CERN - Faster than light neutrons possibly debunked[views:4833][posts:34]________________________________ [Feb 23,2012 1:26pm - Burnsy ""] I couldn't find the original thread although I think I remember this being discussed. Here "Scientists who last year found particles that appeared to break the Universe's speed limit are looking at two technical issues that could have skewed the controversial finding, CERN said on Thursday. The European Centre for Nuclear Research (CERN) confirmed a report by the US journal Science on Wednesday that the team were verifying a cable connection. "It may have caused a slight discrepancy (in the results), and they are checking to see if this is the case," CERN press officer Arnaud Marsollier told AFP by phone. They are also verifying a timing instrument called an oscillator, he said. "This is a complicated experiment with a multitude of cables and equipment," said Marsollier. "The physicists have checked things out, are continuing to make checks and will check again. It (a technical flaw) is always possible, but they have been saying this from the very beginning." The fuss began in September when scientists from a team known as OPERA cautiously announced that sub-atomic particles called neutrinos had been found to travel some six kilometres (3.75 miles) per second faster than the velocity of light. The neutrinos were timed at their departure from CERN's giant underground lab near Geneva and again, after travelling 732 kms (454 miles) through Earth's crust, at their arrival at the Gran Sasso Laboratory in Italy. To do the trip, the neutrinos should have taken 0.0024 seconds. Instead, the particles hit the detectors in Italy 0.00000006 seconds sooner than expected. The findings sparked widespread scepticism because they attacked Einstein's theory of relativity, which says the maximum velocity in the Universe is the speed of light. The report on the Science Insider website of the prestigious US journal said the "60 nanoseconds discrepancy appears to come from a bad connection between a fiber optic cable that connects to the GPS receiver used to correct the timing of the neutrinos' flight and an electronic card in a computer. "After tightening the connection and then measuring the time it takes data to travel the length of the fibre, researchers found that the data arrive 60 nanoseconds earlier than assumed," it added. "Since this time is subtracted from the overall time of flight, it appears to explain the early arrival of the neutrinos. New data, however, will be needed to confirm this hypothesis." The oscillator, also being verified by the OPERA team, is designed to synchronise the timing of each neutrino at their points of departure and landing. Marsollier said the OPERA team are scheduled to report back in May, and there were no immediate plans to bring forward any announcement in the light of the checks. The OPERA team went over their results again and again for six months before going public with their announcement, where they sounded a loud word of caution. "Their findings were a shock to them, which is why they have asked others to replicate the experiment and to carry out the same measurements," Marsollier noted." |
| ___________________________________ [Feb 23,2012 1:36pm - arktouros ""] yeah, last i read those neutron tests weren't accurate. OLD NEUS |
| _______________________________ [Feb 23,2012 1:38pm - MATH ""] Burnsy said: To do the trip, the neutrinos should have taken 0.0024 seconds. Instead, the particles hit the detectors in Italy 0.00000006 seconds sooner than expected. This makes no sense. Uf the neutrinos travel time can only be expressed in tenthousandths then the 6 hundredmillionth discrepency is meaningless. The article is incorect. MATH will now kill those responsible for this atrocity of mathematical grammar |
| ________________________________ [Feb 23,2012 1:39pm - Burnsy ""] Fucking sigfigs. |
| _______________________________ [Feb 23,2012 1:40pm - MATH ""] SERIOUSLY |
| ___________________________________ [Feb 23,2012 1:41pm - arktouros ""] 0.00240000 > 0.00000006 i'm not sure what you're talking about? |
| ________________________________ [Feb 23,2012 1:42pm - Burnsy ""] I had read that the results came under extreme scrutiny, even from the team that conducted the experiment but I hadn't read anything definitive. Not that this qualifies as definitive haha. |
| ________________________________ [Feb 23,2012 1:43pm - Burnsy ""] He/she is talking about this I believe: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Significant_figures |
| _______________________________ [Feb 23,2012 1:43pm - MATH ""] IS IT REALLY LIKELY THAT 0.0024 = 0.00240000? Doubtful... 0.0024xxxx +/- 0.00000006 would be acceptable. 0.0024 +/- 0.00000006 is meaningless. |
| ____________________________________ [Feb 23,2012 2:27pm - arilliusbm ""] Weren't you supposed to be in the test chamber half an hour ago? |
| ______________________________________ [Feb 23,2012 2:34pm - the_reverend ""] "The time portal follows Terminator rules as opposed to Back to the Future rules, or Timerider, but that was just silly" |
| ___________________________________ [Feb 23,2012 2:36pm - narkybark ""] Sorry guys, no good, a sandwich bag with bread crumbs fell into the Neutrino Matrix |
| ___________________________________ [Feb 23,2012 3:10pm - arktouros ""] MATH said:IS IT REALLY LIKELY THAT 0.0024 = 0.00240000? YES, BECAUSE IN FACT, IT DOES |
| ________________________________ [Feb 23,2012 3:15pm - Burnsy ""] I think their point is that if the neutrons arrive 0.00000006 second earlier, then it has to be .00240000 to mean anything. You could have 0.00241111 which is still 0.0024. |
| ___________________________________ [Feb 23,2012 3:16pm - narkybark ""] [img] |
| ________________________________ [Feb 23,2012 3:24pm - Mark_R ""] Burnsy said:I think their point is that if the neutrons arrive 0.00000006 second earlier, then it has to be .00240000 to mean anything. You could have 0.00241111 which is still 0.0024. Agreed. I also wonder if this is just a copyedit thing wherein zeroes after 0.0024 were removed from the text because an editor didn't think/realize they were meaningful. |
| ____________________________________ [Feb 23,2012 3:24pm - arilliusbm ""] WHO CARES ABOUT CONSTANT SPEEDS WHEN WE HAVE WORM HOLES AND DIMENSIONAL RIFTS YOU FUCKING THINKHARDS |
| ___________________________________ [Feb 23,2012 3:25pm - arktouros ""] Burnsy said:I think their point is that if the neutrons arrive 0.00000006 second earlier, then it has to be .00240000 to mean anything. You could have 0.00241111 which is still 0.0024. nahhhh, 0.00240000 == 0.0024. the trailing zeros are insignificant digits that are assumed to be there if you need to work with a larger string. 0.00241111 is a larger number than 0.0024 and therefore not equal. "it has to be .00240000 to mean anything" doesn't make sense. the fact that they arrived .00000006 seconds earlier means that it took .00239994 seconds for the neutrinos (not neutrons) to arrive instead of .00240000 (or .0024) seconds. |
| ___________________________________ [Feb 23,2012 3:26pm - arktouros ""] Mark_R said:Agreed. I also wonder if this is just a copyedit thing wherein zeroes after 0.0024 were removed from the text because an editor didn't think/realize they were meaningful. no, no, no. let me be the math nazi here. |
| ________________________________ [Feb 23,2012 3:31pm - Burnsy ""] I think it is an unjust assumption to say that .0024 = .00240000 How do we know that their anticipation was exactly .00240000? It could have been, say, .00239994 which, when rounded appears as .0024. |
| ___________________________________ [Feb 23,2012 3:31pm - arktouros ""] the zeros after .0024000 are the same as saying 00001 when working with whole numbers. go ahead and prove me wrong, i can sit here and argue about math all day long, my prick is getting harder. |
| ___________________________________ [Feb 23,2012 3:34pm - arktouros ""] burnsy, it's not an assumption, that's just a fact, .0024 is exactly the same number as .00240000 or .00240000000000000000000. you linked to the wiki article about significant figures that confirms it. also they would not round numbers like that when working with exact measurements. |
| ___________________________________ [Feb 23,2012 3:35pm - arktouros ""] " To do the trip, the neutrinos should have taken 0.0024 seconds. Instead, the particles hit the detectors in Italy 0.00000006 seconds sooner than expected." it's a perfectly sound mathematical statement. |
| ______________________________ [Feb 23,2012 3:36pm - Yeti ""] yeah when trying to measure something that could potentially be the biggest scientific breakthrough imaginable, rounding is out. |
| ________________________________ [Feb 23,2012 3:36pm - Burnsy ""] Haha, I'm aware that my management/accounting degree does not stand up to your math degree (you did study math, yes?). I'm also aware that saying .0024000 is superfluous. I just think that their anticipated neutron arrival time was not exactly .0024. If their measurements are capturing out to the 8th decimal, shouldn't their anticipated arrival time be expressed with the same number of decimal places? |
| ________________________________ [Feb 23,2012 3:38pm - Burnsy ""] arktouros said:"To do the trip" Pretty shitty English though, lol. |
| ____________________________________ [Feb 23,2012 3:39pm - arilliusbm ""] When measuring compelling and important numbers like this, they would NEVER round. I was off a calculation at work by .0001% a few weeks ago and that could have resulted in a few thousand dollars. Luckily I realized that dimensional rifts exist and got lost in rttp's warp thread. |
| ________________________________ [Feb 23,2012 3:46pm - Burnsy ""] My job is the opposite aril. Almost all figures in our workpapers and writeups are expressed in thousands. We don't pay attention to decimals unless it has to do with foreign exchange rates. |
| ___________________________________ [Feb 23,2012 3:47pm - arktouros ""] Burnsy said:Haha, I'm aware that my management/accounting degree does not stand up to your math degree (you did study math, yes?). I'm also aware that saying .0024000 is superfluous. I just think that their anticipated neutron arrival time was not exactly .0024. If their measurements are capturing out to the 8th decimal, shouldn't their anticipated arrival time be expressed with the same number of decimal places? i do have a BS in math which was exactly 4 years of this BS. for their arrival time, it could very well have been 0.0024 seconds, based on the distance and the existing formulas for neutrinos, which is way out of my scope because i'm no physicist. but you never need to worry about expressing numbers with the same amount of decimal places, the work involved in calculations using decimals doesn't ever call for having a strict number of places. 0.0024 - 0.000000006 = 0.0023999400000000000000000000 |
| ____________________________________ [Feb 23,2012 3:48pm - Alx_Casket ""] Burnsy said:My job is the opposite aril. Almost all figures in our workpapers and writeups are expressed in thousands. [img] |
| ___________________________________ [Feb 23,2012 3:50pm - arktouros ""] it does seem strange that they expected a number with only 4 decimal places, and not some extreme precise number like 0.00239994000000000000000000001 (which is just an inconceivable amount larger than 0.00239994) |
| ____________________________________ [Feb 23,2012 3:50pm - arilliusbm ""] ITT: College library table discussions |
| ___________________________________ [Feb 23,2012 3:52pm - arktouros ""] i miss these discussions. complaining to vendors that their software doesn't work while telling people to restart their computer and setting up virtual servers is just not the same. |
| ________________________________ [Feb 23,2012 3:55pm - Burnsy ""] Ah. Understood. Good discussion. A big LOL @ alx_catskit |
| _______________________________________ [Feb 23,2012 3:58pm - boblovesmusic ""] bennyhillifier |