Speed-of-light experiments give baffling result at Cern

[W1zzard]

Isn't *any* difference a significant one though. I mean, I understand that there may be discrepancies in the instruments, but these are the same instruments used for the measurements, thus the outcomes should be the same?
If there is a flaw somewhere, shouldn't that flaw show up consistently?

watch the recording of the cern webcast to get an idea how complex setup and calibration for this experiment was. not significant is everything that has a very small impact, maybe sub-nanosecond in the context of this experiment

 

[Benetanegia]

very interesting approach.

the problem here again is that the neutrinos and the light from supernova 1987a arrived at the same time, suggesting over ~200k light years there is no significant difference in speed between those two.

Yeah, but afaik neutrinos did arrive some hours or so sooner, which is already an incoherence with relativity on itself, so despite not being coherent with CERN's results, that already means relativity was violated isn't it?

So this is what I can contribute to "my hypothesis" regarding the results obtained from the nova:

Still fantasizing/speculating with the hypothesis of vacuum not really being empty (as in having something capable of interacting with light and neutrinos), a supernova would certainly create some kind of disturbance in that medium and maybe create a shockwave in that medium (whatever that medium really is) akin to that created by a bomb in the air, thus creating a wavefront of high pressure followed by an area of low pressure.

If we further hypothesize that such wave's propagation speed is faster than light in the relaxed "non-empty vacuum medium" that we just hypothesized, but it's slower than c (universal constant, not the measured one) and slightly slower than the speed of neutrinos, we just created a situation in which neutrinos could get "trapped" and slowed down in the "high pressure" medium, while photons could be acelerated to speeds greater than their speed in "normal vacuum" because the low pressure area that follows the wavefront has an smaller influence on them than the relaxed medium would, not to mention the posibility of the shockwave itself being able to accelerate photons beyond their speed in the relaxed medium.

According to that hypothesis both neutrinos and light would arrive at a very similar time, only neutrinos slightly ahead.

 

[Steevo]

very interesting approach.

the problem here again is that the neutrinos and the light from supernova 1987a arrived at the same time, suggesting over ~200k light years there is no significant difference in speed between those two.

Dark matter/energy could interact with neutrinos and light.

 

[Benetanegia]

Dark matter/energy could interact with neutrinos and light.

Yeah but he's saying that the results should be consistent with each other. The neutrinos from the nova should have gotten to us 3 years before the light did in order to be consistent with the results obtained now. They only came within hours of each other.

But I hope that my hypothesis above makes at least a bit of sense and explain the discrepancy.

 

[twilyth]

Neutrinos are not massless since they oscillate from one flavor to another - that implies, according to the standard model, that they must have some mass. So although they barely interact with normal matter, they shouldn't be capable of traveling at the speed of light - something very close, but not AT.

 

[Benetanegia]

Neutrinos are not massless since they oscillate from one flavor to another - that implies, according to the standard model, that they must have some mass. So although they barely interact with normal matter, they shouldn't be capable of traveling at the speed of light - something very close, but not AT.

The problem is that speed of light might need to be redefined.

c == speed of light in vacuum > 299,792,458 m/s

speed of light in vacuum >> speed of neutrinos > measured speed of light in "false vacuum"

 

[Drone]

Dark matter/energy could interact with neutrinos and light.

Dark matter interacts with everything (by gravity - the weakest interaction). If the theory is right then all the gravity that universe needs to hold everything together depends on the dark matter/wimps. Since neutrinos can be affected only by gravity and weak interaction then it all seems logical.

edit: however they haven't found any wimps yet

 

[W1zzard]

Yeah, but afaik neutrinos did arrive some hours or so sooner, which is already an incoherence with relativity on itself, so despite not being coherent with CERN's results, that already means relativity was violated isn't it?

the accepted explanation for that is that the neutrinos are generated in a process leading to the supernova, so they are generated before the actual supernova event while the star still exists.

The problem is that speed of light might need to be redefined.

c == speed of light in vacuum > 299,792,458 m/s

speed of light in vacuum >> speed of neutrinos > measured speed of light in "false vacuum"

technically the length of a meter would need to change because it is derived from the speed of light in vacuum.

a second is defined as "the duration of 9,192,631,770 periods of the radiation corresponding to the transition between the two hyperfine levels of the ground state of the caesium-133 atom." - is that dependent on the speed of light at some level?

 

[Benetanegia]

the accepted explanation for that is that the neutrinos are generated in a process leading to the supernova, so they are generated before the actual supernova event while the star still exists.

In the light of the recent discovery I choose not to buy that explanation. It could have been "fabricated" because neutrinos arrived first and no other theory was consistent with relativity. Since we are discussing the very accuracy of how relativity is being applied, I just can't accept it as fact.

technically the length of a meter would need to change because it is derived from the speed of light in vacuum.

Not really. It is based on the measured speed of light, which may not be the true speed of light in vacuum.

 

[W1zzard]

In the light of the recent discovery I choose not to buy that explanation. It could have been "fabricated" because neutrinos arrived first and no other theory was consistent with relativity. Since we are discussing the very accuracy of how relativity is being applied, I just can't accept it as fact.

distance: 168,000 light years = 1,471,680,000 light hours
neutrinos: 3 hours earlier => vNeutrino = 1.000000002038487 c

cern experiment: 730 km
time difference 60 ns -> 18.2 m => vNeutrino = 1.000024931506849 c

HUGE difference

Not really. It is based on the measured speed of light, which may not be the true speed of light in vacuum

the meter is defined as:

The metre is the length of the path travelled by light in vacuum during a time interval of 1⁄299 792 458 of a second.

so actually whatever the outcome of this experiment, the meter won't change unless they change the definition to something else

 

[Benetanegia]

distance: 168,000 light years = 1,471,680,000 light hours
neutrinos: 3 hours earlier => vNeutrino = 1.000000002038487 c

cern experiment: 730 km
time difference 60 ns -> 18.2 m => vNeutrino = 1.000024931506849 c

HUGE difference

Did you really read my post #77? If vacuum or interstellar/inter-particle space is not so empty as we think and it's instead an homogeneous medium, there's a plethora of reasons for that discrepancy. My example in post #77 is only a posible one.

 

[W1zzard]

Did you really read my post #77? If vacuum or interstellar/inter-particle space is not so empty as we think and it's instead an homogeneous medium, there's a plethora of reasons for that discrepancy. My example in post #77 is only a posible one.

how are the neutrinos slower in empty space, even when including your interactions,
and faster in earth's crust?

 

[Benetanegia]

how are the neutrinos slower in empty space, even when including your interactions,
and faster in earth's crust?

Neutrinos are not faster. Light is.

Since neutrinos are not affected by most forces, only the weak sub-atomic-one and gravity, the likelihood of being affected by a medium (vacuum) with no "conventional mass" or a very small amount of mass interaction that the darkmatter would account for, is a lot smaller than the likelyhood of photons being affected.

You just have to imagine that vacuum is not vacuum, the emptiness of space is akin to water, while real vacuum is the nothingness. Light travels slower through water than real vacuum. We only have measured speed of light in water, because for us everything there is even between our most fundamental known particles is water, although we mistakenly call it vacuum.

EDIT: Our science still makes sense, because our "speed of light thorugh water" is a constant, it's only a constant and is consistent in the whole universe because our universe is flooded in water. Whenever you find light, you find light travelling through water.

 

[W1zzard]

i know all that, but look at my calculations above.

speed of neutrinos from 1987a vs. actual light from 1987a (in a vacuum): 1.000000002038487 * c
speed of neutrinos from cern (in earth's crust) vs. light in vacuum: 1.000024931506849 * c

-> neutrinos from cern through matter are faster than neutrinos in vacuum which makes no sense, no matter how you explain it.

 

[Benetanegia]

i know all that, but look at my calculations above.

speed of neutrinos from 1987a vs. actual light from 1987a (in a vacuum): 1.000000002038487 * c
speed of neutrinos from cern (in earth's crust) vs. light in vacuum: 1.000024931506849 * c

-> neutrinos from cern through matter are faster than neutrinos in vacuum which makes no sense, no matter how you explain it.

Ok I didn't get that. But those measurements do not warrant that neutrinos are faster through matter than in vacuum. It only demostrates that neutrinos that came from that supernova were slower. It's just one case. We don't know what happened to those neutrinos in their travel to Earth.

EDIT: And wait a minute, I have to admit I'm not in my best mental condition in this very moment, so I cannot be 100% sure of my memory, but is the speed of massive subatomic particles supposed to be constant? afaik they aren't, but like I said, I'm having a wtf moment with that. Only non-massive particles are suposed to have a constant speed through the medium isn't it? Neutrino speed being different is non-consequential. The weird thing is them traveling faster than light, not whatever was their particular speed in each case.

 

[Steevo]

I still stand by my theory that they have failed to take into account the fact that earth is in motion and while the neutrinos were not traveling faster than light, the receiving sensors and apparatus were in motion towards the oncoming stream, and while they are traveling that fast they are unaffected by earths minor gravity.