preview.tinyurl.com/6svj7u7 -> www.newscientist.com/article/dn21188-more-data-shows-neutrinos-still-faster-than-light.html
Neutrinos: Complete guide to the ghostly particle" One of the most staggering results in physics - that neutrinos may go faster than light - has not gone away with two further weeks of observations. The researchers behind the jaw-dropping finding are now confident enough in the result that they are submitting it to a peer-reviewed journal.
reconcile the September result with the laws of physics. Einstein's theory of special relativity posits that nothing can travel faster than light, and many physicists believe the result could disappear in a puff of particles. The result also unsettled those within the OPERA collaboration.
original preprint of the paper because they thought the results were too preliminary. One of the main concerns was that it was difficult to link individual neutrino hits at Gran Sasso to the particles that left CERN.
a second set of measurements with tighter bunches of particles from 21 October to 6 November. In that time, they observed 20 new neutrino hits - a piddling number compared with the 16,000 hits in the original experiment. But Stanco says the tighter particle bunches made those hits easier to track and time: "So they are very powerful, these 20 events." More checks The team also rechecked their statistical analysis, confirming that the error on their measurements was indeed 10 nanoseconds. Some team members, including Stanco, had worried that the true error was larger. What they found was "absolutely compatible" with the original announcement, he says. That was enough for Stanco to put his name to the paper, although he says six or seven team members are still holding out. The team was planning to submit the paper to a European physics journal on Thursday. They are still running other tests, including measuring the length of a fibre-optic cable that carries information from the underground lab at Gran Sasso to a data-collection centre on the surface.
Even though he agreed to sign the paper, Stanco says: "I'm not so happy. From a theoretical point of view, it is not so appealing. I still feel that another experiment should make the measurement before I will say that I believe this result."
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From a theoretical point of view, it is not so appealing. I still feel that another experiment should make the measurement before I will say that I believe this result." I'm a bit ignorant to why this wouldn't be so appealing (does it have to do with theory modeling or such)? Regardless, I agree more testing should occur -- the more it can be repeated the more solid the evidence is. Either way, in the end it'll be exciting to know if Neutrinos do or do not move faster than light.
Fri Nov 18 17:07:57 GMT 2011 by Oji I guess no one likes to see a well established theory challenged (despite the excitement of the possibility of seeing new physics). But also, if neutrinos were generally this much faster than light then we should have already seen some evidence. So I don't think anyone really knows how to explain it, if it does turn out to be real.
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