Monday, October 17, 2011

Whew!!! Faster-Than-Light Neutrinos Result of GPS Movement

Climb off that ledge, there was a mistake that allowed it to seem that neutrinos were observed traveling faster than light. It has to do with perspective and frames of reference. You have to remember to take into account when those reference frames are moving with respect to one another. This case: the neurtrinos were moving relative to earth but the satellites used to measure the neutrinos speed were moving with respect to both the neutrinos and the earth.

Although the speed of light is does not depend on the the frame of reference, the time of flight does. In this case, there are two frames of reference: the experiment on the ground and the clocks in orbit. If these are moving relative to each other, then this needs to be factored in.
So what is the satellites’ motion with respect to the OPERA experiment? These probes orbit from West to East in a plane inclined at 55 degrees to the equator. Significantly, that’s roughly in line with the neutrino flight path. Their relative motion is then easy to calculate.
So from the point of view of a clock on board a GPS satellite, the positions of the neutrino source and detector are changing. “From the perspective of the clock, the detector is moving towards the source and consequently the distance travelled by the particles as observed from the clock is shorter,” says van Elburg.
By this he means shorter than the distance measured in the reference frame on the ground.
The OPERA team overlooks this because it thinks of the clocks as on the ground not in orbit.
How big is this effect? Van Elburg calculates that it should cause the neutrinos to arrive 32 nanoseconds early. But this must be doubled because the same error occurs at each end of the experiment. So the total correction is 64 nanoseconds, almost exactly what the OPERA team observes.

Everyone can breathe now. Still nothing has been observed traveling faster than the speed of light!

Faster-Than-Light Neutrinos Result of GPS Movement
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4 comments:

  1. Wow, you realize this is a proposed explanation, not a conclusive finding. You really, really, really don't want to have to learn anything new, do you?

    Scientist, you are not, not in any way...

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  2. Did you read the findings? Do you even know how would even go about making such a calculation? No? I do. So maybe you should keep silent about things you don't know how to do.

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  3. It’s funny (funny weird, not funny ha ha) how you incorrectly answer questions on behalf of the person you are asking the questions of. But yes, it’s some trigonometry (length contraction) with a bit of calculus, neither of which are all that hard once you have the inputs.

    It’s also funny how the only two statements in the original post that convey any certainty whatsoever are yours. And that leads us back to your ever present flawed epistemology. If you actually followed this story as it developed, it’s clear that the actual scientists do suspect that it is an error of some sort, that’s what scientists do until they can replicate something. But what I find mildly entertaining (and a lot sad) is how you put on airs of being a “scientist” but continually put your desired conclusions before the evidence, as we’ve seen here (and almost everywhere else on this blog), showing that deep down, you don’t really understand what science actually is.

    You’re two statements on this topic (“Physics doesn’t need to be rewritten” and “Nothing’s been observed going faster than the speed of light“) could turn out to be 100% correct, but that doesn’t mean you aren’t also deeply, deeply wrong.

    Here’s a good quote from the recent wired article, you should let it sink in. “Ultimately, it will take a great deal more time and scholarship before the physics community settles on the true explanation for the OPERA results. Until then, vigorous debate is likely to continue.”.

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  4. It’s funny (funny weird, not funny ha ha) how you incorrectly answer questions on behalf of the person you are asking the questions of. But yes, it’s some trigonometry (length contraction) with a bit of calculus, neither of which are all that hard once you have the inputs.

    So you claim that you know how to solve such a calculation? Good. I didn't think you could, and if I'm wrong and you can then I apologize for my assumption.

    It’s also funny how the only two statements in the original post that convey any certainty whatsoever are yours.

    Huh? If you read the original article or clicked on the related links, you should have seen that there are more people certain that the observation has been explained than just me.

    And that leads us back to your ever present flawed epistemology. If you actually followed this story as it developed, it’s clear that the actual scientists do suspect that it is an error of some sort, that’s what scientists do until they can replicate something.

    Actually it leads us back to more handwaving and unsubstantiated assertions against me with no proof. No one has been able to replicate their results and this can explain why they saw the results that they saw.

    But what I find mildly entertaining (and a lot sad) is how you put on airs of being a “scientist” but continually put your desired conclusions before the evidence,

    Can you prove that? How do you know that what I want is that nothing travels faster than light? I never said that. Are you psychic?

    as we’ve seen here (and almost everywhere else on this blog), showing that deep down, you don’t really understand what science actually is.

    The University of California disagrees with you. It seems that you are so blind and so close-minded you just don't see it.

    You’re two statements on this topic (“Physics doesn’t need to be rewritten” and “Nothing’s been observed going faster than the speed of light“) could turn out to be 100% correct, but that doesn’t mean you aren’t also deeply, deeply wrong.

    Huh? Deeply wrong about what? What do are you attempting to say?

    Here’s a good quote from the recent wired article, you should let it sink in. “Ultimately, it will take a great deal more time and scholarship before the physics community settles on the true explanation for the OPERA results. Until then, vigorous debate is likely to continue.”.

    I don't disagree with the wired article, but I'd be more likely to think the observation is correct had it been replicated by now and the mathematics matched up. It says something that you get the theory's numbers matching up with the observations. Did you not understand that? Numbers don't lie.

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