!! CERN claims faster-than-light particle measured

[bfdd]

Locut0s, I'm not claiming to understand all the math, it's just something that happens with numbers. It's easy to confuse or convince people with their manipulation. I'm not saying there was any intentional manipulation, but that maybe it was represented wrong or poorly due to our human sensory limitations. Does that make sense? Sorry, things like this always excite me and I have a really hard time getting words from inside my head out so a lot of the times it's a jumbled mess.

 

[Dr. Zaus]

bro... bro... ya mad.. ya sound mad... you mad bro?

 

[Locut0s]

bro... bro... ya mad.. ya sound mad... you mad bro?

Me?

No.

Just.

Well.

I like to think I have a fairly good layman's understanding of modern physics. And I would never argue it goes much beyond a layman's understanding. I can't do the math though I excelled in math in HS and university so in some ways I DO understand the process of applying the math even if I don't understand the specifics. I was good at physics in HS and early level university as well so I have a fairly good understanding at least of how physics works again even if I can't understand the math involved in higher level stuff. I respect and understand it. I don't want this to sound like I'm bragging, cause I'm not, just trying to lay the foundation for where my point of view originates.

I've read enough about modern physics and know how it's conducted both as a form of mathematics and as a physical science, see particle accelerators, nuclear research, that I'm comfortable explaining how most of modern physics works (again from a knowledgeable layman's perspective). Given the above I see time and time again people talking about physics as if they are knowledgeable. But reading what they are saying it doesn't take very long usually to see that they don't really know what they are talking about. Some of what they say is correct or sounds fine. But then there will be other parts that are either just nonsense or akin to it. Again I know this is probably coming off as me on my high horse or something but I don't mean it to sound like that.

 

[Locut0s]

Locut0s, I'm not claiming to understand all the math, it's just something that happens with numbers. It's easy to confuse or convince people with their manipulation. I'm not saying there was any intentional manipulation, but that maybe it was represented wrong or poorly due to our human sensory limitations. Does that make sense? Sorry, things like this always excite me and I have a really hard time getting words from inside my head out so a lot of the times it's a jumbled mess.

No the math is the solid bedrock upon which all of modern physics is based. You don't have to understand all the math, though having some ability with it REALLY does help even if most of it still looks like Greek. But you have to respect it and understand that the physicists aren't dealing with electrons, protons, neutrinos, etc, as their airy fairy concepts that you may see them to be. They are dealing with very solid concrete mathematical frameworks out of which the concepts of electrons, protons, neutrinos etc arise. And these mathematical frameworks lend these particles very rigid properties. They aren't free to do anything they want and you can't just introduce any property you may want. At least not without grounding it in math and reconciling it with the rest of modern physics.

 

[Dr. Zaus]

No the math is the solid bedrock upon which all of modern physics is based. You don't have to understand all the math, though having some ability with it REALLY does help even if most of it still looks like Greek. But you have to respect it and understand that the physicists aren't dealing with electrons, protons, neutrinos, etc, as their airy fairy concepts that you may see them to be. They are dealing with very solid concrete mathematical frameworks out of which the concepts of electrons, protons, neutrinos etc arise. And these mathematical frameworks lend these particles very rigid properties. They aren't free to do anything they want and you can't just introduce any property you may want. At least not without grounding it in math and reconciling it with the rest of modern physics.

 

[Locut0s]

Lol. Great pic.

What's your opinion on the subject, my post, though?

 

[Ichinisan]

Only one more thing would make it complete:
Photoshop a hand holding one of Edison's first light bulbs.

 

[Dr. Zaus]

No the math is the solid bedrock upon which all of modern physics is based.

Actually its all probabilistic Bayesian analysis, so it's actually statistical probability, not mathematical certainty.

respect it and understand that the physicists aren't dealing with electrons, protons, neutrinos, etc, as their airy fairy concepts that you may see them to be.

True.

these mathematical frameworks lend these particles very rigid properties. They aren't free to do anything they want and you can't just introduce any property you may want. At least not without grounding it in math and reconciling it with the rest of modern physics.

True.

I would like to point out that we know very very little when it comes understanding even the fundamentals of physics; I am referring to this:

http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=1430

 

[SP33Demon]

Seems like there are some problems with this experiement...

http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-12-pions-dont-faster-than-light-neutrinos.html

 

[Juddog]

Seems like there are some problems with this experiement...

http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-12-pions-dont-faster-than-light-neutrinos.html

All that really says is that the neutrinos didn't behave as they expected them to, meaning they thought the neutrinos would have a higher energy value than they did. It doesn't actually disprove that it went faster than light.

 

[SP33Demon]

All that really says is that the neutrinos didn't behave as they expected them to, meaning they thought the neutrinos would have a higher energy value than they did. It doesn't actually disprove that it went faster than light.

It still raises some doubts to the experiment.

 

[DrPizza]

"I have very high regard for the OPERA experimenters," Cowsik adds. "They got faster-than-light speeds when they analyzed their data in March, but they struggled for months to eliminate possible errors in their experiment before publishing it.
"Not finding any mistakes," Cowsik says, "they had an ethical obligation to publish so that the community could help resolve the difficulty. That's the demanding code physicists live by," he says.

So true.

 

[busydude]

Update:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-17139635

What might have been the biggest physics story of the past century may instead be down to a faulty connection.

In September 2011, the Opera experiment reported it had seen particles called neutrinos evidently travelling faster than the speed of light.

The team has now found two problems that may have affected their test in opposing ways: one in its timing gear and one in an optical fibre connection.

More tests from May will determine just how they affect measured speeds.
The Opera collaboration (an acronym for Oscillation Project with Emulsion-Racking Apparatus) was initially started to study the tiny particles as they travelled through 730km of rock between a particle accelerator at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (Cern) in Switzerland and the Gran Sasso underground laboratory in Italy.

Its goal was to quantify how often the neutrinos change from one type to another on the journey.

But during the course of the experiments the team found that the neutrinos showed up 60 billionths of a second faster than light would have done over the same distance - a result that runs counter to a century's worth of theoretical and experimental physics.

 

[NikolaeVarius]

Yep, thought so. Nothing left to see here folks, a random experiment did not undo one of the most important facets of modern physics overnight.