Don't ask me. I took three semesters of college-level physics and barely passed the "electricity and magnetism" semester with an average in that course of about 2.0005. Something about the "right-hand rule" and if you were to ask me today how electricity and magnetism work, I'd mutter something about "magic gnomes" and suggest you go get a book from the library or something.
But I love reading about science. It gives me hope that maybe humanity can work things out before we turn this planet into a toxic cinder.*
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* But not all that much hope.
Even the folks who broke the news stated that the analysis was very preliminary, and that it should be looked upon with a great deal of skepticism, given the level of precision needed in the experiment is difficult to maintain. The have ask the only other two facilities in the world to try a reproduce the results, Fermi Lab is just finishing an upgrade of their instrument, and they think that they will have the resolution required to attempt the experiment. The Japanese, have the other site, and it is recovering from the Earthquake and Tsunami, and they have no idea if and when they can attempt the experiment. The main reason they published was to get others to look at the data and if possible try to recreate the test.
ReplyDeleteIt was not a definitive pronouncement.
Just to put things into perspective
ReplyDeleteCERN experimenter think that they know the distance from the end of the accelerator to the target to within 33 meters after traveling some 730642.1763 Meters or .004516 percent assuming that they are in a vacuum.
Light in a vacuum will travel 3.3 Meters in 1 second, unfortunately they are not pushing the Neutrino through a vacuum, they are pushing them through the earth. The earth between the two site is not uniform by anyone stretch of the imagination. For the original intent experiment which was to count neutrinos it was not much of an issue, by calculation they think they know how many left the accelerator, and by measurement they think they know how many were 'seen' by the detector, and the number seem to make sense with the current theory.
The real issue is just how far is it really from the end of the accelerator to the target. This is heart of the problem, is that if they are off as much as 198 meter out 730642.1763 Meters or .0271 percent on the distance between the end of the accelerator and the target they have no results.
I do not know how to make the measurement over the distances that they are using with an accuracy of under .0271 percent much less .004516 percent.
It must really be remembered that these instruments were not really designed for this type of experiment.
It may be a very real case of someone trying to drive screws with a hammer.
"Light in a vacuum will travel 3.3 Meters in 1 second,"
ReplyDeleteHuh?
"the speed of light = 299 792 458 meters/second"
Doesn't matter if it is a vacuum, outer space is a vacuum.
The speed of light is a constant.
Just don't ask me anything about algebra.
I am sorry it was late, that should be one nanosecond.
ReplyDelete