Science: Don't Worry, Physics Is Safe

[antipunt]

Article 'refutes' article. Another article with 'discovery' refutes the 'refuted' article. Peer review kicks in. Rigorous testing.

I enjoy these Escapist/pop-site articles because they provide news about new stories that I may not have heard of. In terms of wording (ie: 'proving'), however, it's always good to take things with a massive grain of salt. That's why I love science though! Things are always open to attack. Nothing is dogma [optimally anyway ]

 

[direkiller]

Let me ask...am I right in thinking, basically, they didn't compensate for the different time zones between Switzerland and Italy or am I missing something?

no
they just did not take into account the satellite movement while timing

as it was rotating the same direction as the partial was moving it recorded a faster time.

 

[Atmos Duality]

Result of disproof is ambiguous, given what I've seen thus far.
Science (collectively) just doesn't blindly accept changes to proven models and theorems unless it can be consistently repeated.

 

[jurnag12]

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For the umpteenth time, they did not release their results as a discovery. They released it as something they were pretty sure was an error. They made their results available so that other scientists could check it and find the error that they were unable to. They said it would be really neat if it wasn't an error, but that it was very likely to be an error and needed to be thoroughly reviewed by the physics community before any revisions to current theory were made.

They did exactly what they were supposed to do.

Suppose that in a math class I stumble upon some mathematical equation that, solved in a certain way, appears to make 1 equal to 2. Suppose I ask the rest of the class to help me figure out what I did wrong. If what just happened with this neutrino thing were repeated in that class, it would mean the Journalism Club members in that class would have started running through the halls proclaiming that I have proved 1 equals 2, the entire school hears about it, and gets all excited. Five minutes later someone points out that I dropped a negative sign during one of my calculations, and the equation goes back to being perfectly mundane. The students in the school accuse me of getting everyone excited and completely ignores the Journalism Club's hyping of my erroneous result and their downplaying of what I really said, which was, again, a request for someone to help me figure out what I did wrong.

If it sounds like a completely ridiculous and implausible situation, that's because it is. Yet, it happened pretty much that way with the neutrino speed measurement. That's how insane people like you are. You turn real life into the kind of trashy sitcom written by people who don't know any other way of creating humor except by making the characters hold the idiot ball and never let go.

People like you are why the phrase "I don't want to live on this planet anymore" exists.

Because it's completely impossible that someone managed to miss the fact that they published strange errors instead of actual discoveries, as one might safely assume from a scientific institute.
And you know what makes me not want to live on this planet anymore? People who, at the smallest sight of someone making a genuine mistake due to misinformation, jump to insult those people into the ground and declare them insane idiots unfit for the human race.
Which reminds of the Westboro Baptist Church, come to think of it.
And the phrase "I don't want to live on this planet anymore." exists because Dan Vebber needed dialogue to show disgust at truly stupid people, not to create a snappy punchline internet trolls can throw at people they don't agree with or hate for no apparent reason.

 

[CrawlingPastaHellion]

I told that it was a systematic error and, surprise, oh surprise, it was!

Nothing that has mass can go faster than light, simply because photons are massless. Neutrinos have mass, therefore they will never and I mean NEVER travel faster than light.

Some scientists...

Dean Yeager:

Doctor... Venkman. The purpose of science is to serve mankind. You seem to regard science as some kind of dodge... or hustle. Your theories are the worst kind of popular tripe, your methods are sloppy, and your conclusions are highly questionable! You are a poor scientist, Dr. Venkman!

 

[ph0b0s123]

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For the umpteenth time, they did not release their results as a discovery. They released it as something they were pretty sure was an error. They made their results available so that other scientists could check it and find the error that they were unable to. They said it would be really neat if it wasn't an error, but that it was very likely to be an error and needed to be thoroughly reviewed by the physics community before any revisions to current theory were made.

They did exactly what they were supposed to do.

Suppose that in a math class I stumble upon some mathematical equation that, solved in a certain way, appears to make 1 equal to 2. Suppose I ask the rest of the class to help me figure out what I did wrong. If what just happened with this neutrino thing were repeated in that class, it would mean the Journalism Club members in that class would have started running through the halls proclaiming that I have proved 1 equals 2, the entire school hears about it, and gets all excited. Five minutes later someone points out that I dropped a negative sign during one of my calculations, and the equation goes back to being perfectly mundane. The students in the school accuse me of getting everyone excited and completely ignores the Journalism Club's hyping of my erroneous result and their downplaying of what I really said, which was, again, a request for someone to help me figure out what I did wrong.

If it sounds like a completely ridiculous and implausible situation, that's because it is. Yet, it happened pretty much that way with the neutrino speed measurement. That's how insane people like you are. You turn real life into the kind of trashy sitcom written by people who don't know any other way of creating humor except by making the characters hold the idiot ball and never let go.

Not sure why I have got dragged in here. The point of my post was that either the explanation now being offered is wrong, or the people carrying out the original experiment made a really dumb mistake. Not sure what was is so controversial about that idea.

Making an error in the calculations is one thing and can happen to anyone, but if the explanation is right, it would indicate a lack of understanding of basic physical principles by the experiment designers. This is what makes me doubt the now offered explanation.

And I can also make that statement as I have a degree in the subject being discussed.

People like you are why the phrase "I don't want to live on this planet anymore" exists.

The feeling is mutual.

 

[McMullen]

snip

Because it's completely impossible that someone managed to miss the fact that they published strange errors instead of actual discoveries, as one might safely assume from a scientific institute.

People assume a lot of things about science that cause all sorts of trouble. This is the latest in a long line of facepalm-worthy tales of people taking anything any scientist says, even when they say it in doubt, and parading it around as "Science says X!". One would think that eventually the press and their readers would get tired of making fools of themselves, but they don't because rather than consider the part they played in their own deception, they simply accuse the scientists of being indecisive or self-contradictory or incompetent. Go back and read the article announcing the faster-than-light neutrino. If you don't let yourself get carried away by your own excitement, you'll see what was actually said.

And you know what makes me not want to live on this planet anymore? People who, at the smallest sight of someone making a genuine mistake due to misinformation, jump to insult those people into the ground and declare them insane idiots unfit for the human race.

I'd prefer that you credit me with insults I make, and not the insults I don't make. I called you insane and said, in effect, that you blur the line between reality and badly written comedy. The former may be just a little harsh, but the latter is perfectly consistent with your post. I don't know why you said I insulted you into the ground or called you unfit for the human race. I think that's your own baggage there. It certainly didn't come from me.

And you didn't make a mistake due to misinformation. The article contained the scientist's caveat that it was very likely an error. You just ignored that and fixated on the most fantastical possible interpretation of the results, which is something that absolutely confuses me. I am simply amazed that so many people would do that.

Which reminds of the Westboro Baptist Church, come to think of it.

Perhaps to Godwin's Law we should add the Jurnag Corollary: If you need an evil organization to compare someone on the internet to but the Nazis are too out of style, the Westboro Baptist Church may be used instead.

Seriously, the WBC? I, in calling you out on your poor reading comprehension, remind you of the WBC? If that's all it takes, life is going to be very hard for you.

And the phrase "I don't want to live on this planet anymore." exists because Dan Vebber needed dialogue to show disgust at truly stupid people, not to create a snappy punchline internet trolls can throw at people they don't agree with or hate for no apparent reason.

Then I used it more or less as was originally intended, as I used it to communicate my disgust with people's truly stupid actions, not out of hate or a desire to simply make people mad on the internet.

 

[thirion1850]

A single paper doesn't prove the theory wrong, as it its self is a theory - a paper written by one man and still not yet proven correct by peers or likewise. Hence the overall question still stands.

 

[renegade7]

Are they seriously saying they didn't compensate for this? Either this is a sign of a cover up or a sign that someone needs to be fired.

 

[Zyxzy]

Darn, I was hoping that this article was about how we tore a hole in reality but got it patched up.

 

[DTWolfwood]

damn it and here i was hoping science would one day actually be able to make a Tachyon Beam!

 

[Kuth]

Whats this, a science article on the Escapist with some real science facts in it? Well this IS a big day...

This article is completely wrong. Here's a screenshot explaining.

Spoiler

Well if the internet says so... I'm personally waiting until New Scientist runs with this before claiming anything either way.

Yeah this explanation just would not add up. Given the controversy and the amount of testing they did, it wouldn't make sense that they did not factor in the speed of the earth. That's much like testing the speed of a bullet while going 100 mph on a road and forgetting that you were going 100 mph with the detecting equipment. If this is true, they wasted a lot of time on something they could have figured out. If it isn't, the morons who didn't read the damn report needed to ask questions and evaluated all evidence before making a damn theory about the results... you know.. the whole scientific method?

 

[Torrasque]

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For the umpteenth time, they did not release their results as a discovery. They released it as something they were pretty sure was an error. They made their results available so that other scientists could check it and find the error that they were unable to. They said it would be really neat if it wasn't an error, but that it was very likely to be an error and needed to be thoroughly reviewed by the physics community before any revisions to current theory were made.

They did exactly what they were supposed to do.

Suppose that in a math class I stumble upon some mathematical equation that, solved in a certain way, appears to make 1 equal to 2. Suppose I ask the rest of the class to help me figure out what I did wrong. If what just happened with this neutrino thing were repeated in that class, it would mean the Journalism Club members in that class would have started running through the halls proclaiming that I have proved 1 equals 2, the entire school hears about it, and gets all excited. Five minutes later someone points out that I dropped a negative sign during one of my calculations, and the equation goes back to being perfectly mundane. The students in the school accuse me of getting everyone excited and completely ignores the Journalism Club's hyping of my erroneous result and their downplaying of what I really said, which was, again, a request for someone to help me figure out what I did wrong.

If it sounds like a completely ridiculous and implausible situation, that's because it is. Yet, it happened pretty much that way with the neutrino speed measurement. That's how insane people like you are. You turn real life into the kind of trashy sitcom written by people who don't know any other way of creating humor except by making the characters hold the idiot ball and never let go.

People like you are why the phrase "I don't want to live on this planet anymore" exists.

For the record, I was being sarcastic.
That is why I stopped reading your post as soon as I saw it was more than a few lines long.
Joking is... hard? =/

 

[RicoGrey]

Am I the last motherf%$*er on earth who does not have GPS, even these neutrinos have f#&$ing GPS. Imma go get lost down some rural country road and never return.

 

[Coffinshaker]

ok, I get what they're "trying" to say with relativity and all, but I'm having a bit of difficulty with some of the logic here...

so here's the prob... if you're on a train and you fire a bullet that goes say, 100mph (idk, whatever) and the train is moving at a uniform 100mph, then no matter where you point the gun inside that train, that bullet will move at 100mph (from the point of reference of inside the train)!! see, it has initial velocity. to someone on the ground, if you shot it from the back of the train to the front, it would be going 200mph.

that is exactly what they are trying to say with this whole "you're on a satellite" thing. yes, from up above, the earth moves and both reference points are moving as well... HOWEVER, this is makes 3 very distinct possibilities...

1 - if there is a loss of time due to the movement of the earth, then you are acknowledging that these particles IGNORE that initial velocity! it means that, no matter how fast that train is moving, they will move at 100mpg based on the ground reference. to me, this would be catastrophic to physics.

2 - the particle is actually moving as fast as the claims made it out to be.

3 - or there is "something" that is effecting the speed of the particles to interrupt that initial velocity. which would be extraordinarily peculiar. time dilation pocket?

using the earth's rotation, if I understand the article correctly, isn't doing this justice... I mean, if point A and B are moving, well... shouldn't the trajectories of the particles be off? A and B aren't moving in a straight line ya know... also... remember your Monty Python song! the earth is moving around the sun, moving around the milky way, moving in the universe and it all adds up to being a hellova fast. so relativity starts getting stretched a little thin when you try to make it fit.

put another way, what they just tried to explain is the equivalent of shooting a gun at a train moving towards you. meaning, point A is on the ground and point B is on the train coming at you. yes, in that scenario, the bullet would appear to have traveled faster than it should have, but unless the facility in Italy decided to sprout legs and made a mad dash towards Geneva, then this explanation from the relativity fanboys has just as many holes as the anti-relativity camp.

long story short... the BS wars are a long way from over. I'm still on the fence with all of this...

 

[Olrod]

Time dilation. Time goes slower as you go faster, the Earth's speed through space is not 0, so Earth is subject to a few nanoseconds of time dilation.

The neutrinos weren't going faster than light speed, it just looked like they were travelling faster than they really were because Earth is moving too.

 

[Para199x]

snip

snip...that is if we are only limited to traveling our current 4D (-ct, x1, x2, x3) brane of existence.... snip

to be a /b/tard

>implying string theory is anything other than a religion

 

[Venats]

to be a /b/tard

>implying string theory is anything other than a religion

What I was referring to wasn't string, as I would have said 12-dimensionality specifically. Multidimensionality can be used exclusively from string theory, and has been used for mucking around with the metric tensor to explain certain phenomena or, at least, attempt to in the standard model without delving into strings or other such.

Just because something is a braneworld theory, doesn't really mean it is religiously tied to strings. Also, using the word brane is a quick and concise method to say 'this plane of existence'.

 

[Para199x]

to be a /b/tard

>implying string theory is anything other than a religion

What I was referring to wasn't string, as I would have said 12-dimensionality specifically. Multidimensionality can be used exclusively from string theory, and has been used for mucking around with the metric tensor to explain certain phenomena or, at least, attempt to in the standard model without delving into strings or other such.

Just because something is a braneworld theory, doesn't really mean it is religiously tied to strings. Also, using the word brane is a quick and concise method to say 'this plane of existence'.

Apologies used to people talking about string theory as fact. So instantly assume so

 

[ph0b0s123]

This weeks QI had a discussion about GPS unrelated to this topic, but happened to get onto the need to correct for GPS satellites.
@2:00

Even comedians and a 'TV' scientist get that you need to account for relativity with GPS satellites.

So even though not popular when I said this before, I say again, that the people who set-up this neutrino experiment really need to have their degree's checked to have missed something so basic. That is assuming that the not correcting for the GPS satellites was the reason the neutrinos looked to be going faster than the speed of light. Which again I doubt as an explanation, as I cannot believe any scientist worth their salt would miss something so basic. If they did, I don't think is is unfair to say they screwed up.