This pretty much makes me extremely suspicious. And it might, just might confirm something else.

Next... Michael, what do you mean you expected this result?

Anyway....

moving on... Months later, they suddenly, lo and behold, out of the blue, announce that they discover a Glitch.

A Bad connection? It seems very bizarre to me that they did not discover this first thing. Something really smells here.

And this is my opinion. I am very skeptical about ANY results coming from that machine in Zurich.

Albert couldn't have been wrong. Could he?

The "expected result" is that the unusual measurement of faster-than-light particles was actually due glitch in the measurement.

@fedup: Well, he was wrong on quantum mechanics, as he refused to accept it, namely Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle. I believe Einstein was quoted as saying he refused to believe "God played with dice."

Unfortunately for him, quantum mechanics, while an entirely probabilistic field, has been proven to be frequently correct at describing the micro-scale universe, compared to classical mechanics, which utterly fail.

I am confused here the article talks in circles, no pun intended.

One part says that the connection made the time wrong, and it did not go that fast.

Then it says this.

Another potential problem has to do with the oscillator that was used to generate the time stamps for GPS synchronization. This problem could have made the flight time look longer than it really was.

If the flight time measurement looks longer than it really was, that would mean the travel time was shorter. Which would mean that it got there even sooner, which means it was going even faster than they thought.

Einstein theories are just that, theories. That does not make them fact even thou many people believe that they are. Many good things have come from those theories, but at some point they will either be dis proven or proven. Nether has happened yet.

@Matt-3468366

@fedup: Well, he was wrong on quantum mechanics, as he refused to accept it, namely Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle. I believe Einstein was quoted as saying he refused to believe "God played with dice."

Actually, that's not quite correct. In fact, Quantum Mechanics (as a field of study) was borne from Einstien's theories and equations. It's true that Einstein did say that "God does not play dice." with regard to the probabistic nature of QM, but, while he refused to accept the idea, his ideas made QM possible.

Unfortunately for him, quantum mechanics, while an entirely probabilistic field, has been proven to be frequently correct at describing the micro-scale universe, compared to classical mechanics, which utterly fail.

Quantum Mechanics has not been "frequently" correct, it has actually never been wrong. There has never been a single experiment that contradicts it and its predicts results more accurately than any other theory.

Also, classical mechanics doesn't utterly fail, unless you mean at quantum levels.

Actually Quantum mechanics was started long before Einstein was born.

Christiaan Huygens started the concept in the 1600s, and that was a tad before Einstein was born.

Archimedes was sited as saying basically the same thing. He died in 212 BC....

The Huygens–Fresnel principle is widely known to be the start of quantum mechanics, even thou at the time it was discovered they did not know that. I guy name Newton got in the way of it, but his interpretation of it was later shown to be flawed and disproved.

Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle has already been shown that it can not explain a lot of things, and it also closes the door so to speak. To say something is impossible only means in reality that he did not know how to do it. Someday it will be possible to determine the momentum and position at the same time, that is inevitable, not impossible.

Things in classical mechanics are not always right either. Perfect example of that is the fact that you can take a non magnetic object and supercool it, and it self levitates on top of a non magnetic surface. That throws the physical laws describing the motion of bodies under the action of a system of forces, right out the window. Not to mention the laws of gravity.

If the flight time measurement looks longer than it really was, that would mean the travel time was shorter. Which would mean that it got there even sooner, which means it was going even faster than they thought.

So if they've discovered these 2 glitches and they cause opposite effects (shorter/longer) then the real question is which glitch has the greater effect. Very few scientists actually believe that the neutrinos travelled faster than light. This whole process has been to sort that out. But every scientist secretly hopes that those neutrinos DID travel faster than light, because that would be so much more fun!

A lot of people talking here that don't know the basics of the word "theory." A scientific "theory" is not your common language term. It is a set of rules that explain facts that we can verify through experiments. They are still up for modification and refinement, but the basic tenants of a "theory" are solid fact.

Science has already calculated that the universe expanded in the first moments of the big bang at faster than the speed of light. Quantum mechanics simply explains much better mathematical models outside of classical terms that Einstein didn't finish. It doesn't mean his theory was wrong, it means it has to be refined to include a set of standards, such as "physics on Earth" behaves this way.

Doubtful - Since when hasn't Einstein's theories been proven. Relativity, both Special and general, have been proven as fact many times.

I would have more faith in these scientific results than in religious faith.

Never pass on a chance to bash religion, eh?

I believe that this article was about potential flaws in clocking neutrinos, hardly a "religion vs. science" topic. If you need help getting that chip off your shoulder, let me know.

"Never mind."

Emily Latella

SNL

I also suspected it was some kind of measurement or calculation error. It was not something obvious or easily found, but it doesn't take much at all to have a very cumulative effects on a scale like this.

For the speed of light to work so perfectly as a constant in so many places, there is definitely something very special about that number. I think that it was critical in what made our universe possible and stable as a harmonic frequency or cosmic rhythm if you will that provided the commonality for particles, matter, and all the forces to interact with each other the way they do. Remember, when we talk about the speed of light, it applies to all wave forms, particle streams, and energy emissions, and not just waves in the visual spectrum.

There may be other universes that have a different speed of light that works well for them. They may even coexist with our universe being both out of our realm of observation and having very subtle or no interactions with ours at all.

I'm not saying that something can't exceed the speed of light, but we'd never be able to observe it and it would have no effects on anything in our universe, and really wouldn't even exist in our universe.

An analogy in our physical world would be the way two laser beams can cross each other without any collisions or affect on each other. The two definitely cross the same point in space, but there is no intersection to be observed like we would see from two particle streams. To either beam, the other one doesn't seem to even exist.

It is the result most of us expected I think Michael. I must use this opportunity to express my disapproval of the way this is being reported. I think nearly the entire scientific community expected an error as it was such an anomalous observation. To my knowledge, it was never published or reported as fact that a neutrino was recorded going faster than light. It irritates me to no end the way MSNBC has written these two articles as if "SCIENTISTS" go bonkers every time something happens that is unusual and claim all current theories are overturned. This is not what happened, this is not what scientists do and reading these two articles is enough to make a paranoid person like me think that MSNBC at best doesn't understand science and discretion in reporting about it, and at worst is trying to make these experiments and science look bad.

Kyle - well said.

I think that the problem with the reporting of science stories (in general, present company is in a class by itself Alan!) is the difference in time scale.

The MSM wants the story NOW; "give me the bullet points", and the story is fired off. Deadlines are tight, and the pressure to get the story up ASAP is fierce. There is an incentive to dramatize, using the term in a positive sense - to add drama to the story to make for compelling narrative that readers will find and enjoy.

Science is, however, has a more leisurely pace. While I find newly announced discoveries to be fun and interesting, I don't put much stock in their veracity until the 2nd or perhaps 3rd paper on the subject.

Case in point: compare the story arc on "neutrinos faster than light" to last year's announcement by NASA that "arsenic-based life as we know it". Both stories had BIG PRESS COVERAGE that made a big splash, and in both cases most of the folks working in the respective fields muttered "that just doesn't sound right". Months later, and a closer scientific scrutiny from the community, and lo and behold both stories that were promoted as "game changers" are looking likely to be not as dramatic as originally thought.

Science, like a good single malt adult beverage, needs to be aged. The news media, however, loves their moonshine, still hot out of the still.

That's fine, and I'm not sure how to reasonably change the way science and the media do their jobs, but I do wish that the public read their MSM science stories with a little less "OMG!", and a little more "hmmm, I wonder if that will pan out?"

Cheers! ~Michael (Astronomy.FM★Radio)

A biologist, a physicist, and a mathemetician decide to observe an empty phone booth. After five minutes they see two people walking into the phone booth. Ten minutes later three people walk out.

The biologist says, "They must have reproduced."

The physicist says, "There is an error in our observations."

The mathemeticians says, "If one more person goes in, the phone booth will be empty."

Science, like a good single malt adult beverage, needs to be aged. The news media, however, loves their moonshine, still hot out of the still.

Best... Science... Quote... Ever. Did you make that up, Michael, or crib it from somewhere else? If it's yours, it's brilliant. You should write a book.

Thanks MM, you are too kind - that line is mine.

I've written 5 books, and managed to sell somewhat more copies than I gave away. (But when Grandma passed away book sales dropped by a huge margin....) Requiring my book as a textbook in one of my courses did help sales somewhat.

i think that i've read one your books, michael; it was a great sleep aid!

[just joshing you a bit, mate; i likes your stuff!]

now, if you got a science and BEER quote, well then, i'll drink to that!

@doubtfull

Actually, no, not quite. You are taking several scientific theories or observations and proclaiming that those were the start of Quantum Physics, which isn't true.

Just because Archimedes postulated something, doesn't mean he started a new field of science.

It is widely recognized that Neils Bohr and his team pioneerd the actual field of QM in the 1920's when studying observations that Michael Faraday made in the late 1800's. But, it was Einstein's theories that predicted many of what is now know about QM.

@EngEsq: Like the formerly proposed "gravitons?"

It shows the importance of repeating an experiment that produces odd or questionable results - with different equipment and different experimenters. Using the same equipment could simply duplicate the same errors.

"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof." -- Carl Sagan

"Extraordinary clams make an extraordinary pasta vongole." -- MikeyMike (Part-time chef extraordinaire)

Could of been a "high" open.

That's disgusting.

I like my good old Einstein too although personally I would be glad (and I think he would be too) to see him disproved on some things. I think everybody knew this was likely an error however the mass media took off with it reporting at a "scientifically verified fact" when it was not to begin with.

Todd, ALL forms of energy travel at the speed of light. Or, more accurately, all particles with no mass travel at the speed of light. Relativity says that it is impossible for anything WITH MASS to reach the speed of light.

And indeed, everything that moves that has no mass actually HAS to move at the speed of light (in a vacuum).

This is indeed an example that has been discussed quite a lot. Unfortunately, the speed of light barrier cannot be overcome with tricks. It doesn't matter whether an object that is flying straight is approaching the speed of light or the tip of a rotating object. The result is the same: no object with mass (when it is at rest) can reach or exceed the speed of light. Classically you would compute the speed v at the tip of your rod as

v = 2*pi*f*r

where f is the rotation frequency in rotations/second (multiply this number by 60 to get it in rotations/minute or RPM) and r is the length of your rod from the center to the tip. The 2*pi is needed because the motion is on a circle. Now you could put a number in for r and calculate which value you need for f to reach the speed of light c. However, this formula becomes invalid when v approaches c, as the time elapsed for the tip of the rod and the length of the circle change for high speeds. What physically prevents the rod from reaching the speed of light is the fact that according to Einstein's theory (and this can be measured!) the increasing kinetic energy of the rod (i.e. its energy of motion) is equivalent to an increasing mass. Thus the rod becomes heavier and heavier the faster it rotates, with the tip of the rod approaching infinite mass as it approaches the speed of light. Of course, infinite mass cannot be accelerated further. In other words, instead of further accelerating the rod you just increase its mass.

I respectfully differ. Einsteins equation relating mass and velocity does have solutions when the velocity exceeds the speed of light. However, those solutions are imaginary numbers. We can speculate that such solutions have no physical reality but that's based on our current understanding of physical reality. Remember all the buzz on tachyons a couple of decades ago. I do understand that we then get into concerns about causality and other stuff. Point I want to make is that it's more correct to state that Einstein says no particle with non-zero mass can travel at the speed of light.

But isn't it true that it's theoretically possible for a particle (e.g. possibly a neutrino) to come into existence already traveling faster than the speed of light? That is, it always travels faster than light. This doesn't contradict general relativity or quantum theory, does it?

amphiox said,

Todd, ALL forms of energy travel at the speed of light. Or, more accurately, all particles with no mass travel at the speed of light. Relativity says that it is impossible for anything WITH MASS to reach the speed of light.

And indeed, everything that moves that has no mass actually HAS to move at the speed of light (in a vacuum).

thing is... light HAS mass... it is a particle and a wave... photons.... if light had no mass, gravity would have no effect on it, ever heard of gravitational lensing? black holes? gravity affects the speed of light, proven fact. light headed away from a gravitational body moves slower and if the field is strong enough, stopped entirely and/or pulled back towards the object causing the field, again... a black hole inside of and up to the event horizon. on the flip side, light moving towards such a strong field will accelerate beyond the standard 'speed of light in a vaccume' of 186,000 miles per second.

even the effects of the gravitational field of earth on light can be measured from orbit, time a light from the surface to the ISS, and then from the ISS to the earth, the light from the surface will take a few nanoseconds longer than the light from the ISS to the surface.

if you chose to throw al that aside, light is also known to have mass for 2 other reasons...

1. heat... on its own, light does not carry temperatures in a vaccume, however when it collides with an object, it bounces off, but it creates friction in the process. friction is a form of heat generation. i.e. you cant see a beam of light with infared sensing cameras in a vaccume unless they are pointing into the lens, then its the lens itself heating up from the photons hitting it, not the 'beam of light' showing on camera. beams of light CAN be seen with an infared camera in an atmosphere as the air itself is being heated by photonic friction as the light passes through it.

2. it collides with objects of mass... an object that has no mass will pass around and through objects with mass unhindered. i.e. if light had no mass, there would be no shadows as it passed through everything else in the universe.

granted, the mass of a single photon cannot be measured by anything we have to date, even 1% of 1% of 1% of 1% a microgram is still an object of mass. what you are thinking of is that it has no REST mass, which is a theoretical state(objects moving together have no mass compared to each other), not a measurement.

REST mass can also be applied to space travel, or the ISS. both the station and the astronaughts on it are moving together, both have zero mass in relation to each other until, either an astronaught touches a wall and moves in a different direction, or they fire engine to speed up or slow down the station, then they have differing mass and are no longer at rest to each other.

if you have 1 photon moving, it has zero rest mass because there is nothing else to compare it too. if you have a laser, the photons have zero rest mass because all the photons are moving in relation to each other(same speed and direction, or vector). if you turn on a light bulb, all the photons no longer have zero REST mass because they are no longer moving in relation to the rest of the photons and are no longer 'at rest'

Gert B Frobe You make a good argument accept for one point, no one has ever proved that is entirely correct either.

That experiment will give you one answer on earth, and another answer if there is no gravity. No gravity means no mass. Things without mass can still store kinetic energy and affect other things with mass as well, which is not so easy to explain. Actually they can't explain that at all with any model or theory. But they can see the effect it has on things, so something is there.

We are not even sure what a neutrino actually is. Does it have mass? Or is it all energy? Is it both at the same time? Or is it a new state, which is neither mass or energy. If we were to find something that was neither, you can throw out most of what we think we know. So would finding something that is both at the same time.

Chances are more than good that we will be throwing out what we think we know when something that does not fit the mold is discovered anyway.

History is full of examples like that.

Newton was positive that all light traveled in a perfectly strait line with no wavelength, and that was accepted at the time. So was his take on gravity.

Prior to that the earth was flat, we were the center of the universe, the sun and stars all went around us. etc... etc... etc....

The only thing we know for sure, is that we are not sure about anything we think we understand.

And indeed, everything that moves that has no mass actually HAS to move at the speed of light (in a vacuum.

Um... Tell that to the scientist that figured out how to get light to stop dead in its tracks. Granted it only stops it temporarily, but it does stop moving.

That should be an interesting discussion. I can see it now, you standing there telling them that Einstein said that was impossible so it can't be done. Then them showing you how they did it. And the results are repeatable.

What would you say after you saw that? And they really can do it, I am not making that up.

Doubtful - Regarding post 1.5 - Since when hasn't Einstein's theories been proven. Relativity, both Special and general, have been proven as fact many times.

MysticDwagon

you are so wrong a photon has no mass....when a photon hits an atom it is absorbed 100% causing one electron to jump to a higher state then it is relest 100% as the electron falls back "NO" energy is left behind and as for "photonic friction" you watch to much star track.

second gravity is just bent space so a straight line appears to be curved so light is going to be afected mass or no mass.

Photons have zero mass. That is a fact, it is a tested conclusion, and it has been confirmed by hundreds of physics experiments over the past century.

Any statement to the contrary, if to be taken seriously, had better come with better physics than the unsupported and unsubstantiated remark "you are so wrong". Otherwise, any conclusions that begin by violating the laws of physics are a waste of the reader's time.

I agree totally with Wade.

Lensing is due to gravity warping space. Light only appears to be affected as an observation of that warping.

Regarding being able to stop photons, energy can be affected or contained by many forces that have nothing to do with mass. particles trapped in a magnetic field may be affected by gravity but that's not what's holding them or affecting their trajectory.

Regarding matter, other than the release of energy of photons when they come into contact with matter, they have no other physical effects that one would expect if they had any mass.

Just to expand on what Michael said. (Not that facts care about my 5 cents.) Photons have no mass. They do have momentum, they are affected by gravity, but still have no mass. They do have enegry, and can thus be said to have "relativistic mass", but this is not what is meant by "mass" in relativity, and does not enter into the equations in the same way.

GT-2021701, no, they have not be "proven" at all.

Here is a quote explaining why you can not "prove" it in any way shape or form.

"The equations for special relativity assume that it is forever impossible to attain a velocity faster than the speed of light and that all inertial frames of reference are equivalent, hypotheses that can never be fully tested. Relativity rejects Newton's action at a distance, which is basic to Newtonian gravity and quantum mechanics. The mathematics of relativity assume no exceptions, yet in the time period immediately following the origin of the universe the relativity equations could not possibly have been valid."

If relativity was fact, it would need be a theory.

Another quote:

"However it is known that general relativity is inconsistent with the principles of quantum theory and is therefore not an appropriate description of physical processes that occur at very small length scales or over very short times. To describe such processes one requires a theory of quantum gravity."

Hmm, another area that Einsteins theory falls flat on its face....

"You can disprove a theory by finding even a single observation that disagrees with the predictions of the theory..."

..............................

Doubtful, in the experiment to which you are referring, where light photons were temporarily "stopped", I believe this was achieved inside a crystal of some sort which was cooled to almost absolute zero. This example does not refute the statement that things with no mass move at the speed of light "in a vacuum".

Doubtfull: All physical theories are designed to only work in a limited size/time/energy scale. This is a fact that science education should really stress more. The fact that General Relativity does not work in black holes or at the beginning of the universe is neither supprising nor problematic, since it was never designed to. What people mean when they say that the theory is well-supported (or, perhaps, "proven") is that the predictions of the theory match with experimental results in the domain in which the theory applies and to the level of prescision to which it extends. And the experimental results do, indeed, match the theory.

...but they don't really go past it, they kinda go around it

You are right to advise caution and skepticism in experiment. However I think in this case the faster-than-light thing was known to be most likely an error as it was such an anomalous observation. I think that they do run the experiments enough times to be reasonably sure of their reliability the difference with this case was that the media took off with it before they could verify the anomaly.

The illudium P-38 Space Demodulator! The Italian physicists have stolen it!

They weren't testing Einstein's theory. They were testing something else and came across the unexplained result. No one think's relativity is broken.

The experiment was not to test for superluminal neutrinos but part of the fast growing research in characterization of neutrino oscillations. Neutrinos have this habit of changing flavors and scientists want to know the hows and whys. Very important information to have for the future of nuclear power.

See Project X here in the US at Fermilab.

Actually that’s good to hear, but so much effort went into knowing the precise speed of the neutrinos; that number must be very important to whatever properties they’re seeking to confirm.

Perhaps these mysterious little buggers have more surprises up their sleeve than anyone previously thought.

Yes indeed, I was hoping they were correct and that the neutrinos were superluminal but I am still hoping the new measurements would keep them well within the 60 ns deviation on the left side of the curve, of course. :-)

I am not a proponent of the Higgs boson and was hoping that the neutrinos would give a nice simple explanation of mass. One would expect the neutrinos would have something to do with mass because they are so inherit unstable. Since the electron is so stable it cannot be part of the explanation.

My gut tells me that it was a mistake to place a field (Higgs) to explain symmetry breaking. He certainly convinced a lot people for them to build a $10 billion dollar machine, LHC, just to find the Higgs boson. But i have doubts that it will show up as a "typical" particle. I believe the answer lies in the neutrinos.

There are all kind of surprises at the subatomic level. There's a joke we in the field make that at first they used to give you a Nobel prize for discovering a new subatomic particle, but there are so many discovered that now they give you a fine.

That's rude. Everyone knew it was most likely a glitch or human error that would account for this anomalous observation. The problem was the media took off with it before they could have run any other tests. They tried to keep it quiet until they could figure out where the anomaly came from but alas it wasn't meant to be this time.

I am sure they would have made fine doctors.

what? haven't you ever heard that doctors only "practice" medicine

Well this faster than light neutrino thing kind of popped up one day in the course of other experiments. You're right that scientists have kind of an obsession with the speed of light and the reason being that it takes so much energy to even get to a small percentage of the speed of light, and even AT the speed of light, it would take a very long time for, say, a spacecraft to travel a long distance to, say, another planet. This dooms us to perhaps being trapped in our solar system forever, certainly a death sentence for the human race given our taste for destroying each other and our environment. The speed of light is one of those things that you accept due to current evidence but your fingers are crossed behind your back hoping it is proved wrong one day.

There are still four Republican clowns you can use. :-)

Sorry for the politics but their debates, one tonight, are better than SNL gigs.

Awww, come on. You could have at least made an electron joke. Politics is nowhere to be found here, there is an appropriate place for political jokes and the science and tech forum is not the place.

That being said, debates (Republican and Democrat alike when/if they occur) do provide more kicks and giggles than SNL sketches.

I wouldn't say that somebody has something "wrong" and that seems to me like a bad way to look at science. I think we fancy schmancy know-it-all scientists prefer to think of it as "there is something we haven't found out yet".

The "well not quite" is called the progression of science and the way to think about it was that Newton was right, just not completely right, more like an estimation made with the best equipment and methods available at the time.