BREAKING NEWS: Error Undoes Faster-Than-Light Neutrino Results - ScienceInsider It appears that the faster-than-light neutrino results, announced last September by the OPERA collaboration in Italy, was due to a mistake after all. A bad connection between a GPS unit and a computer may be to blame. Physicists had detected neutrinos travelling from the CERN laboratory in Geneva to the Gran Sasso laboratory near L'Aquila that appeared to make the trip in about 60 nanoseconds less than light speed. Many other physicists suspected that the result was due to some kind of error, given that it seems at odds with Einstein's special theory of relativity, which says nothing can travel faster than the speed of light. That theory has been vindicated by many experiments over the decades. According to sources familiar with the experiment, the 60 nanoseconds discrepancy appears to come from a bad connection between a fiber optic cable that connects to the GPS receiver used to correct the timing of the neutrinos' flight and an electronic card in a computer. After tightening the connection and then measuring the time it takes data to travel the length of the fiber, researchers found that the data arrive 60 nanoseconds earlier than assumed. Since this time is subtracted from the overall time of flight, it appears to explain the early arrival of the neutrinos. New data, however, will be needed to confirm this hypothesis.
So they just wasted 3 years of experiments because of a faulty fibre optic cable? Nice. Looks like they will have to do it all again.
Read the last sentence... "New data, however, will be needed to confirm this hypothesis." Not saying this isn't true but let's wait to call it
95% of research is fixing/repairing/testing/repeating shit. 5% of research is actually research, i.e. collecting new data. Story of my life.
o.o;;; they are a little late in publishing these findings aren't they? I dont remember when I read it, but I know it was a few monthes ago that the faster than speed of light observation was proved to be a data collection error.
Found another article here stating that there is a chance that flight time could have been overestimated as well. Tests are being conducted to try to rule out both scenarios.
Sheldon Glashow vehemently denied the reports when they were originally published. I trust his instinct.
um no. The test that thought they had the discovery is just one that is in line with the LHC. It uses the byproducts of the collisions at the LHC along with the mountian range between it and the LHC to filter out the partials. So basically, they weren't doing any experiments purely for OPERA but OPERA is specifically placed so that if any of the particular partials it is looking for appear they are in the right place for it. To put it another way, the LHC is the main experiment and OPERA is just taking advantage of the events happening at the LHC to do extra tests.