timing experiment.
http://cdsweb.cern.ch/journal/CERNBulle ... 4597?ln=en


A new proton spill from CERN to OPERA

Since 21 October, CERN has been sending a new type of neutrino beam to Gran Sasso. The new configuration is intended to allow OPERA to define the departure time of the neutrinos more accurately and thus check the previous results obtained using the nominal beam configuration.

The plot thickens, "OPERA Confirms: Neutrinos Travel Faster Than Light!!"

http://www.science20.com/quantum_diarie ... ight-84763

So they get the same time using short pulses. Could still be a timing problem I suppose. I look forward to the movie.

I find these results very exciting. Particularly the spread of measured delays gives me another idea.

In the article, an 8 km long lightguide is mentioned. I wonder how much it changes its length when temperature changes? Is it perhaps possible that during the measurement campaign its length was measured at temperatures a few degrees above normal operating temperature?

The effect itself sure cannot be explained by this one lightguide itself - it would require temperature change of about 22°C to achieve difference of 18 meters on these 8 km. But I'm pretty sure there are many more lightguides and wires involved.

Maybe this is the next thing to look at...

One of the things I find interesting is that those members of OPERA who were unwilling to put their names to the first paper have all signed up for this one.

The things that makes me think there must be something wrong with this is that it doesn't tie in with other observations such as emissions from supernovas and this - http://www.science20.com/quantum_diarie ... inos-83684

But then again there's that old MINOS measurement . . .

The so-called refutation by ICARUS is really nothing of the sort. They measured the neutrino energy spread (which had already been measured by OPERA anyway) and found that the neutrinos had not lost energy on their journey. This links back to an earlier 'refutation' by Cohen & Glashow which states that superluminal particles would lose energy by a kind of cherenkov radiation.
But we already know that superluminal particles go against all accepted theories - that's what's so interesting about the result! So saying 'according to our interpretation of standard physics, the neutrinos should emit energy etc etc' really doesn't add anything - we already know that standard physics doesn't allow superluminal neutrinos.
Cohen, Glashow and the rest ought to know that you can't disprove an observation using theory - it has to work the other way round! Science works by building theories on observations, not vice versa!

I disagree, you CAN disprove an observation using theory. You can use the thoery to explain why what you are observing isn't what you think you are observing. That is exactly what people are trying to do with OPERA.

DCWhitworth wrote:One of the things I find interesting is that those members of OPERA who were unwilling to put their names to the first paper have all signed up for this one.

I 'm not so sure about this, some 'yes' others still 'no'

That was enough for Stanco to sign his name to the paper, although he says six or seven team members are still holding out.
http://physicsforme.wordpress.com/2011/ ... xperiment/

Chelle wrote:

DCWhitworth wrote:One of the things I find interesting is that those members of OPERA who were unwilling to put their names to the first paper have all signed up for this one.

I 'm not so sure about this, some 'yes' others still 'no'

That was enough for Stanco to sign his name to the paper, although he says six or seven team members are still holding out.
http://physicsforme.wordpress.com/2011/ ... xperiment/

I got this from http://www.science20.com/quantum_diarie ... ight-84763 but they have since updated -

"UPDATE: I was wrong on that one. It was pointed out to me by a member of Opera that while four of the physicists who had not signed the paper in September now accepted to sign it, four more who had signed the first one now dropped out of the new one! A quite mysterious thing in my opinion, maybe brought by the fact that some (small) mistakes were indeed found in the original analysis (none affecting much the result, however)."

As a layman I find this signing process hard to understand. Does publishing a paper stands for the fact that YOU say that Neutrinos ARE faster than light, or that you have measured them faster than light. The difference is in the fact that you are a proclaimer versus an observer, what does publishing and thus signing a paper stands for?