Particles recorded moving faster than light

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phongn
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Re: Particles recorded moving faster than light

Post by phongn »

Looks like it was a faulty cable.
Science Insider wrote:It appears that the faster-than-light neutrino results, announced last September by the OPERA collaboration in Italy, was due to a mistake after all. A bad connection between a GPS unit and a computer may be to blame.

Physicists had detected neutrinos travelling from the CERN laboratory in Geneva to the Gran Sasso laboratory near L'Aquila that appeared to make the trip in about 60 nanoseconds less than light speed. Many other physicists suspected that the result was due to some kind of error, given that it seems at odds with Einstein's special theory of relativity, which says nothing can travel faster than the speed of light. That theory has been vindicated by many experiments over the decades.

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.
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PeZook
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Re: Particles recorded moving faster than light

Post by PeZook »

Ahahahaha

Man, and all the electric universe/paranormal/antiscience idiots on the internets already spent so much time crowing about Einstein being wrong wrong WRONG . This will break their hearts :D
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phongn
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Re: Particles recorded moving faster than light

Post by phongn »

PeZook wrote:Ahahahaha

Man, and all the electric universe/paranormal/antiscience idiots on the internets already spent so much time crowing about Einstein being wrong wrong WRONG . This will break their hearts :D
:lol: Like that'll happen.
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Re: Particles recorded moving faster than light

Post by Eternal_Freedom »

I would not like to be the poor sod who had to admit that to the boss.
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phongn
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Re: Particles recorded moving faster than light

Post by phongn »

ArsTechnica wrote:At the AAAS meeting's discussion, CERN's director of research, Sergio Bertolucci, placed his bet on what the results would be: "I have difficulty to believe it, because nothing in Italy arrives ahead of time."
:lol:
Eternal_Freedom wrote:I would not like to be the poor sod who had to admit that to the boss.
Eh, shit happens.
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Re: Particles recorded moving faster than light

Post by Soontir C'boath »

PeZook wrote:Ahahahaha

Man, and all the electric universe/paranormal/antiscience idiots on the internets already spent so much time crowing about Einstein being wrong wrong WRONG . This will break their hearts :D
It was pretty sad when this broke out that a few of my engineering friends said the stuff they learned in university were bullshit because of this. Goes to show how much they really learned the material...
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Re: Particles recorded moving faster than light

Post by Versac »

So... are we believing the anonymous source ahead of any official release? AAAS is pretty credible, but there've been more than a few 'solutions' to the discrepancy already.
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Re: Particles recorded moving faster than light

Post by Molyneux »

Aw. I was hoping that it was going to be some sort of legitimately interesting phenomenon, rather than just an equipment bug.
Oh, well. On to the Higgs Boson!
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phongn
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Re: Particles recorded moving faster than light

Post by phongn »

Molyneux wrote:Aw. I was hoping that it was going to be some sort of legitimately interesting phenomenon, rather than just an equipment bug.
Oh, well. On to the Higgs Boson!
~125 GeV/c2 or bust?
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