re: #200 Targetpractice, Worst of Both Worlds

re: #201 Kragar (Proud to be Kafir)

re: #193 oaktree

OK condensing some comments on this:

First off, neutrinos have mass. That means they must move slower than light always as per relativity which has been verified countless times in countless different ways. It is also important to note that the neutrino itself was predicted by Fermi using the theory of relativity that it is now supposedly violating.

It is not clear to me what could possibly be special about these neutrinos from CERN that could make them behave differently than other neutrinos. On the off chance that this is a correct finding and not some form of systematic error or failure of the analysis, then the question becomes what happened at CERN that was special for these neutrinos. However I really am not holding my breath for it all to go in that direction.

I will buy this as soon as I buy a perpetual motion machine. The most likely explanation is some form of systematic error on the part of the Italians.

From the article:

Ereditato declined to speculate on what it might mean if other physicists, who will be officially informed of the discovery at a meeting in CERN on Friday, found that OPERA’s measurements were correct.

This is a bad, bad sign. Going to the press before publishing is a very bad sign. It show a certain over eagerness. The last people to go to the press first without publishing on something this potentially big were Martin Fleischmann and Stanley Pons (cold fusion).

from Nature:

Most troubling for OPERA is a separate analysis of a pulse of neutrinos from a nearby supernova known as 1987a. If the speeds seen by OPERA were achievable by all neutrinos, then the pulse from the supernova would have shown up years earlier than the exploding star’s flash of light; instead, they arrived within hours of each other. “It’s difficult to reconcile with what OPERA is seeing,”

I will certainly read their paper once they have it up on Archiv X.

In science, this is a really big gamble. The people at OPERA are certainly certain enough about this to make noise. Going to the press before publishing is always a bad sign though. If they are right, yes this would be giant news of the sort to make a legendary career. They clearly want there to be no confusion with their names if that happens.

Of course, if and when, as is most likely, this turns out to be a systematic error, their names will be attached without any chance of confusion.