Large Hadron Collider breaks physics, screws up theories.

[Crazy Zaul]

The neutrinos are traveling FTL, and theyre heating up the planet!

 

[Housebroken Lunatic]

I know. That was my second inclination, because it was obvious that if my first thought was relevant, why would anyone doing a physics experiment not already have tried to account for that?

But, with the detector being 724km from the source, there's a fair chance that the neutrinos have been travelling through rock, not air, and certainly not a vacuum.

(I mean, I highly doubt they actually built a 700 km long vacuum tube just for this experiment. And a neutron detector is typically a fairly large volume of some kind of material, often water, ironically.)

Erm, isn't that pretty much what a Hadron Collider's supposed to do? I mean, isn't it supposed to be a vacuum-sealed particle accelerator?

 

[Housebroken Lunatic]

Neutrinos generally can pass through solid matter while behaving as if it's in a vacuum. In this case, they shot them through the ground to another lab, which measured them as arriving faster than possible.

Bu if it has been established that they don't behave in solid matter as they do in vacuum in terms of speed, then why are they so perplexed over these results?

Is the speed of light through solid matter the same as the speed of light in vacuum or not?

 

[Da Orky Man]

Pretty sure I recall Major Kira in Star Trek Deep Space Nine mention neutrinos travel faster than light and therefore back in time - another case of life imitating art?

She was probably talking about tachyons, which are hypothetical particles. The episode where Sisko builds that Bajoran solar-sail ship, right?

 

[Denamic]

I thought if you went faster than light you went back in time so surely they should have shown up late...

The particles would travel back in time.
Meaning they'd arrive younger than they were when they set off.

 

[Berethond]

Neutrinos generally can pass through solid matter while behaving as if it's in a vacuum. In this case, they shot them through the ground to another lab, which measured them as arriving faster than possible.

Bu if it has been established that they don't behave in solid matter as they do in vacuum in terms of speed, then why are they so perplexed over these results?

Is the speed of light through solid matter the same as the speed of light in vacuum or not?

No, neutrinos act the same in a vacuum or solid matter.

They're perplexed because the neutrinos are seemingly traveling at slightly faster than the constant 'c', the speed of light in a vacuum.

And light is slowed down when it passes through water and other substances.

My first inclination upon hearing this though was to ask if it was referring to the speed of light in a vacuum, or whether it was the speed of light in some other medium.

Well personally I think they wouldn't have made such a fuss about it if the neutrinos were submerged in any other medium than a vacuum.

I mean, what would be the point to trying to confirm theories regarding the speed of light by shooting neutrinos through water or air?

I know. That was my second inclination, because it was obvious that if my first thought was relevant, why would anyone doing a physics experiment not already have tried to account for that?

But, with the detector being 724km from the source, there's a fair chance that the neutrinos have been travelling through rock, not air, and certainly not a vacuum.

(I mean, I highly doubt they actually built a 700 km long vacuum tube just for this experiment. And a neutron detector is typically a fairly large volume of some kind of material, often water, ironically.)

See above as well.

 

[Luke5515]

This is really good. Now we can travel through space a fraction of a second per 723km faster!

 

[Soviet Heavy]

I'm telling you, we need to stop this Freeman guy from working there, but nobody listens!

Spoiler

 

[Penguinishka]

Dear Science,

Can we have time travel now? Please?

Sincerely, OMG Soooo Excited!!!!!

 

[CrystalShadow]

I know. That was my second inclination, because it was obvious that if my first thought was relevant, why would anyone doing a physics experiment not already have tried to account for that?

But, with the detector being 724km from the source, there's a fair chance that the neutrinos have been travelling through rock, not air, and certainly not a vacuum.

(I mean, I highly doubt they actually built a 700 km long vacuum tube just for this experiment. And a neutron detector is typically a fairly large volume of some kind of material, often water, ironically.)

Erm, isn't that pretty much what a Hadron Collider's supposed to do? I mean, isn't it supposed to be a vacuum-sealed particle accelerator?

Yes, that's what the LHC is, but this experiment wasn't done using the LHC, which is 27 km long, and fires either protons or lead nuclei to see what happens in a high-energy collision.

However, you'll note this experiment says:
"Neutrinos sent through the ground from Cern toward the Gran Sasso laboratory 732km away seemed to show up a tiny fraction of a second early."

Which actually explicitly answers my own question... But, eh well... Whatever. XD

 

[thatonedude11]

This is great! One of my friends is an asshole about this sort of thing and seems to believe that it is impossible for theoretical physicists to make a mistake. As an eternal skeptic, this really pisses me off. I am SO going to rub this in his face tomorrow.

P.S. I know it might be a fluke, so don't label me as someone who ignores all of the details.

 

[McMullen]

Was this actually the Large Hadron Collider, or just a different CERN facility? I've never encountered any material saying the LHC could project beams to a distant location.

And yeah, there's lots of things to consider. Someone mentioned tectonic activity, there could be a problem with calibration of the clocks used to time the experiment, and there could even be some relativistic effects causing unforeseen discrepancies in how time was measured between the transmitter and receiver. It's way too early to say that the universal speed limit has been broken.

 

[Housebroken Lunatic]

Yes, that's what the LHC is, but this experiment wasn't done using the LHC, which is 27 km long, and fires either protons or lead nuclei to see what happens in a high-energy collision.

However, you'll note this experiment says:
"Neutrinos sent through the ground from Cern toward the Gran Sasso laboratory 732km away seemed to show up a tiny fraction of a second early."

Which actually explicitly answers my own question... But, eh well... Whatever. XD

Well then you were actually onto something.

I mean this discovery might just be something so trivial as to say that the speed of light through solid ground wasn't what we thought to be and not nearly as important as finding out that neutrinos could go faster than the estimated speed of light through vacuum.

In fact, when reading the text properly I feel disappointed. I mean, sending a bunch of particles "through the ground" is a terrible premise for a scientific experiment. I mean, just try to account for all the substances from the periodic table that the neutrinos could've passed through! They could've passed through several different metals, gasses and fluids which would most likely influence the results slightly depending on which types of metals, gasses and fluids we're talking about.

I.e A LOT of "noise" to the results, which ultimately tells us nothing.

Stupid physicists. IF YOU'RE GOING TO DO EXPERIMENTS, THEN MAKE SURE YOU DO THEM IN A CONTROLLED ENVIROMENT YOU NOOBS!

 

[CrystalShadow]

Yes, that's what the LHC is, but this experiment wasn't done using the LHC, which is 27 km long, and fires either protons or lead nuclei to see what happens in a high-energy collision.

However, you'll note this experiment says:
"Neutrinos sent through the ground from Cern toward the Gran Sasso laboratory 732km away seemed to show up a tiny fraction of a second early."

Which actually explicitly answers my own question... But, eh well... Whatever. XD

Well then you were actually onto something.

I mean this discovery might just be something so trivial as to say that the speed of light through solid ground wasn't what we thought to be and not nearly as important as finding out that neutrinos could go faster than the estimated speed of light through vacuum.

In fact, when reading the text properly I feel disappointed. I mean, sending a bunch of particles "through the ground" is a terrible premise for a scientific experiment. I mean, just try to account for all the substances from the periodic table that the neutrinos could've passed through! They could've passed through several different metals, gasses and fluids which would most likely influence the results slightly depending on which types of metals, gasses and fluids we're talking about.

I.e A LOT of "noise" to the results, which ultimately tells us nothing.

Stupid physicists. IF YOU'RE GOING TO DO EXPERIMENTS, THEN MAKE SURE YOU DO THEM IN A CONTROLLED ENVIROMENT YOU NOOBS!

Lol. Very true. Although I seem to recall another person here noting that neutrinos pass through matter as if it wasn't there a lot of the time, meaning they travel at the speed of light in a vacuum even when passing through solid ground.

If that's the case, then there is something interesting going on. Faster than light in a vacuum after all, violates the known laws of physics.

But if their calculations depended on a lower speed than that...

 

[conflictofinterests]

Good job breaking it, heroes, as GLaDOS would have said.

 

[Outlaw Torn]

I thought if you went faster than light you went back in time so surely they should have shown up late...

The only way to travel back in time is to make the Earth spin backwards. Everyone knows that. There is even a documentary about it presented by Superman.

Back on topic. Maybe those clever Neutrinos found a shortcut? In any case, there is a simple solution that (once again) was discovered by Futurama. Just increase the speed of light!

 

[Tallim]

Yes, that's what the LHC is, but this experiment wasn't done using the LHC, which is 27 km long, and fires either protons or lead nuclei to see what happens in a high-energy collision.

However, you'll note this experiment says:
"Neutrinos sent through the ground from Cern toward the Gran Sasso laboratory 732km away seemed to show up a tiny fraction of a second early."

Which actually explicitly answers my own question... But, eh well... Whatever. XD

Well then you were actually onto something.

I mean this discovery might just be something so trivial as to say that the speed of light through solid ground wasn't what we thought to be and not nearly as important as finding out that neutrinos could go faster than the estimated speed of light through vacuum.

In fact, when reading the text properly I feel disappointed. I mean, sending a bunch of particles "through the ground" is a terrible premise for a scientific experiment. I mean, just try to account for all the substances from the periodic table that the neutrinos could've passed through! They could've passed through several different metals, gasses and fluids which would most likely influence the results slightly depending on which types of metals, gasses and fluids we're talking about.

I.e A LOT of "noise" to the results, which ultimately tells us nothing.

Stupid physicists. IF YOU'RE GOING TO DO EXPERIMENTS, THEN MAKE SURE YOU DO THEM IN A CONTROLLED ENVIROMENT YOU NOOBS!

Lol. Very true. Although I seem to recall another person here noting that neutrinos pass through matter as if it wasn't there a lot of the time, meaning they travel at the speed of light in a vacuum even when passing through solid ground.

If that's the case, then there is something interesting going on. Faster than light in a vacuum after all, violates the known laws of physics.

But if their calculations depended on a lower speed than that...

Pretty much with the neutrino interaction thing. They can in theory pass through over a light-year of lead without interacting depending on energy levels.

 

[Suicidejim]

Between quantum theory's apparent incompatibility with general relativity (not including string theory, etc. before anybody points that out, just saying that reconciling the two is certainly taking some work), and this apparently showing that you CAN go faster than the speed of light, I'm thinking Einstein is pretty pissed right now.

 

[Suicidejim]

"We TOLD him not to do it," a quark was quoted as saying, "But that damn neutrino was always so stubborn. You don't go faster than the speed of light! None of us do! He just wouldn't stick with the herd . . ."

When asked about his disregard for the rules of general relativity, the neutrino in question replied that "I don't play by anybody's rules."

The Higgs Boson could not be reached for comment.

 

[Raeil]

Small point of... well, reason I suppose. The results are nowhere near confirmed. As in, the group that discovered this didn't want to talk about it for months and have only done so now because their findings have been re-evaluated several times. However, if it's non-reproducible, it's likely a fluke. Also, General Relativity still works, it's just that it only works for specific cases (which encompass pretty much everything we know at this point, much like Newton's theories encompassed pretty much everything known when they were formulated). It'll be interesting to watch this news, but it's important that we actually watch it, rather than take the "Neutrinos went faster than light" story at face value.