[mark1080p]

I hope the data is passed on to my ISP to speed up my broadband

[GasDad]

Originally Posted by DPinBucks

What hole? The source and receptor are on the surface, or near to it. The neutrinos travel in straight lines through the Earth. The question is: how do you measure the straight line distance between two points on the surface, given that the Earth is not a perfect sphere, and that the ground undulates and shifts between them? I think it's done by astronomical techniques, using sightings on fixed stars (though I bet someone will now come in and show me a dead easy method I hadn't thought of).

This is how they did it

The distance between the target focal point and the OPERA reference frame was precisely measured in 2010 following a dedicated geodesy campaign. The coordinates of the origin of the OPERA reference frame were measured by establishing GPS benchmarks at the two sides of the ~10 km long Gran Sasso highway tunnel and by transporting their positions with a terrestrial traverse down to the OPERA detector. A common analysis in the ETRF2000 reference frame of the 3D coordinates of the OPERA origin and of the target focal point allowed the determination of this distance to be (730534.61 ± 0.20) m [26]. The 20 cm uncertainty is dominated by the long underground link between the outdoors GPS benchmarks and the benchmark at the OPERA
detector [26].

The high-accuracy time-transfer GPS receiver allows to continuously monitor tiny movements of the Earth’s crust, such as continental drift that shows up as a smooth variation of less than 1 cm/year, and the detection of slightly larger effects due to earthquakes. The April 2009 earthquake in the region of LNGS, in particular, produced a sudden displacement of about 7cm, as seen in Fig. 7. All mentioned effects are within the accuracy of the baseline determination.

Tidal effects are negligible as well.

The baseline considered for the measurement of the neutrino velocity is then the sum of the (730534.61 ± 0.20) m between the CNGS target focal point and the origin of the OPERA detector reference frame, and the (743.391 ± 0.002) m between the BCT and the focal point, i.e.
(731278.0 ± 0.2) m.

We don't know how long before the experiments the distance was measured. If it was some time, movements in the crust could easily have accounted for 18m. That being said, of course they must have thought of that.

Looks like they covered all those bases

[IronGiant]

Hang on, are they underground or not? I thought they were, but Dpinbucks has confused me now

[GasDad]

Originally Posted by IronGiant

Hang on, are they underground or not? I thought they were, but Dpinbucks has confused me now

They are underground - though not that far underground. More importantly the neutrinos go straight through the Earth from source to detector.

I'm amazed at how poor the accuracy is between the GPS benchmarks and the underground OPERA detector - if they'd been 20cm out building the channel tunnel, there would have been hell to pay.

[DPinBucks]

Originally Posted by GasDad

This is how they did it

The distance between the target focal point and the OPERA reference frame was precisely measured in 2010 following a dedicated geodesy campaign. The coordinates of the origin of the OPERA reference frame were measured by establishing GPS benchmarks at the two sides of the ~10 km long Gran Sasso highway tunnel and by transporting their positions with a terrestrial traverse down to the OPERA detector. A common analysis in the ETRF2000 reference frame of the 3D coordinates of the OPERA origin and of the target focal point allowed the determination of this distance to be (730534.61 ± 0.20) m [26]. The 20 cm uncertainty is dominated by the long underground link between the outdoors GPS benchmarks and the benchmark at the OPERA
detector [26].

The high-accuracy time-transfer GPS receiver allows to continuously monitor tiny movements of the Earth’s crust, such as continental drift that shows up as a smooth variation of less than 1 cm/year, and the detection of slightly larger effects due to earthquakes. The April 2009 earthquake in the region of LNGS, in particular, produced a sudden displacement of about 7cm, as seen in Fig. 7. All mentioned effects are within the accuracy of the baseline determination.

Tidal effects are negligible as well.

The baseline considered for the measurement of the neutrino velocity is then the sum of the (730534.61 ± 0.20) m between the CNGS target focal point and the origin of the OPERA detector reference frame, and the (743.391 ± 0.002) m between the BCT and the focal point, i.e.
(731278.0 ± 0.2) m.

Looks like they covered all those bases

True. Thanks for that.

[kav]

BBC News - Neutrino experiment repeat at Cern finds same result

[Flimber]

Obviously, it's due to the rotation of the Earth adding a bit of a push to the speed

[Pecker]

You know what, it doesn't really matter.

All of the experiments done under the presumption of the-speed-of-light-is-maximum so far which have developed new technologies, well those technologies haven't disappeared because of these results.

Of course, this may lead top new discoveries in the future.

But what's the surprise? We've constantly found the science does a damn good job, but that every now and then we discover some quirk, some oddity, some exception to the rule. The rule has been good for many years, and finding an odd exception to it now won't negate its usefulness in most cases in the future.

I still don't get this about time travel. It takes 8 minutes for light to get here fromn the sun. If someone builds a form of transport capable of travelling faster than the speed of light it might get hee in 7 minutes. That's not time travel, it's just faster. Time travel is where you arrive before you set off, surely.

Steve W

[mh123]

Originally Posted by Pecker

Time travel is where you arrive before you set off, surely.

I do that every time I use Eurostar to travel from Calais to Folkestone... for some weird reason I always arrive 25 minutes before I set off

[SadR0bot]

Originally Posted by Pecker

I still don't get this about time travel. It takes 8 minutes for light to get here fromn the sun. If someone builds a form of transport capable of travelling faster than the speed of light it might get hee in 7 minutes. That's not time travel, it's just faster. Time travel is where you arrive before you set off, surely.

I think its a little bit more complicated than that.

[Pecker]

Originally Posted by SadR0bot

I think its a little bit more complicated than that.

Given that it took Albert Einstein to discover it, I suspected it might be.



Steve W

[Chox1988]

Originally Posted by Flimber

Obviously, it's due to the rotation of the Earth adding a bit of a push to the speed

Lol, there would be a thanks there but on the app you can't

[DPinBucks]

Originally Posted by Pecker

You know what, it doesn't really matter.

All of the experiments done under the presumption of the-speed-of-light-is-maximum so far which have developed new technologies, well those technologies haven't disappeared because of these results.

Of course, this may lead top new discoveries in the future.

But what's the surprise? We've constantly found the science does a damn good job, but that every now and then we discover some quirk, some oddity, some exception to the rule. The rule has been good for many years, and finding an odd exception to it now won't negate its usefulness in most cases in the future.

Yes, but this is pretty fundamental. It's the equivalent of Galileo & the Earth going round the sun; of Newton & Gravitation; of Darwin & natural selection. In a way, it's worse than those, because the theory it overturns has a solid validated underpinning, which to be fair the others did not.

I still don't get this about time travel. It takes 8 minutes for light to get here fromn the sun. If someone builds a form of transport capable of travelling faster than the speed of light it might get hee in 7 minutes. That's not time travel, it's just faster. Time travel is where you arrive before you set off, surely.

Well, not if you travel into the future. That could be interpreted as you travelling at, say, 1 year per second when everybody else is stuck with 1 second per second. As you travel closer to the speed of light, your clock will tick more slowly compared with a stationary clock, so you would return younger than your twin, say. The implication is that a faster-than-light clock would tick backwards, but current theories cannot handle that: they say that ftl travel is impossible, and have no idea how a backwards clock would work. It would violate cause and effect.

[Pecker]

Originally Posted by DPinBucks

Yes, but this is pretty fundamental. It's the equivalent of Galileo & the Earth going round the sun; of Newton & Gravitation; of Darwin & natural selection.

This is what I was thinking.

To most of us in our normal daily lives it doesn't really matter if we go round the sun, or the sun goes round us, or if the world is flat or round.

It certainly matters very little to most of the scientific knowledge before those discoveries.

Now things that have happened since then - that's different. But what i was trying to say is, what we know now, how we live our lives, how we use technology, this discovery won't change that. Your gas hob won't stop heating your pan, and tomorrow will still last 24 hours, more or less.

Of course, future discoveries based on this...who knows?

Steve W

[nacmacfeegle]

I agree with Steve on this^^
Mind blowing? yes absolutely
Significant to me in the next 10 or 20 years , nope probably not.

Interesting stuff though.

[ldoodle]

Why would "one of the pillars of modern science may come tumbling down."

When they realease a car that can do 0-60 in 2.5 seconds, claiming it to be the fastest car in the world, the next week another car will be shown to be able to do 0-60 in 2.4 seconds.

Records get broken, whoopie doo!

[jassco]

Originally Posted by ldoodle

Why would "one of the pillars of modern science may come tumbling down."

When they realease a car that can do 0-60 in 2.5 seconds, claiming it to be the fastest car in the world, the next week another car will be shown to be able to do 0-60 in 2.4 seconds.

Records get broken, whoopie doo!

Not only that, but this finding actually reinforces one of the pillars of modern science... falsifiable results.

[DPinBucks]

Originally Posted by ldoodle

Why would "one of the pillars of modern science may come tumbling down."

When they realease a car that can do 0-60 in 2.5 seconds, claiming it to be the fastest car in the world, the next week another car will be shown to be able to do 0-60 in 2.4 seconds.

Records get broken, whoopie doo!

Yes, but this is the equivalent of a car which can do 0-60 in 2.4 seconds, running on water.

[ldoodle]

Originally Posted by DPinBucks

Yes, but this is the equivalent of a car which can do 0-60 in 2.4 seconds, running on water.

Sorry, but and?

[Mr Incredible]

Originally Posted by DPinBucks

Yes, but this is the equivalent of a car which can do 0-60 in 2.4 seconds, running on water.

Was Jesus at the wheel for that?

[Solar]

Originally Posted by Pecker

I still don't get this about time travel. It takes 8 minutes for light to get here fromn the sun. If someone builds a form of transport capable of travelling faster than the speed of light it might get hee in 7 minutes. That's not time travel, it's just faster. Time travel is where you arrive before you set off, surely.

Time manipulation (or slowing down time) is what you are thinking of. Time travel is what you see in the movies.

[jasonf01]

I wonder if theyve thought about maybe the neutrinos pushing a "bow wave" of particles ahead of them, thats about the only theory I can think of that prevents the speed of light being broken.

I guess they have already ruled this out though, as I cant see it being hard to identify...all the pulses will also be slightly longer than they were at the start.

Who knows, maybe we got the speed of light figure wrong all these years!

On to the time travel thing, yes the reporters are sensationalising this discovery. Its all relative - if you could have somehow sent the incredibly accurate clock along with the neutrino burst, as it flew away from you at the speed of light it would appear to you (back at the start, if you could see the clockface) that the incredibly accurate clock had stopped. At half the speed of light, it would seem to you that the clock was slowing down - taking two seconds locally for every indicated second on the clock. Thus the theory of time dilation when travelling at significant speeds.

Whats really happening (and what you could only really tell at a point off to the side of the clocks path) is that the same second is ticking by but as the distance increases between start point and accurate clock theres the additional time taken for the light to get back to that start point.

You can see (well...hear) this kind of thing in action next to a fast road. If youre right beside the road and someones passing by while holding their horn down, you can hear doppler shift (higher pitch when heading towards you, lower pitch moving away). The person in the car hears a single tone with no doppler shift. If you walk 100m away from the road at a 90 degree angle, the doppler is still there but isnt as "dopplered"; the tone you hear changes less and is more like what you would hear if you were travelling along with the driver. The nature of the result changes depending on where you observe the experiment from.

Hmmm...maybe they should do that with the neutrinos lol.

Hope this helps lol.

Jas.

[simon ess]

I just think it's flippin' fantastic! Who knows what future developments may come from this.

Obviously I'm a million miles away from understanding even the basic concepts of cutting edge theoretical physics, but my gut feeling is that they're not physically travelling faster than the speed of light.

Rather, it has something to do with extra dimensions.

[Mr Incredible]

It's a pressure wave set up by a push force as bubbles are compressed.

/coat

[metropolis]

sorry,we don't serve neutrinos...a neutrino walks in to a bar

[Mr.D]

There is a ancient stargate buried right in the path of the neutrinos and the neutrinos are travelling through the 0.21m distance the starfield wormhole takes up ...instantaneously.

However when we dig it up it will enable the devil and all his various minions to travel through....like in Doom3.

Should I should write to my MP about this?

[John]

If you're expecting the devil , your MP won't cut it. You need the Pope ! Or possibly the Queen

[RMCF]

Meh.

[Noggin1980]

Originally Posted by johnscarlet

If you're expecting the devil , your MP won't cut it. You need the Pope ! Or possibly the Queen

I'm not convinced that the Pope isn't their leader sent in advance.

[JagoPlasma]

Still not sure why people believe time and SOL are same thing or are related to each other

Travelling faster than light only means you get to the destination faster than light. Just like travelling faster than sound.