Ye cannae change the laws of physics

[Vertigo]

Yeah I know that's why I said it still blows my idea out of the water . Incidentally the mass of photons is a little more ambiguous than that; I believe photons do "develop" a nonzero effective rest mass when inside a superconductor. Also I believe it has still never been proven experimentally that photons are massless, only that they have a mass less than some number (that get progressively smaller as the experiments become more sophisticated). Nit picking I know but...

[andyw1691]

Things get interesting if you take the view that gravity is simply the curviture of spacetime. The paths of photons appear to follow the curviture of spacetime which gives us the gravitational lensing effect.

If neutrinos don't hold to spacetime curviture than when travelling then that would be very interesting

Andy

[andyw1691]

Removed duplicate post.

[RJM Corbet]

What's the news on this?

[Abernovo]

I haven't really been following closely, partly because there seems to be little real news.

Repeats of the original experiment are still in the process of being carried out at CERN and other institutes. However, I saw on the news about three weeks ago that there is now a belief that a setting at the LHC* may have been slightly off, so the initial measurements may be invalid.

Basically, it seems to be a case of 'watch this space'.

*The report was pretty vague - a token mention of science before covering who's sleeping with whom in Hollywood. I might go and check Science Daily and see if there's anything there.

[RJM Corbet]

Originally Posted by Abernovo

... Basically, it seems to be a case of 'watch this space'

Yah, also talk of a faulty fiber optic cable connection. Einstein can stop turning in his grave?

Pity. Would have been fun ...

[Abernovo]

Einstein turning in his grave? I don't know. Everything I've read of him suggests he'd be sitting back grinning at the prospect of a new horizon opening up. Not to mention getting stuck into a good debate.

As to 'faulty fibre-optic cable connection', I think I heard a similar excuse when somebody forgot to set the VCR (yes, VCR, it was a few years ago).

[mosaix]

Repeat experiment clock neutrinos at precisely the speed of light.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-17364682

[Ursa major]

From that story:

Since their November result, the Icarus team have adjusted their experiment to do a speed measurement.

What was missing was information from Cern about the departure time of the neutrinos, which the team recently received to complete their analysis.

which makes the following somewhat of an understatement:

"I think they were a little bit in a hurry to publish something that was astonishing, and at the end of the day it was a wrong measurement."

[mosaix]

Yes, I noticed that, UM which rather conflicts with earlier accounts which, if I remember correctly, reported them checking their results again and again before going public.

[Vertigo]

Ah well, only to be expected I suppose; we're still stuck with that annoying speed limit!

Oh and Ursa the first quote you listed was refering to the second experiment not the first. The first experiement was carried out by the Opera group and was the one giving FTL neutrinos. The 'second' experiement was carried out by the Icarus team and was not directly aimed at testing the neutrino speed. But by adding in the departure timings from Cern they were able to use the data they had collected to make the speed calculations. This is what the quote was referring to.

[mosaix]

Originally Posted by Vertigo

Ah well, only to be expected I suppose; we're still stuck with that annoying speed limit!

Yes, Vertigo and no time travel either.

[Vertigo]

mutter, grumble, mumble - have to go and rewrite that masterpiece now...

[Ursa major]

Oops! Sorry about that.


It's just that I seem to recall, at the time of the earlier announcement, various issues about the timing of the departure of neutrinos from CERN and read the text in that context. (I must be in WiP-editing mode. )

[Vertigo]

I must admit I had to go through the article twice to get it straight in my mind which bits referred to which.