Seems possible that physics will have to be rewritten, Cern seems to show neutrinos faster than light

www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-15017484

They are treating this very, very cautiously: but it looks important. I don't understand the implications, but apparently if it is confirmed the Theory of Relativity is not correct. In one way I hope that is true, cos I could never get my head round it: so maybe something simpler will take its place? Hmm....thought not

That is true, Vninect: the implications of such a result are so big that they are very reluctant to accept them. Nonetheless if this were a smaller finding the sheer number of experimental results tending in the same directon would have given it quite a lot of weight. I think it is right that they are looking for independent confirmation: reproducibility is the best test of results. But there are not many LHC's so far as I know so that will perhaps be a long time coming

Yes. Hopefully that will happen: or maybe there is already equipment which can be used to replicate these experiments without need for something new and expensive. Either way the caution is laudable.

Edited by FionaK - 23/9/2011, 15:00

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/the-lay-...23/1?CMP=twt_gu

It is quite interesting that this person is concerned that the findings were overhyped: because that is not my impression at all. I did not see the reuter's report: but the bbc one I linked made it very clear there was a lot of uncertainty and lack of confidence in these results. I do not feel I have been misled in any way. I wonder if there is a tendency to paranoia whenever any scientific paper is released to the public for discussion. I do know that there have been instances in the past when overblown claims were made in the press. Has that done harm? Perhaps in medical matters, and I think that is due a great deal of care. But I cannot see what I can do with particle physics even if I am persuaded by imprudent journalists that relativity is now defunct. I doubt that belief will have any consequences for me at all for the presumably short time I would hold it before the flaws were found.

What is the concern here?

We will have to agree to differ on this Vninect. To me, what you seem to be arguing amounts to censorship. While I think that censorship may be justifiable in some very limited circumstances I do not think we can or should support it as a principle. I recognise that the opposition to censorship can be naive since it often omits the passive censorship which attends unequal access: but that is a separate issue, I think.

There is an interesting article by Ben Goldacre which appeared yesterday, coincidentally: and I think it does a good job of setting out the issues and how they should be approached

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/20...ce-ben-goldacre

What is required is not the withholding of information: but the honest presentation of what has been found. To me the BBC article did that and I do not think it is in any way comparable with what Sigman and "The Biologist" did. Yet the charge is that they are the same in content and in effect. I don't think they are

I am opposed to overblown claims too: I thought I made that clear. I just don't think it happened in this instance: at least not in the new outlets I read.

Aye: I suppose I just didn't think it had happened

I would not worry just yet I understand the estimated discrepancy in travel time of the neutrinos is 10ns, the resolution of the timing is also 10ns. It's a pretty tentative result.

Whenever famous theories or famous scientists are challenged, there is always a tempting headline for the sub-ed "X was wrong", "The theory of X is wrong". Even New Scientist puts "Why Darwin was wrong" on their front cover. The text of the article is invariably less sensational, and by the end may conclude that X was not really wrong at all. The media always sell their stories by creating drama, and for that they need a step change, preferably a reversal. A headline that says "scientists understand the world slightly more than they did before" is not going to sell.

So the idea that there is a fairly comprehensive and fixed understanding of the universe is largely a media creation. Of course, knowledge is progressing continually, and mostly in small steps. Physics, despite being spectacularly successful, is still struggling with some pretty concepts of space, time, matter and energy. There are several pretty significant discrepancies between theory and what we observe. We recently discover that observation only accounts for some 4% of the universe, the rest is "dark", and unknown.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2011/oct...os-faster-light

They are to do new experiments to see if they can confirm the results. Just as it should be. There is something pleasing in this

Apparently this is a mistake due to the paralaxis error (the gps satelites verus the ground instruments an their relative movement) but honestly, I listened about this on a SGU podcasts while walking from my mom's to my place and I didn't go deeper into it (nor on this thread)

Not quite, but then again...

http://arxiv.org/abs/1110.2685

There's a "paper" on the controversy over this topic;

http://www.theskepticsguide.org/archive/po...x?mid=1&pid=327

Here's the link to the podcast reference guide.

Edited by Iridur - 2/11/2011, 22:02