I’m a little torn about this: the Twitter machine and other social mediums have blown up about this story at Science Express, which claims that the faster-than-light neutrino result from the OPERA collaboration has been explained as a simple glitch:
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.
I suppose it’s possible. But man, that would make the experimenters look really bad. And the sourcing in the article is just about as weak as it could be: “according to sources familiar with the experiment” is as far as it goes. (What is this, politics?)
So it’s my duty to pass it along, but I would tend to reserve judgment until a better-sourced account comes along. Not that there’s much chance that neutrinos are actually moving faster than light; that was always one of the less-likely explanations for the result. But this isn’t how we usually learn about experimental goofs.
Update from Sid in the comments: here’s a slightly-better-sourced story.
Update again: and here is the official CERN press release. Not exactly admitting that a loose cable is at the heart of everything, or even that the result was wrong, but saying that there were problems that could potentially invalidate the result.
I don’t think reporting on their puzzling results makes the experimenters look bad. They spent 3 years, or whatever, rechecking a very tricky and complicated experiment, looking for an answer. It’s not obvious to me how a bad fiber optic connection would result in a 60 ns delay. One would not expect delays, but protocol errors. Of course, errors and retransmissions would result in delays. And if the errors weren’t being reported or logged…
In the absence of detailed information, I’m willing to assume due diligence. I’ve faced too many difficult to troubleshoot problems of my own to be too terribly critical.
Anyway, despite the resulting media circus in some quarters, in others it provided an excellent opportunity for the public to see, first hand, how science works. And provides a good example of the value of healthy scientific skepticism. Those are arguably the most important aspects of the whole episode.
If I am not mistaken, then Prof. Milgrom, Prof. Antonio Fernández-Rañada, and I might be plausible candidates for the Nobel prize. In order to avoid a future big stink with the Nobel prize committee, I should put on record that Fernández-Rañada and I might be regarded as implicit collaborators in the sense that he and I have exchanged e-mails and profoundly influence each other’s thinking. He wants to be more thorough and cautious before rushing into print.
http://www.ucm.es/info/electron/personal/ranada.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modified_Newtonian_dynamics
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stacy_McGaugh
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pavel_Kroupa
See http://vixra.org/pdf/1202.0083v1.pdf “Anomalous Gravitational Acceleration and the OPERA Neutrino Anomaly”.
Is M-theory doomed to the netherworld of non-prediction if the Finite Nature Hypothesis is false?
See http://vixra.org/pdf/1202.0092v1.pdf “Finite Nature Hypothesis and Space Roar Profile Prediction”
Is Milgrom the Kepler of contemporary cosmology? — D. Brown
We’ll see if he mentions you in the acknowledgements. By replying to comment #52, I am attracting attention to it, so I expect a small percentage of said prize as compensation. Account details available on request.
Phil Gibbs has blocked out the “Anomalous Gravitational Acceleration and the OPERA Neutrino Anomaly.” See http://www.digitalphilosophy.org for what has been blocked out.
In my opinion, Fernández-Rañada is still mulling over the Rañada-Milgrom effect and might not want “credit” for the idea. I don’t think I was wrong in not mentioning exchange of e-mails in the original article because after all I NAMED the effect after Rañada and Milgrom and independently thought of it myself although Fernández-Rañada did first publish the basic QUALITATIVE idea but he botched the quantitative formulation. However, the fact that he didn’t automatically reject the Rañada-Milgrom effect when I mentioned it to him TOTALLY CONVINCED me that the effect is valid — before that I had doubts but after I felt sure. I need to put pressure on Fernández-Rañada to publish and then we can dispute credit for the idea if the idea is valid.
@53 Phillip Helbig, I gather that you are Phil Gibbs. If I write another article explaining the role of Prof. Fernández-Rañada in my thinking then will you either unblock the article or let me put out another article? The thought occurred to me that the Nobel prize committe might give a prize to Milgrom and me and leave out Fernández-Rañada, and the exchange of e-mails (rather minimal) might be important in assigning credit. Very soon, dozens of theoretical physicists are going to independently think of the Rañada-Milgrom effect.
No, I am not Phil Gibbs. I post under my real name. I had never heard of Phil Gibbs until today.
@56: Phillip Helbig, thank you for responding to my guess about Phil Gibbs. Apparently, Phil Gibbs read my #52 comment and blocked out my paper. It is merely a coincidence that Phillip Helbig and Phil Gibbs both are “Phil”s. Phil Gibbs runs vixra.org — I believe that Prof. Fernández-Rañada will delay too long in publishing his ideas on the Rañada-Milgrom effect. My vixra article on the Rañada-Milgrom effect might be construed as 100% my own work, but there might be a good case for splitting the credit 90% for me and 10% for Fernández-Rañada. His contribution is that he is a world-class expert on general relativity theory and as soon as he implicitly indicated that the effect might be approximately correct then I became 100% convinced that the Rañada-Milgrom effect explains the Pioneer anomaly, the flyby anomalies, MOND, the Gravity Probe B results, and several other anomalies. If I am not mistaken and Milgrom and I happened to share a prize then my origini]al article on the Rañada-Milgrom effect should at least have mentioned the role of the e-mails in my thinking. My ideas on M-theory with the finite nature hypothesis might be 100% nonsense, but the evidence shows that the Rañada-Milgrom effect is approximately correct although it is extremely unclear WHY the effect is approximately correct.
Phillip Helbig, Phil Gibbs, and any physicists who are interested in gravitational theory should consider 4 ideas:
(1) Milgrom is the Kepler of contemporary cosmology.
(2) The work of Milgrom, McGaugh, and Kroupa confirms Milgrom’s MOND.
(3) An easy scaling argument shows that MOND is approximately equivalent to the Rañada-Milgrom effect, at least for low gravitational accelerations.
(4) The OPERA neutrino anomaly is NOT due to experimental error.
See http://vixra.org/pdf/1203.0016v1.pdf “Anomalous Gravitational Acceleration and the OPERA Neutrino Anomaly (Updated)”. My ideas on M-theory with the finite nature hypothesis might be 100% crackpot, but the Rañada-Milgrom effect is another story. As soon as physicists realize that the OPERA neutrino anomaly is for real then THERE IS GOING TO BE A GIANT STAMPEDE. Believe it or not, but you might kick yourself if the Rañada-Milgrom effect is valid and you ignore it.
You don’t mention Bob Sanders. I know him rather well from the time we were both working at the Kapteyn Institute in Groningen (Bob is still there, but retired.) I’ve certainly looked in a bit of detail, with an open mind, at MOND. However, I think your confidence is exaggerated, especially with regard to the OPERA result. All is not well with CDM, but to what extent MOND or something like it is the answer is at best unclear at the moment.
@59, Phillip Helbig: If someone would provide information on Bob Sanders (Robert H. Sanders), I would like to create a Wikipedia entry for him. Mathematical facts indicate that M-theory is correct, and M-theory and MOND seem to imply that the Rañada-Milgrom effect is THE ONLY HOPE for MOND. According to both McGaugh and Kroupa, MOND has been approximately confirmed whenever it makes testable predictions. Is M-theory doomed to the netherworld of non-prediction if the Finite Nature Hypothesis is false?
See http://vixra.org/pdf/1202.0092v1.pdf “Finite Nature Hypothesis and Space Roar Profile Prediction”
Are there any comments (no matter negative) on the preceding ideas?
Pingback: Superluminal Neutrinos are so 2011 | Cosmic Variance | Discover Magazine