FTL Neutrinos? Einstein Can Rest Easy
Last September the OPERA collaboration in Italy announced that they had detected neutrinos apparently traveling faster than the speed of light. In their experimental setup the neutrinos arrived about 60 nanoseconds ahead of what the speed of light would have produced. The first persons to be skeptical of this result were the researchers themselves. They understood that this result is at odds with perhaps the most confirmed theories in all of science – Einstein’s theories of special and general relativity. According to relativity theory nothing can travel faster than the speed of light in a vacuum. This is not a practical limitation, it is inherent to the fabric of the universe.
Every now and then a lab somewhere claims to have broken this law of relativity, but in every case (so far) it seems that they simply made an experimental error or interpreted their results incorrectly. This ultimate speed limit seems to be as solid a law of physics as the conservation of energy, and experiments that seem to break this law suffer the same fate as those who believe they have invented a perpetual motion or free energy machine.
This claim, however, was different because the scientists exhaustively searched for any possible source of error they could think of and eliminated it, and the 60 nanosecond discrepancy persisted. Only when they did everything they could to disprove their results did they announce them to the world – still with the proper caution that was due. They essentially asked the rest of the scientific community to help them find the source of the error, while tentatively saying that if their results are true, wouldn’t that be interesting.
The claim was met by the scientific community with the proper skepticism. Most scientists did not believe the results and were confident that the source of error would be found. Some cited the fact that light and neutrinos from very distant supernova arrive at the earth at almost the same time (relatively) and therefore neutrinos must be traveling at the speed of light. True – unless the experimental neutrinos act differently because they are at a different energy level. This is not a convincing argument, but is theoretically possible. The general thinking was this – what is more likely, that the laws of physics have been overturned, or that this very complicated experimental setup has some minor source of error that is yet to be detected?
The response of the media was mixed, as you might expect. Many articles included the proper scientific skeptical response, but many also emphasized the amazing results. Anecdotally I encountered people in the public who only took from this story that something was found to travel faster than the speed of light, so Einstein was wrong, and that proves that scientists don’t really know what they are talking about, so whatever crazy theory they happen to prefer may be true also.
I joined the majority of scientists and skeptics who were confident that some source of experimental error would be found (which is just playing the odds). It would be fascinating and a huge science story if it turned out to be correct, but just terribly unlikely.
It is therefore not surprising that the apparent source of error has now come to light. According to the AAAS:
According to sources familiar with the experiment, 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 fiber, researchers found that the data arrive 60 nanoseconds earlier than assumed. 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.
Even in this scientists are being properly cautious. This is a potential explanation for the neutrino anomaly, but it needs to be confirmed. It seems likely, however, given that this effect matches the 60 nanosecond discrepancy of the previous experiments.
I love this whole science news story. It is a great opportunity to teach the public how science really works. The original scientists were skeptical of their own results and did everything they could to find their own error. When they couldn’t, they published their results, but without grandiose claims of changing our understanding of the universe and overturning a century of physics. The scientific community met the claims with skepticism and immediately started suggesting possible sources of error, each one was investigated to see if it were actually true. Meanwhile the implications of the claim were discussed, to put them into the proper context of data that we already have. If this experiment is true, then how do we square that with previous observations and experiments?
Now, it seems, the anomaly has been resolved, but that has to be confirmed as well.
Science is a self-skeptical, self-corrective but messy process. It would be great for the public to have a greater appreciation for this, so that they can more easily smell pseudoscience when they encounter it.
Well you know what’s going to happen don’t you?
“Scientists do everything they can to preserve their precious status quo” and “Scientists afraid of ovserturning theories they’re invested in” and “Scientist finds excuse to silence new reality” etc etc.
Explain how science works all you want, but some folk simply aren’t open to the idea of it. I wish I weren’t as negative as this, but it just keeps on happening.
Occam’s razor, meet Murphy’s law.
Jim Al-Khalili: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KrAhN13pt6U&t=2m46s
The updated story at AAAS still leave a foot in the door for FTL :
http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2012/02/official-word-on-superluminal-ne.html?ref=hp
Looks like we will have to wait until May to see the results of a more precise test that is planned.
“Now, it seems, the anomaly has been resolved” – well, as has been pointed out in the comments, this statement is incorrect and based on a leaked story that contained only half the facts. Flatly accepting a debunking of the strange claim when an anonymous news story comes along, be in on an AAAS website or elsewhere, can’t be the way skeptics should operate. Who should also follow multiple sources of (science) news: the full story was widely reported already on February 23rd, four days before this here was posted …
When people lose their keys, they generally don’t jump to the conclusion that a gnome stole them or that they disappeared into thin air. They think where to start looking for them, and that depends on certainty, falsifiability, and cost. Like, even if you’re pretty sure you accidentally tossed your keys in a dumpster, you’ll still double-check your pockets first because they’re easy to rule out, unlike the dumpster, which you can search all day long and still not feel confident that you’ve ruled it out.
Well there have been a number of times that my keys ended up being in places that ‘I know for a fact’ that I have already checked.
How do you ‘splain that if not gnomes or some kind of wizardry?
There were times when I’ve searched EVERYWHERE, and just as I start to question conservation of mass, I find the damn keys. And it’s usually remarkably unexciting, like, “Oh yeah, I put them down next to the phone when I came in.” Rarely is it like, “How they hell did they get there?”
The gnomes are busy restarting my DVD player at seemingly random times.
Reluctantly, I have to agree with Other Paul. I couldn’t even get a NY Times science writer (no one says why they are the science writer) to acknowledge that there is a difference between a skeptic and a denier–he went into great detail about ONE person he considers not to be a crank, but rather a credible “skeptic” (the person is only slightly skeptical/denier on human action–not cc itself) and the reporter therefore feels that the “skeptic” must “be heard” and presented in a “fair” (false dichotomy) way as a “skeptic” and not thrown in with real cranks.
So, yes, I hold out little hope that this incident will move very many people to better understand how science works. Sorry–it’s just the skeptic in me. :-)
But, many thanks for the update; I was wondering how long it would take to explain the discrepancy. And yes, I’ll wait for the confirmation before I cheer.
I won’t carry this any further in here, I just wish to note that this (below) is a marvelous and commendable approach to science:
It is fairly obvious when people are more interested in finding out what is really going on than promoting their own theory or research. Notice also that the “deniers” of the FTL neutrino did not demand that the research be suppressed or wholly discredited, they wanted more information.
Yeah,and if 30 years from now,after finding a plausible mechanism for FTL neutrinos that 97% of particle physicists,and all of the academies of science from every country in the world agree on,then anyone else at that point who won’t listen,and can’t come up with a comprehensive theory of why they are wrong,yet still says they are wrong,will become the deniers.
I loved this! Those of us involved in the electronics space have a saying that pre-dates Murphy. Check the last place you made a change and really examine the cable and connectors. At least a 90% hit rate. Thanks Skeptoid for keeing up with this. While not always certain, the “duck” observation is quite accurate. (walks like a … et al )
REGARDS GENTLEMEN.
“According to relativity theory nothing can travel faster than the speed of light in a vacuum. This is not a practical limitation, it is inherent to the fabric of the universe.”
Theoretical physicists like Michio Kaku say one can travel faster than light by distorting spacetime. It’s allowed in general relativity theory.
Since spacetime is expanding faster than light (FTL) speed, there are distant stars moving away from us at FTL speed. Stars with redshift > 3 have FTL recessional velocities. Astronomers have observed stars with redshift > 6.
If spacetime is expanding then yes an object can appear to the moving away from another at FTL speed, but relative to background spacetime neither object is moving at FTL speed.
All observations are made relative to the motion of the observers. This results to faster than light speed. The less than light speed is based on calculation of relativity theory. It may be pointless to debate which is more real – the result based on observation or the result based on calculation.
You are not saying that the measured/observed speed of light is dependent on the relative motion of two observers,are you? Wouldn’t that violate Special Relativity?
I’ll bet if you asked Santorum, he would tell you his god can travel faster than light. I used to be a Repub b4 before the noodle heads took over, but if any of this crop of losers gets into the white house the US lead in science and technology will soon evaporate like a bubble at the surface of a pond.
I agree. What happened to conservatives? There seem to be no thinking conservatives anymore. I didn’t always agree with men like Barry Goldwater or William F. Buckley, but I respected them. They were thoughtful and could disagree while still being civil. The modern GOP is filled with people who IMHO are rude crude and filled with hatred and venom. Civil discourse with these people is next to impossible.
I absolutely love this whole FTL neutrino business. It is a fine example of how science really works. I just wish that more people understood the process.
FTL is a physical quality, intimately related to a dimensional physical universe. Speed in order to be meaningful, must be related to some kind of dimension/distance. And speed in order to be meaningful must be recorded by some kind of observer. This implicate that we are dealing with two distinct qualities – 1) the time it takes for light (photons) respective neutrinos, to propagate through a well defined physical space, and 2) the time it takes to measure (observe) the passing of the line, respectively. Imagine that the speed of photon and neutrino, (the speed of information in physical universe), is the same, but that there is a difference in the time it takes to observe the passing of the line. Because it is the combined period of time that is being being measured, then it will falsely be concluded that the speeds are different –
I like to think that the time it takes for a neutrino to be measured is shorter that the time it takes to measure a photon – (the neutrino is a smaller information unit as compared to photon) – and that this time difference is this about 60 nanoseconds.
A fairly simple experiment would be to repeat the measurement – and with smallest feasible distance, in order to see if the time difference in such a set up also is about 60 nanoseconds.