Faster-than-light neutrino result reportedly a mistake caused by loose cable

But now, ScienceInsider is reporting that there was a good reason the measurements and reality weren't lining up: a loose fiber optic cable was causing one of the atomic clocks used to time the neutrinos' flight to produce spurious results. If the report is confirmed (right now, there's only one source), then it provides a simple explanation for the fascinating-yet-difficult-to-accept results. According to the new report, researchers are preparing to gather new data with the clocks properly hooked into computers, which should definitively indicate whether the loose connection was at fault.

Faster-than-light neutrino result reportedly a mistake caused by loose cable
arstechnica.com...

BREAKING NEWS: Error Undoes Faster-Than-Light Neutrino Results
news.sciencemag.org...

It's hard to say whether this is valid or not, but I find it interesting it is already decided by most outlets that this has been 'mythbusted' for lack of better terms. I would like to see the new results before I make up my mind on this one. What do you guys think on this?

The implications for having something faster than the speed of light is impressive. I wouldn't be surprised if this was a down play so they can work on communications for space travel.

reply to post by xPico


The story almost has a smell on it, I mean did they not do this research twice, I mean does maintenance not check the first time if the optics are causing defects... well what do I know , probably the scientists don't have time to rewrite the quantum theory...

Originally posted by calnorak
The implications for having something faster than the speed of light is impressive. I wouldn't be surprised if this was a down play so they can work on communications for space travel.

yeh seems plausable
especially with the threat of space bombs
(earlier thread)

Yanked loose by an anti Tesla cartel agent demanding a retraction
in the name of Einstein and Relativists.

Typical anti science discoveries retracted after further investigation.

At least it was not yanked while the motor was running on the Papp Engine
that left people wounded and dying.

The .01% have all the power they need and don't need anything more powerful
or useless theories leading to free energy.

ED:
www.bing.com...

reply to post by TeslaandLyne


I will fully admit to not being the brightest candle, but how would faster than light neutrino's lead to free energy?

reply to post by davesmart


Yeah I saw that thread too. Let's scare the crap out of people so they want to give up rights for security.

reply to post by xPico

A loose cable? Tsk tsk. 10 points deducted and the most obvious and common cause of communication problems. I'm surprised the extremely well-educated and intelligent people working at CERN didn't think of that one. What a bunch of dorks! This # needs to cost billions to innocent tax-payers? Oh pulleeeze!

PS May CERN Burn!

Aye, it seems strange. They seemed so excited about having found this, now the official story is '1 source mentioned'.

I am hoping the re-test they speak of will be revealing but it sounds like a 'whoops we can't discover that' kind of moment.

a loose cable huh , and it took this long to figure that out ?really ? You couldn't have tested other known particle speeds to confirm the test results? Would a loose cable not taint those results also ? Ringing alarms , that something is wrong with the machine.

Somebody is lying to me , or cern guys just soooo smart , that obvious things get overlooked

Do you guys know just how many cables there are in a particle physics experiment?

Take a look at the picture here: www.symmetrymagazine.org...

It was also a fiber-optic cable. You don't want to physically touch them frequently, the connections are fragile.

It is also very rare for a bad cable connection to cause a time delay but otherwise function properly.

A loose cable? Tsk tsk. 10 points deducted and the most obvious and common cause of communication problems. I'm surprised the extremely well-educated and intelligent people working at CERN didn't think of that one.

It appears, that in fact, they did think of it.

reply to post by mbkennel

Sure, let's blame it on an optical component that they knew the tolerances for. If you can't test a cable or connection then you are not deserving of the job you possess. I don't care if it was a data-centre employee or a top of the line physicist. Fail. Total fail. A major scientific break-through is a result of a faulty sensor? It's major facepalm time people.

I smell total BS on this story. as i recalled the experiments were confirmed by two different teams in different continents. This is a total downplay and for all we know maybe the military wing of science have found a way to make weapons, space vehicles and all the other top secret hush hush stuffs. Its just like the nuclear technology was hidden from the masses untill the developement of an atomic bomb and subsequent use of it. and OH COME ON A LOSE CABLE? ON A MULTI-BILLION DOLLAR PROJECT EMPLOYING A TEAM OF THE BEST OF ENGINEERS, ELECTRICIANS,TECHNICIANS AND ALL SORTS OF CONTRACTORS AND THEY COULD HAVE NOT COME UP WITH A WAY TO SAFEGUARD AGAINST LOSE WIRING? If i was building a super sensitive machine i would make sure i would not be stupid enough to risk such things as short circuits due to loose wiring touching things. and make sure every connection is as tight as possible. Or maybe the scientists and physicists just were afraid of re writing all the rules of physics as the neutrinos definitly would have made an idiot out of the pioneers

Why is everyone so convinced this is "BS". This is a huge piece of physics that may not stand up to scrutiny. The research is ongoing and is trying to be duplicated.

After tightening the connection and then remeasuring the time it takes data to travel the length of the cable, researchers found that the data arrive 60 nanoseconds earlier than assumed, the website said. (More data will be needed to confirm this hypothesis, the site cautioned.)

"A measurement so delicate and carrying a profound implication on physics requires an extraordinary level of scrutiny," said Fernando Ferroni, president of the INFN.

"It's very hard to find an error by reading a paper," particle physicist Rob Roser of the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab) in Batavia, Ill., said Friday at an annual science meeting.

"What you need is for someone else to make the measurement. We'll see what happens."

This can not be taken lightly. You can't just throw out Einstein because at face an experiment "appears" to contradict him. It's an ongoing question just like all of physics. If the time comes and revision is found to be needed it will be made.

No one is closing the book and not everything requires the tinfoil hat. There are conspiracies out there, but I don't think this is one of them.

“The OPERA Collaboration, by continuing its campaign of verifications on the neutrino velocity measurement, has identified two issues that could significantly affect the reported result. The first one is linked to the oscillator used to produce the events time-stamps in between the GPS synchronizations. The second point is related to the connection of the optical fiber bringing the external GPS signal to the OPERA master clock. These two issues can modify the neutrino time of flight in opposite directions. While continuing our investigations, in order to unambiguously quantify the effect on the observed result, the Collaboration is looking forward to performing a new measurement of the neutrino velocity as soon as a new bunched beam will be available in 2012. An extensive report on the above mentioned verifications and results will be shortly made available to the scientific committees and agencies.”

Fact is their use of GPS for sychronisation has never been tried before. It also shows why independent replication is so important in science.

reply to post by 0bserver1

The story almost has a smell on it, I mean did they not do this research twice

Of course they preformed the measurements twice, Right before they did it several dozen to a hundred times.

This "Spurious Results" trash is just that...... Trash.

They are trying to protect Einstein's Relativity, and that is *IT*

And if they can't get the public to accept the "Loose optical Cable" theory today, they will just come back with the "El Nino" theory tomorrow.

It's all just the same old song and dance.

I can't imagine a 60ns delay being caused by a loose fibre optic connection. It would have to be at a really large angle to the receiver to offset the switching point by that amount.

60ns could easily occur on waveguides like coax cable if improperly terminated. Then again I'm sure CERN scientists wouldn't be using coax cable for high accuracy timing either.

Faster-than-light neutrino result reportedly a mistake caused by loose cable

Considering that the test was run more than once and from different locations, it sounds to me like the loose cable is in somebody's effort to once again shut down this subject.

It did seem very unlikely given how many things assume and/or are based off the speed of light.

Remember regardless of how lame this is imagine thousands of miles of cables are usually involved in some of these massive machines that experiments take place in. If even just one is faulty then the results would be messed up.

Imagine if we know how fast a signal is supposed to travel through the wire. But the fault causes signal to travel faster than intended. We would have falsely assumed that the signal was going the faster speed, and corrected to find the arrival time of the neutrino's incorrectly. This could give a lower number for time traveled and give us strange-looking results that the neutrino's were breaking the universal speed limit.

Remember that the size of this margin of error is 0.00000006 seconds (as stated by the article).

Even if it were found true that they were going 0.00000006 seconds faster, the next question would have been why is it so close to the speed of light itself? The size of the anomaly can sometimes give away if it was a result of a built-in flaw.

Now, if we saw a bigger anomaly, there would be more concern.

I could be wrong, but didn't scientists at another lab independently confirm the faster-than-light neutrino results? Am I wrong or did both facilities have a loose cable?