Did CERN just break physics?

mrk said:
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he knew it all along!
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+1
 
A small bit of caution, we have been rewriting the books for centuries, we will be doing so for centuries more.

Its like being in a room with lots of paperwork, each bundle is ever more complex and cryptic, we must understand the previous to understand the next one and so on, thus as we learn more, the room expands to show more and more.

(Yay, i made a silly/mostly unnecessary description on progress :rolleyes:)
 
|Thomas| said:
People are not questioning the random errors involved, as shown by the 10 ns variation, the question is over systematic errors. Systematic errors cannot be quantified meaningfully, and if present ruin the result of an experiment.
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I was answering mik3's Q about measurement, he thought that some feedback was required to time this, but with atomic clocks this isn't required. 9:00am at CERN is 9:00am in Italy to the nearest femtosecond.
But agreed, the error isn't likely to be a measurement one.
 
bitslice said:
I was answering mik3's Q about measurement, he thought that some feedback was required to time this, but with atomic clocks this isn't required. 9:00am at CERN is 9:00am in Italy to the nearest femtosecond.
But agreed, the error isn't likely to be a measurement one.
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Plus with 16,000+ repeats of the experiment, it's a pretty reliable measurement.
 
bitslice said:
Atomic clocks measure down to femtoseconds at least, this is a matter of 60 nanoseconds with a margin of error of 10 nanoseconds. The time difference is immense which makes me think this can't possibly be a measurement error.
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I know that they use atomic clocks but the neutrino doesn't hit the clock and then it somehow registers it, it will hit a detector that will be connected to a device that will register it, probably a computer, that will be connected to the clock. Their making measurements so small that even the electronics that register it will add a delay to the time, so that will have to be taken into account, I find it find it fascinating that will can build such accurate devices.
 
Sin_Chase said:
Lol at the backroom scientists who can, with so much confidence, sit there and state categorically that it's impossible, referencing E=MC2 as irrefutable fact for no reason other than "Just because"

Because you understand the concepts involved, right?

Nobody does, they only theorise them and test them for soundness. Why do you believe you, and the persons you are quoting, are incapable of being wrong about a theory.

E=MC2 is a theory, nothing more. It might never be "broken" in the time of the human race as we currently know it. But for you to sit here now and truly believe that it never will be based on what we believe to be true now then just...well....lol.

You can speculate, but you certainly cannot dictate.
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E=MC2 gave us the atomic bomb, so doesnt that mean that its been proven to work and therefore cant be "just a theory"?
 
Mik3 said:
I know that they use atomic clocks but the neutrino doesn't hit the clock and then it somehow registers it, it will hit a detector that will be connected to a device that will register it, probably a computer, that will be connected to the clock. Their making measurements so small that even the electronics that register it will add a delay to the time, so that will have to be taken into account, I find it find it fascinating that will can build such accurate devices.
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Would it matter how long the delay is provided it is consistent in every test? If the delay were to vary then you'd absolutely need to take note of it and remove it but if it was always say 0.0025 seconds then the measurement you've got is precise because the delay is effectively removed by the consistency.
 
60ns is a huge delay guys, Modern oscilloscopes can measure nearly 1000x smaller internvals.

I am not an expert on particle physics detectors as I study laser physics but since they are essentially detecting single particles with large detector. They probably connect the photomultipliers to the scopes directly. These will be triggered by atomic clocks and deliver spectacular accuracy as has been mentioned. This should really reduce noise and they presumably checked to see if the signal was real or not. I'm guessing theres some systematic error but they have looked for years without success so there we are!
 
aardvark said:
lol at all the people jumping to conclusions based one one test that hasn't been verified or tested - this isn't how science works.
Most likely to turn out to be an error.
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Not really one test. It was tested something like 16000 times. Hardly one test. Something tested this many times is generally regard a scientific discovery. Nobody at CERN are saying this is a discovery.

It might be the case that the particles were travelling at the speed of light but taking shortcuts through another dimension. It may just be perceived to be travelling faster from this one.

There are more theories about the universe then the standard model that popular science chooses to use. There is no reason why any other theory might be correct. It might of just taken time for an experiment of this size to prove or support it.
 
Engy Benjie said:
Something tested this many times is generally regard a scientific discovery.
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Nah. That's the equivalent of me saying that 1 / x = y is scientific theory because I have repeated the test on my computer 25,000 times (even though I am not acounting for error in my code, error in other people's code, or accounting for any rounding/FPA error in the machine).

There are still too many variables which were not changed during the repetition to go even anywhere near such a rash conclusion.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2011/sep/24/einstein-e-equals-mc2
 
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