More data shows neutrinos still faster than light

Originally posted by Panic2k11

Originally posted by ressiv
now first make an neutrino-based radio device to communicate faster than light....

I am no physicist, but it is my understanding that quantum entanglement had already opened the door for FTL communications, it is only a matter of finding a working protocol since entangled is dependent of correlations (source and destination talking).

Not exactly, since you have to tranfer the entagled particles to where you want to use them at < light speeds. E.g. if I could setup a FTL link with Mars, I have to do this by getting some mass to Mars that is entangled in the first place.

reply to post by chrismicha77


This was one of the many theorised possibilties but it seems this data set points more to there being a massive jump in speed over a short period before settling back down.

Fresh results from the OPERA collaboration once more confirm its previous confirmation of the faster than light neutrinos indicated by MINOS. The new findings, available here, also further confirm a particular scenario: The neutrinos do not travel with superluminal velocity all the way. They only ‘jump’ a small initial distance shorter than 20 meters, after which they settle back and travel as usual with speeds below that of the speed of light. This initial jump would occur at speeds that are more than ten times the speed of light, perhaps even millions of times the speed of light.

www.science20.com...

I wonder if anyone could just explain to me if it makes a difference in referrence to a neutrino being a sub atomic particle, and a photon which is essentially a particle light, but a whole particle, so being not a particle outright, does it make a difference, or is it just schematics ?

Here is the sister thread in Breaking Alternative News.

www.abovetopsecret.com...

I think the implications of this are similar to the implications when we discovered breaking the sound barrier was feasible.

reply to post by solargeddon


A photon is massless, whereas a neutrino is believed to have a mass and that is where the difference lies. A photon travels at light speed already in an empty space(vacuum) because it doesn't require the energy to propel it like a particle with mass does and hence why those particles are believed to not be able to break FTL.
Someone can probably explain it better or possibly even correctly :p.

reply to post by pazcat


Yeah, I understand the mass part (I think), my confusion lies within their catergorisation, i.e a photon is a particle, but a neutrino was described as a sub atomic particle in an article I read, so just to clear it up, is my understanding of sub atomic a little awry, I thought it meant it was a smaller component of a particle ?

Am I wrong ?

If I am, any quick explanation of where I'm going wrong would be great

Originally posted by PhysicsAdept

Time to re-write the history books!

edit on 17-11-2011 by Confusion42 because: (no reason given)

Time to RE-re-write the history books!

Ya know, science is always changing, and I can't wait to see a final verdict on this one. Part of me wants to see neutrinos emerge victorious through the skepticism. I don't want Einstein to be made a fool of either, but exceptions to rules always gives that little extra hope to let your imagination ponder that which is regarded as "impossible"

Einsteins reputation will not suffer from this. He was an explorer in physics and he is probably jumping for joy in that big laboratory in the sky as we speak.

Originally posted by Samuelis
If i am correct in assuming that this still doesnt violate special relativity in any way due to neutrino's being chargless. They may appear to transmit information faster than light. According to the no-communication theorem these phenomena do not allow true communication; They still do not convey energy or information faster than light.

Wavefunction collapse can be viewed as an epiphenomenon of quantum decoherence, which in turn is nothing more than an effect of the underlying local time evolution of the wavefunction of a system and all of its environment. Since the underlying behaviour doesn't violate local causality or allow FTL it follows that neither does the additional effect of wavefunction collapse, whether real or apparent.

Or Non-local communications !

reply to post by solargeddon


A sub-atomic particle is one type of particle.
Also, fundamental particles are a type of sub-atomic particle.

Specifically, sub-atomic particles include things like electrons, quarks, and neutrons - things that are smaller than atoms. Fundamental particles are as small as particles get, and, of the three sub-atomic particles I mentioned, include only electrons and quarks (neutrons are composed of quarks).

reply to post by CLPrime


Thanks for clearing that up

I did just have a read about it too, basicallly its another way of saying particle (I hope)

Can someone qualified please answer my question.

reply to post by Watts


Neutrinos are hardly useful, as they barely interact with anything. They can be produced, but can't be influenced or controlled, and, so, aren't useful for much of anything. The only thing this might do, if the results are confirmed, is open up new areas of physics which, themselves, may prove to be beneficial. In what ways, it's impossible to say, but it's possible - again, if the experiment's results are confirmed.

reply to post by CLPrime


Thanks for the reply!

for space comunications you need some thing fast.
this is it. I would bet aliens use this to talk to there home world.
we just need SETI to decode it.

reply to post by buddha

for space comunications you need some thing fast.
this is it. I would bet aliens use this to talk to there home world.

Unfortunately - this phenomena is just -barely- over the speed of light (or appears to be so). Hence why it is causing such a stir. It is faster... but only just. Which is why there is much speculation on how it might represent an error of some kind (systemic or otherwise).

If it was some very large value (such as 0.5% faster than light - of extreme statistical importance, here) - it would be much easier to pinpoint it as being either an error or a valid measurement.

This one is just right there in that uncomfortable gray area. It is significant - if we can rule out some known, yet unaccounted for, phenomena that can explain the behavior. But it's also small enough that the difference could easily be caused by some unchecked factor or unaccounted for phenomena (that is known and resolves the discrepancy).

Which is why this will be tested six ways to Sunday by multiple teams before there can really even begin to be a debate, much less satisfaction with the interpretation of the results.

Originally posted by Aim64C

Unfortunately - this phenomena is just -barely- over the speed of light (or appears to be so). Hence why it is causing such a stir. It is faster... but only just. Which is why there is much speculation on how it might represent an error of some kind (systemic or otherwise).

Although, as reported in this thread, current indications are that the neutrinos were subluminal, as per expectation, for much of the journey, and actually traveled for just a few meters at many times (perhaps millions of times) faster than light.

That would be a vastly significant result.

reply to post by CLPrime

Although, as reported in this thread, current indications are that the neutrinos were subluminal, as per expectation, for much of the journey, and actually traveled for just a few meters at many times (perhaps millions of times) faster than light.

Hmm... sounds very similar to.... crap - I forget the nomenclature, but it's what happens when you accelerate particles to a given energy and emit them - they travel, largely unaffected, through space before dumping most of their energy at a very precise interval derived from the energy they were accelerated to.

Battletech is one of the few games that actually went and ran with this phenomena, with some of the game rules allowing for a particle projector cannon (PPC) to fire 'into' a given distance and direction without having to be concerned about terrain or other obstructions.

Anyway - I don't have time for a proper search and cite of the phenomena - but I found it very interesting at the time, and the concept sounds very similar (though I suppose it would really depend upon where the neutrinos went superluminal - a few meters from the source or a few meters from the detector). I believe I originally ran across it in a thread here on ATS discussing the possibility that Groom Lake was experimenting with particle cannons/accelerators, and this explained some of the lights that were highly agile and appeared to behave as though they were massless).

reply to post by Aim64C


The indication is that they went superluminal when they were emitted, and slowed thereafter.

Originally posted by Watts
reply to post by Confusion42

 

So say the neutrinos can go faster than light, what would that change in our lives? Is there any application to it or would it just be a cool, random "did you know..."?


Oh and btw:

I am sure there will be.

You could have said the same thing about Quantum Mechanics / Physics; However, the applications for Quantum Mechanics are endless; From Quantum Computing to Anti-Matter Engines

I'm sure, if completely confirmed, the uses for neutrino's and the technologies / "things" we figure out as a result will also be limitless.

If true, I wonder what properties neutrinos have that regular objects don't since relativity has been correct so far.