E=Mc2 Disproven?

[thesometimesaint]

Quality not quantity is what matters.

[Tarski]

16000 carefully monitored experiments over a 3 year period and the Scientists were "cofused" in what they were measruing.

I said "sometimes" confused in past cases. Do you understand English?

Plus, someone could in principle repeat an experiment a million times and still have a conceptual confusion about the interpretation as opposed to the raw data.

However this is sorted out (as it always is, usually with a less than earth shaking conclusions) there is nothing in it all that should change opinions about how we should view science --it is our best and only means for finding out the truth about what it studies. When Einstein overturned Newton, did everyone lose faith in science? Did they throw out their lab equipment and dust off their Bible?

Not anyone who really understood what happened. In fact, truth remained in Newton's physics when properly applied.

Edited September 23, 2011 by Tarski

[Zakuska]

I said "sometimes" confused in past cases. Do you understand English?

Plus, someone could in principle repeat an experiment a million times and still have a conceptual confusion about the interpretation as opposed to the raw data.

However this is sorted out (as it alawys is, usually with a less than earth shaking conclusions) there is nothing in it all that should change opinions about how we should view science --it is our best and only means for finding out the truth about what it studies. When Einstein overturned Newton, did everyone lose faith in science. Did they throw out their lab equipment and dust off their Bible.

Not anyone who really understood what happened. In fact, truth remained in Newton's physics when properly applied.

The only reason you perceive me as so "Anti" Science is because of how loud I laugh back at the "Scientists" laughing at religionists. For believing in what they term as "fairy tales", Pink Unicorns and flying spagetti monsters.

Edited September 23, 2011 by Zakuska

[Ariarates]

Since the Holy Ghost testifies to the truth of everything, prayer should do the trick, provided we ask with a sincere heart (which all these godless atheist scientists can never do, of course). A true believer doesn't need a particle accelerator!

[Zakuska]

Some highlights from the Latest news...

GHOST PARTICLES

The CERN team, working in an experiment dubbed OPERA, pumped neutrinos -- often called ghost particles because they pass through matter, and human bodies, unnoticed -- from CERN 730 kms (500 miles) to Gran Sasso south of Rome.

Over three years, and from 15,000 neutrino "events", a huge detector at the Italian centre deep under mountain rock recorded what OPERA spokesman Antonio Ereditato described as the "startling" findings.

He said his team had high confidence they had measured correctly and excluded any possibility of some outside influence, or artefact, affecting the outcome.

"My dream is now that other colleagues find we are right," he added.

In Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity, which underpins the current view of how the universe works, nothing can travel faster than light -- 300,000 kms, or 186,000 miles, per second -- because its mass would become impossibly infinite.

Einstein's theory has been tested thousands of times over the past 106 years and only recently have there been just slight hints that the behaviour of some elementary particles of matter might not fit into it.

These hints were detected last year in Fermilab's MINOS experiment with neutrinos, but -- unlike those of OPERA -- were found to be within a normal margin of error.

Fermilab's Thomas, who is likely to be involved in MINOS experiments to check the CERN-Gran Sasso measurements, said if they were correct "it would overturn everything we thought we understood about relativity and the speed of light."

http://www.reuters.c...E7KN33E20110923

This was intresting...

SURPRISING WITH MYSTERIES

Also declining to claim a genuine scientific discovery before other researchers had confirmed them, he said the neutrino, whose existence was first confirmed in 1934, "is still surprising us with its mysteries."

Scientific bloggers on the Internet said the particle might be slipping into and out of dimensions, other than the known four of length, breadth, depth and time, as predicted by the controversial "string theory" of how the cosmos works.

"Only when the dust finally settles should we dare draw any firm conclusions," said Professor Forshaw. "It is in the nature of science that for every new and important discovery there will be hundreds of false alarms."

Slipping into a spiritual plane of existance perhaps?

Edited September 23, 2011 by Zakuska

[Tarski]

16000 carefully monitored experiments over a 3 year period using the most advanced and sensitive equiptment online to date and the Scientists were "cofused in what they were measuring".

The article says ONE experiment that launched 16,000 neutrinos (maybe all in the same moment). Such experiments take years since we include equipment set up, calibration, pre-analysis, post-analysis and a lot more. But it was one experiment according to the wording of the article:

The 3-year experiment timed about 16,000 neutrino packets launched from CERN facilities in Geneva

Do they have a brain in their head Tarsk? Why are my tax dollars being granted to these bafoons if they can't even get their measurments right?

Someone is a buffoon, I will grant you that much.

[thesometimesaint]

Ariarates:

"Behold, you have not understood; you have supposed that I would give it unto you, when you took no thought save it was to ask me.

“But, behold, I say unto you, that you must study it out in your mind; then you must ask me if it be right, and if it is right I will cause that your bosom shall burn within you; therefore, you shall feel that it is right.

“But if it be not right you shall have no such feelings, but you shall have a stupor of thought that shall cause you to forget the thing which is wrong.” ( D&C 9:7–9 ) . . .

[Tarski]

Zak, I repeat: One experiment, 16000 neutrinos

Your OP title is also weird: Do you really think E=mc^2 is false"

How do you explain that we knew this would happen?

http://www.maniacwor...r-Explosion.jpg

Edited September 23, 2011 by Tarski

[Zakuska]

Zak, I repeat: One experiment, 16000 neutrinos

Your OP title is also weird: Do you really think E=mc^2 is false"

How do you explain that we knew this would happen?

http://www.maniacwor...r-Explosion.jpg

1) The OP title is only echoing all the News headlines.

eg. if they were correct "it would overturn everything we thought we understood about relativity and the speed of light."

2) Your images.... Looks like a pretty finite amount of energy released to me. Perhaps Einstiens Math was wrong? Or else it should have been the big bang that imploded the universe.

Edited September 23, 2011 by Zakuska

[thesometimesaint]

Tarski:

There MIGHT be some rare times when some subatomic particles do go faster than the speed of light. That is why CERN is asking for more experients, by different groups of high energy particle physists, to confirm or deny the existence of those particles.

[Zakuska]

For those intrested,

The CERN experimental Data and Report can be downloaded here...

http://arxiv.org/abs/1109.4897

Edited September 23, 2011 by Zakuska

[Tarski]

1) The OP title is only echoing all the News headlines.

eg. if they were correct "it would overturn everything we thought we understood about relativity and the speed of light."

2) Your images.... Looks like a pretty finite amount of energy released to me. Perhaps Einstiens Math was wrong? Or else it should have been the big bang that imploded the universe.

Huh??

Of course it is a finite amount of energy. What in the world are you talking about?

E=mc^2 correctly calculates the energy released in an atomic explosion, and in nuclear reactors, and predicts much much more as well. In fact, it and the other equations of special relativity are used essentially every time to predict and interpret the results of particle accelerator collisions. How ironic would that be?

It looks like this is yet another claim to have found tachyons which are unlikely for many reasons but do not directly contradict Einstein's equations (though we might have to live with the idea of masses which are multiples of the square root of negative one (what are called "imaginary" numbers---the use of the word imaginary is misleading since there is nothing imaginary about them anymore than ordinary numbers. It is a technical term.)

The integrity and putative epistemic hegemony of science as such hasn't taken a blow in the least no matter whether this turns out as chimeric as previous tachyon detections or not.

The news is not the place to get the straight dope on science Zak.

I know you didn't read my first and longest post above.

Oh, and no contrition for claiming that there were 16,000 independent experiments?

[Tarski]

Tarski:

There MIGHT be some rare times when some subatomic particles do go faster than the speed of light. That is why CERN is asking for more experients, by different groups of high energy particle physists, to confirm or deny the existence of those particles.

I know about so called tachyons and how they are thought to be theoretically possible but unlikely for various reasons. They have thought they have found them many times before. It would be neat if they did but the threat to Einstein is minimal or nonexistent. There is no reason at all for glee among the anti-science nuts. Quite the opposite.

You would realize this if you read my original long post and the first link I gave. Everyone should read that at least.

Edited September 23, 2011 by Tarski

[Calm]

Aside: I have been watching Zakuska's misguided anti-science campaign for some time and it has started to occur to me that he is so obsessed exactly because he has a lot of suppressed anxiety about science as a threat to his religion. On some level his is actually worried. One gets the sense of a bubble about to pop.

Not a diagnosis of course but just a guess.

I don't see Zak as anti science but rather antilimits in that he really likes the idea that things are constantly changing, knowledge is in flux, etc.

[The Nehor]

Despite my jocular response I'm pretty sure this is going to be found to be a mistake or error like most other reports like this.

If it did happen then this is a special-case scenario that will likely have limited application but would still be very exciting. I'm hoping for this result.

If relativity is suddenly wrong then the results would have probably have already ended human life.

Remember how science gets to the media:

[Zakuska]

I don't see Zak as anti science but rather antilimits in that he really likes the idea that things are constantly changing, knowledge is in flux, etc.

Wow, Cal. You read me good on that one!

When things are supposedly set in stone, and then people use things Scientists say (eg. The Smithsonian, DNA etc.) to bludgen the faithful over the head with it just really gets under my skin.

[The Nehor]

Another problem with this observation is our observation of a supernova in the Large Magellanic Cloud. If neutrinos travel faster then light then we should have detected the neutrinos more then three hours ahead of the light of the supernova. We did not.

There are a few possible counterarguments for this as there are different varieties of neutrinos.

If this measurement is found to be accurate the most interesting result would be possibly realizing that light must possess a miniscule amount of mass. As the speed of light is actually more correctly defined as the speed of massless particles this wouldn't break relativity. We'd learn the upper limit was just a tiny bit higher then we thought.

[mfbukowski]

Wow, Cal. You read me good on that one!

yeah.

she's disgustingly good at that.

[JeremyOrbe-Smith]

[Zakuska]

Another problem with this observation is our observation of a supernova in the Large Magellanic Cloud. If neutrinos travel faster then light then we should have detected the neutrinos more then three hours ahead of the light of the supernova. We did not.

Actually, I think you'd better check your sources on that.

SN 1987A - Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC)

<snip>

Neutrino emissions

Approximately three hours before the visible light from SN 1987A reached the Earth, a burst of neutrinos was observed at three separate neutrino observatories. This is likely due to neutrino emission (which occurs simultaneously with core collapse) preceding the emission of visible light (which occurs only after the shock wave reaches the stellar surface). At 7:35 a.m. Universal time, Kamiokande II detected 11 antineutrinos, IMB 8 antineutrinos and Baksan 5 antineutrinos, in a burst lasting less than 13 seconds. Approximately three hours earlier, the Mont Blanc liquid scintillator detected a five-neutrino burst, but this is generally not believed to be associated with SN 1987A.[6]

Although the actual neutrino count was only 24, it was a significant rise from the previously-observed background level. This was the first time neutrinos emitted from a supernova had been observed directly, which marked the beginning of neutrino astronomy. The observations were consistent with theoretical supernova models in which 99% of the energy of the collapse is radiated away in neutrinos. The observations are also consistent with the models' estimates of a total neutrino count of 1058 with a total energy of 1046 joules.[8]

The neutrino measurements allowed upper bounds on neutrino mass and charge, as well as the number of flavors of neutrinos and other properties.[6] For example, the data show that within 5% confidence, the rest mass of the electron neutrino is at most 16 eV. The data suggests that the total number of neutrino flavors is at most 8 but other observations and experiments give tighter estimates. Many of these results have since been confirmed or tightened by other neutrino experiments such as more careful analysis of solar neutrinos and atmospheric neutrinos as well as experiments with artificial neutrino sources.

http://en.wikipedia....trino_emissions

So the Neutrinos got here 3 hours earlier than the light. This seems to corroberate the finding!

Edited September 23, 2011 by Zakuska

[The Nehor]

So the Nurtinos got here 3 hours earlier than the light. This seems to cooberate the finding!

I'm assuming you mean "Neutrinos" and "corroborate". If not I may be misunderstanding what you are saying.

If that is what you meant, then no. When a star explodes all models suggest that the neutrino burst would be about three hours before the light wave which matches with what we saw.

We are talking about an explosion that took place in a satellite galaxy roughly 168,000 years ago. The small differences in speed over that distance would increase the distance between both arriving such that the neutrinos would have reached us years, not hours, before the light from the explosion if neutrinos can travel faster then the speed of light.

Edited September 23, 2011 by The Nehor

[Zakuska]

I'm assuming you mean "Neutrinos" and "corroborate". If not I may be misunderstanding what you are saying.

If that is what you meant, then no. When a star explodes all models suggest that the neutrino burst would be about three hours before the light wave which matches with what we saw.

We are talking about an explosion that took place in a satellite galaxy roughly 168,000 years ago. The small differences in speed over that distance would increase the distance between both arriving such that the neutrinos would have reached us years, not hours, before the light from the explosion if neutrinos can travel faster then the speed of light.

Unless things in the rear view mirror are closer than they appear.

And could you elaberate on what you mean by "all models"?

Edited September 23, 2011 by Zakuska

[Calm]

Wow, Cal. You read me good on that one!

When things are supposedly set in stone, and then people use things Scientists say (eg. The Smithsonian, DNA etc.) to bludgen the faithful over the head with it just really gets under my skin.

I've always enjoyed your enthusiasm and most times I know if I am ever concerned about the way you've said something, that you will shortly clarify it so it makes sense to and works for me. Usually I've just misunderstood that you've made a joke.

I can understand about the getting under the skin. I have one or two things that hit me like that....as I'm sure you've noticed.

Edited September 23, 2011 by calmoriah

[etana]

Another problem with this observation is our observation of a supernova in the Large Magellanic Cloud. If neutrinos travel faster then light then we should have detected the neutrinos more then three hours ahead of the light of the supernova. We did not.

There are a few possible counterarguments for this as there are different varieties of neutrinos.

If this measurement is found to be accurate the most interesting result would be possibly realizing that light must possess a miniscule amount of mass. As the speed of light is actually more correctly defined as the speed of massless particles this wouldn't break relativity. We'd learn the upper limit was just a tiny bit higher then we thought.

WRT Supernovae, at least one Physicist has opined that it may a matter of energy working on an otherwise weak phenomenon. The previous tachyonic neutrinos from Minos were at much higher energy than those from supernovae and the recent experiments with OPERA were higher energy still.

[The Nehor]

Unless things in the rear view mirror are closer than they appear.

And could you elaberate on what you mean by "all models"?

All understanding of how supernovas occur. There are several classifications based on the type of star exploding and various stellar conditions. I haven't studied them in a while so can't give you examples.

The problem is that if the neutrinos from this particular supernova traveled as fast as the particles supposedly did in this experiment they would have to have been shot out years AFTER the star had already exploded to have arrived so close in time to the light also observed. This would make no sense.

There is the esoteric possibility that different types of neutrinos (best thought of as at different energy levels though that is a simplification) travel at different speeds. This is unlikely though. It would also require light to have mass and neutrinos to not have mass or less mass. That would explain why things can travel faster then the speed of light as the speed of light is really more aptly the speed of massless particles or the speed of existence (though this is also a weird term that requires a lot of explanation). I'm not enough of a physicist to know if upping the maximum speed of light is conceivable. It could be that changing it should mean GPS signals and other devices shouldn't work.