It turns out Neutrinos actually Do go faster than light! Maybe.

If you really, really believe in this whole Einstein and Physics thing you’re gonna say “Noez!!!! Nothing can go faster than the speed of light, c, see? So something is wrong with the NEW experiment replicating the results of the earlier experiment TOO. But maybe it is time to OVERTHROE the Physics Conspiracy and Expose the EINSTEINIANS for what they really are: HOAXES.

OK, but seriously …

By now you’ve heard about the new experiment designed to re-test the speed of Neutrinos in Europe accounting for some of the things they think went wrong the first time.

One possible problem with the earlier experiment, it was thought, is that a burst of neutrinos was too long to accurately decide when it started and ended (or where the middle was) and thus, like not being sure where to put the ruler when measuring something, there was error in the calculations. So the new experiment sent very very short pulses of neutrinos from point A to point B so there could be no difficulties in deciding where to put the proverbial ruler, and there would be several different measurements.

And the second experiment got the same result.

So, either a very basic feature of physics is wrong, which would be interesting because everywhere else it has been tested it seems to be not only right but rather unwrongably right, or, there is some really interesting explanation for why these really smart scientists can’t figure out how to use the particular ruler they are using.

Stay tuned!

Comments

#1 Robert Thille
November 18, 2011

Well, this is completely simplistic, but how sure are they about the distance and the synchronization of the clocks. It seems like (aside from Einstein getting it wrong) those are now the only two options, right?
#2 Greg Laden
November 18, 2011

They claim to be totally sure about those things. But, that’s probably what’s wrong.
#3 CherryBombSim
November 19, 2011

Curiouser and curiouser.
#4 Art
November 20, 2011

I knew it … I KNEW IT ALL ALONG. ALL YOU SO-CALLED SCIENTISTS ARE FRAUDS JUST PREACHING THE GODLESS AND CORRUPT RELIGION OF SCIENTISM, SECULARISM, EVOLUTION AND HUMANISM.

With that out of the way … curious. I suspect it’s an artifact of some assumed measurement that is just so very common sense that it gets plugged in without a second glance. A rounding error, the distance of the satellites to earth, failure to account for the time it takes an instrument to register. It’s likely to be something dead simple.

They will find it after they change personnel to get new eyes on the problem and go through the process very, very slowly looking for bad assumptions, errors, failure to account for something.

Something like, as an illustration, failure to account for the change in the speed of signals through earth’s atmosphere used to position the satellites used to measure distance. That’s not likely it, people trying to figure this out are far swifter and smarter than I am, but that sort of thing.

Odds are ‘C’ will remain inviolate and, at least for a time, the crushing downfall of all science in a storm of supernaturalism will be held off.