EEVblog Electronics Community Forum
General => General Technical Chat => Topic started by: ErikTheNorwegian on September 22, 2011, 08:39:08 pm
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I would not be able to sleep at night until I figured out what happened.
Doc Brown explains a time paradox; Jennifer passes out (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qKqd27h7KjM#ws)
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Italians like their cars, women, and neutrinos fast.
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The speed of light is the Universe's ultimate speed limit, and much of modern physics - as laid out in part by Albert Einstein in his special theory of relativity - depends on the idea that nothing can exceed it.
not quite true
I think they meant to say speed of light IN A VACUUM
in other media, it is well known that particles can under certain conditions travel
faster than light in that medium - producing an effect called Cerenkov radiation
hopefully they did their tests in a vacuum!!
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When physicists say 'the speed of light' we always mean the physical constant c, the speed of light in vacuum. Any reference to the speed of light in a specific medium is always explicitly called out, or simply written in terms of c and the index of refraction. Even in optics when doing refraction, diffraction, and interference calculations, the equations are always written in terms of the vacuum wavelength with explicit dependence on n.
Anyway, I am certainly looking forward to coffee time tomorrow :) This result is almost certainly wrong, but it is still quite exciting.
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The speed of light is the Universe's ultimate speed limit, and much of modern physics - as laid out in part by Albert Einstein in his special theory of relativity - depends on the idea that nothing can exceed it.
not quite true
I think they meant to say speed of light IN A VACUUM
in other media, it is well known that particles can under certain conditions travel
faster than light in that medium - producing an effect called Cerenkov radiation
hopefully they did their tests in a vacuum!!
You mean phase velocity. Different from propagation or transmission velocity, which the article is clearly referring to. Cherenkov radiation is something that will only occur with larger CHARGED particles exceeding the phase velocity in a given material. A neutrino has no charge.
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The speed of light is the Universe's ultimate speed limit
eye sight can move alot faster than that. and what is it that is called vacuum? once people believed outer space is empty, but later found out to be not true. perfect vacuum is purely theoritical, just like a perfect straight line. it doesnt exist in real life. yes mr erodito (eisntein Jr.), go figure it out.
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The speed of light is the fastest anything can go relative to the reference of space, but space itself can expand way faster then the speed of light.
So it is possible for two objects that are relatively stationary to be 1000 light years apart today, and 2000 light years apart tomorrow if space decides to speed up its expansion a bit. The objects themselves haven't moved. There is just now more space between them.
This is exactly what happened at the big bang, and it explains why we can still receive microwave radiation from the big bang today. Radio waves that started out towards us from maybe 10 meters away are only just reaching us now because of the degree to which space expanded between us and the microwaves signals in transit.
Richard
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Dear Erik:
--Your link has gone dead. See below for link to a similar article (23SEP11 Link now working):
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/09/neutrinos-faster-than-light/ (http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/09/neutrinos-faster-than-light/)
--It is fitting that the neutrino, Italian for "little neutral one", so named by Enrico Fermi in 1934, should be found breaking the C limit in Italy. Hopefully these results will be confirmed by Fermi Lab in Batavia Illinois, just east of Chicago, where Fermi constructed the first nuclear reactor.
--This is the second earth shaking discovery this month by the Gran Sasso National Laboratory in the Italian Apennine Mountains. Earlier this month they reported detections of WIMPS "Weakly Interacting Massive Particles" one of the proposed solutions to the Universe's "Missing Matter" problem.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=shedding-light-on-the-mystery (http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=shedding-light-on-the-mystery)
--Now both of these experiments still need confirmation, so no point in getting to excited yet. But if neutrinos can go FTL, maybe we can also. I will be ready to board the Enterprise and boldly go. Bring on those hot green space women.
"Before I came here I was confused about this subject. Having listened to your lecture I am still confused. But on a higher level." Enrico Fermi
Best Regards
Clear Ether
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The reason is simple: neutrinos were coming from Switzerland, and they knew that NO foreigner pays a speed ticket (actually they do not pay any ticket) here in Italy. This is an example (you can translate it with Google):
http://www.lanazione.it/firenze/cronaca/2011/09/08/577054-multe_vergogna.shtml (http://www.lanazione.it/firenze/cronaca/2011/09/08/577054-multe_vergogna.shtml)
So I believe that they were respecting Einstein's laws from Geneva to the Italian border, but after they felt free..... ;)
Actually I'm shocked: I know personally some of the scientists that work at the Gran Sasso labs, and they too are shocked.
Regards
EDIT: thanks to the Forum for promoting me to he Full Member status
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If I get my math right, depending if them mean an American "billion" or a civilized billion, and how few is "few" they are short of something like 0.5 m or 0.5 mm over the 732 km distance. I hope they had a talk with their surveyor first, to exclude the glaring obvious error source.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-15017484 (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-15017484)
FYI, you had an extra colon at the end of your link that broke it.
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Maybe speed of light value was wrong.
Alexander.
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If I get my math right, depending if them mean an American "billion" or a civilized billion, and how few is "few" they are short of something like 0.5 m or 0.5 mm over the 732 km distance. I hope they had a talk with their surveyor first, to exclude the glaring obvious error source.
The discrepancy was 60 ns or 20 meters out of 732 km.
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This is from memory: Prof Michio Kaku related during one of his lectures that Einstein did not find that one cannot travel faster than the speed of light, just that one cannot travel AT the speed of light.
I like this:
(http://www.thewatermanchronicles.co.nz/almost-zero.png)
(diagram thanks to Make Magazine)
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This is from memory: Prof Michio Kaku related during one of his lectures that Einstein did not find that one cannot travel faster than the speed of light, just that one cannot travel AT the speed of light.
It is a bit more subtle than that. The kinetic energy of a massive particle diverges (becomes infinite) at exactly v=c. For v>c you are simply left with imaginary quantities :)
However, if you allow v>c lots of other things break. Any propogation speed greater than 'c' will always be going backwards in time in some reference frames. This means that if the principle of relativity is correct -- that is, the laws of physics are the same in all reference frames, superluminal travel can always be used for time travel and violate causality.
That isn't to say there couldn't be new physics hiding there, but saying "relativity allows v > c, just not v=c" is a bit misleading.
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The other thing that occurs to me is if fractals are consistent at all scales, perhaps there are barriers (such as the sound barrier) one would have to traverse (or to get to a) faster-than-light universe.
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I also think Einstein was just partially right, same as Newton with his law of universal gravitation. Yet he could never explain why numbers dind't fit with mercury, or why the moon really is arround the earth.
Things like this will continue to happen mostly because physics, while mostly right to the known extent, is made upon castle sands.
Which is normal in the other hand, it even discards ancient knowledge such that scientists can sleep at night seing their world fit (the kybalion already said every single thing resonates at a certain frequency, yet the "strings" theory has only been "accepted" lately).
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...
(http://i1093.photobucket.com/albums/i424/vinniereno/bullshit_detector4.gif)
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I Believe the correct is "Nothing can't travel faster than light, but something can move from point A to point B faster than light would".
Alexander.
This is from memory: Prof Michio Kaku related during one of his lectures that Einstein did not find that one cannot travel faster than the speed of light, just that one cannot travel AT the speed of light.
I like this:
(http://www.thewatermanchronicles.co.nz/almost-zero.png)
(diagram thanks to Make Magazine)
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I'm putting my money on instrumentation error, or some other unforeseen flaw that skewed the measurements. Like with most things in science, we must be patient and wait for these claims to pass peer review. Deep down I hope the measurements are correct, as this could be quite revolutionary in the field of physics; especially because Neutrinos do have a mass, and anything with a mass could never reach the speed of light.
That said, the Neutrino is a bastard of a particle to detect, let alone to measure. The facilities used to detect single photon events (caused by Neutrino interaction) is massive (http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_VyTCyizqrHs/TB-q4X1V3kI/AAAAAAAAH_I/fS5QUjPY9A4/s1600/neutrinodetector.jpg) (here is another one in Japan (http://www.theblogbelow.com/2008/07/japans-superkamiokande.html)). The signal to noise ratio would be pretty poor, so the amount of rubbish one needs to filter through in the data is not a walk in the park.
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It's amusing to see people so attached to the idea that C should be an absolute constant.
It was only a theory in the first place.
Stubborn attachment to old theories inhibits progress.
It may well be that the results are wrong, this time; it may not.
That C is Max is not proven as such, it has only NOT shown to be otherwise by experimentation, Up Till Now.
Without minds open to new possibilities there is no advancement.
Take the ideas of this gentleman whom I had the pleasure of meeting a few years ago.
http://globalsentience.com/ashtyn-smith (http://globalsentience.com/ashtyn-smith)
You could be forgiven for thinking that this guy was just another kook until you learn that his track record includes working on the NASA Moon landings and British rocket program.
His hypothesis is just one of the different ways of looking at the nature of physics, or is that the physics of nature? ;)
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All this physics talk is way above my head but as I understood it Einstein only said a particle cannot be accelerated faster than light not that a particle cannot travel faster than light. The difference being that if a particle has always being faster than light then it is accepted but the light barrier remains true. I seem to remember (vaguely) something called a tachyon which travels faster than light (always) but never below light speed.
Ok so could it not be possible that the Neutrinos 'hitch a ride' on a Tachyon? Just a thought :).
And didn't they have Tachyon drives on Star trek? must be true!
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I'm putting my money on instrumentation error, or some other unforeseen flaw that skewed the measurements.
Almost certainly.
That said, the Neutrino is a bastard of a particle to detect, let alone to measure. The facilities used to detect single photon events (caused by Neutrino interaction) is massive (http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_VyTCyizqrHs/TB-q4X1V3kI/AAAAAAAAH_I/fS5QUjPY9A4/s1600/neutrinodetector.jpg) (here is another one in Japan (http://www.theblogbelow.com/2008/07/japans-superkamiokande.html)). The signal to noise ratio would be pretty poor, so the amount of rubbish one needs to filter through in the data is not a walk in the park.
While they use photon counting detectors, neutrino detection is not a single photon event, and the SNR is actually quite high. Almost all of the neutrinos pass through the detector completely unnoticed. However, when one hits an atomic nucleus, it generates a high energy muon. The muon is traveling very close to c and makes a whole bunch of Cherenkov radiation. This creates a line source of photons which are detected by photomultipliers. For a single neutron, many photons are detected, so the the dark counts of the PMTs are negligibile. By mapping the track back to its origin you can compute the point of impact and energy with high accuracy. The sources of noise are basically neutrinos from other sources and nuclear decay from unstable isotopes. If the source is not far enough underground, cosmic rays are another source of noise. Generally these event have different energy than the neutrinos you are looking for, so they can be excluded easily.
It's amusing to see people so attached to the idea that C should be an absolute constant.
It was only a theory in the first place.
"It is only a theory" is a total bullshit statement that has no meaning except to make the person saying it feel smarter. The significance of c is backed up by decades of experimental evidence. Throwing that out at the first reported observation would be foolishness of the highest order. This is definitely interesting work, and these guys are not just cranks like you sometimes see -- they are legitimate scientists who have data they can't explain. That doesn't mean nobody can explain it, or that there is no explanation.
For a counterpoint, consider this. According to these measurements, the neutrinos in question travel at 1.000025 c. If that were true in general, the neutrinos from a distant supernova would arrive much earlier than the light -- on the order of 4 years earlier for supernova 1987a. In reality, the neutrinos arrive a few hours early. This is explainable by the fact that the neutrinos travel from the core of the supernova almost unhindered, while the shockwave takes some time to reach the surface and create the visible response. For more distant supernovas, the time lag would be even greater, but this is not observed. This is fairly strong evidence that neutrinos do not travel measureably faster than c. For both of these measurements to be correct, either there is some unexplained dependence on the neutrino energy, neutrinos travel faster through rocks than vacuum, or there is some unknown compensating effect that slows supernova neutrinos down.
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"It is only a theory" is a total bullshit statement that has no meaning except to make the person saying it feel smarter.
This vehemence is indicative of the reaction I first mentioned. LOL
Just WHO is attempting to appear clever in this matter? ::)
Nowhere in my comment did I suggest that any ideas be "thrown out", you are getting ahead of yourself I fear.
That they may need to be reconsidered is only logical, anything else is deliberate ignorance.
It does not matter how many decades of experimental evidence there are if new evidence forces a re-evaluation.
Whether this new discovery turns out to be a valid breakthrough or not it remains interesting to see how people react to the mere possibility that any of their cherished notions may need to be altered.
I remain amused. thank you. ;D
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I just watched the CERN live webcast. Great stuff. The archive is not online yet, but I expect it to be available shortly here:
http://cdsweb.cern.ch/collection/Video%20Lectures (http://cdsweb.cern.ch/collection/Video%20Lectures)
I will dig through the arxiv paper when I get the chance -- probably tomorrow.
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Where's DR Cox when you need him?
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While they use photon counting detectors, neutrino detection is not a single photon event, and the SNR is actually quite high.
Yep fair enough. But would you consider 16111 events over a span of ~3 years to be high SNR? That's not a lot!
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"So let me put my money where my mouth is: if the Cern experiment proves to be correct and neutrinos have broken the speed of light, I will eat my boxer shorts on live TV."
I would love to see that. It's small minded people like that that start wars! CERN is to high profile to make an announcement like this without being on firm ground (so to speak). They have put up their hands and said they do not know the answer but would like someone to check the results.If (when) confirmed it will be anew era in physics. By the waywasn't the world supposed to end sometime back due to some testing at CERN?
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Well neutrinos are not somthing detectable in a bunch, some neutrinos are very hard to detect and trace. The detectors are very big. This is somthing that takes years to check and confirm.
Yes, I made that point earlier.
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Greetings EEVBees:
--I is very clear to me from reading some of the comments, that some of you have absolutely no idea what Einstein was getting at. Sheesh. Several of you, notably Ejeffery, and AntiProtonBoy were paying attention during physics class, and are a able to give a cogent explanation.
--I you cannot even give a brief explanation of what General Relativity is, then why the bloody h*ll would you want to opine at all. It is not just "a theory" is is the theory. I now see why some "engineers" think governments can tax "the people" into prosperity.
--I think I know where the error is. I have a friend, who has a friend, whose brother-in-law works at the Gran Sasso facility. According to him, some of the critical equipment was constructed using a cheap Chinese clone, and not a real "Stanley Measuring Tape".
“I do believe that it's the first time in history that fire has ever melted steel." Rosie O'Donnell
Best Regards
Clear Ether
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Homo superior strikes again.
We'll all have to wait and see won't we.
Takes our minds off the wait for the Higgs Boson to reveal itself.
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I can see an application of this: at the moment speed cameras rely on photo flashs to catch motorists exceeding the speed limit on the road but they have the limitation that they cannot catch drivers driving at the speed of light. The nest generation of speed cameras will use those neutrino particles to catch those motorists driving at the speed of light!
;)
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You were not informed correctly:
there is a tunnel from Cern to Gran Sasso labs, at least according to the italian Governmnet:
http://www.istruzione.it/web/ministero/cs230911 (http://www.istruzione.it/web/ministero/cs230911).
The translation (at my best, Google does not work at it's best with politichese , e.g. the Italian used by politics):
Ministry of Education, University and Research
Press Office
Rome, September 23, 2011
Statement by the Minister Mariastella Gelmini
"The discovery at CERN in Geneva and the Institute of Physics is a scientific event of the utmost importance."
I extend my applause and my sincerest congratulations to the authors of a historical experiment. I am deeply grateful to all the Italian researchers who contributed to this event that will change the face of modern physics.
Exceeding the speed of light is a momentous victory for scientific research around the world.
Italy has contributed a sum now estimated at around 45 million euros to the construction of the tunnel between CERN and Gran Sasso Laboratories, through which the experiment took place
In addition, Italy today supports CERN with absolute conviction, through a contribution of more than 80 million euros per year and the events we are experiencing are confirming that it is a correct and far-sighted choice ".
That's all: This lady (who has absolutely no competence in instruction and research but sometimes has problem with the Italian language) has, in the last 3 years, destroyed Italy's public schools and Universities, by reducing funding to public institutes and increasing funding to private institutes, most of them owned by the Catholic Church, in excange for some forgiveness by the high-ranking clergymens for the Prime Minister's personal sins.
To-day the Minister has released another document, asserting that the controversy is ridicoulos: it is evident that the tunnel is the one inside the CERN structure, which means that I'm totally stupid.
I'm tired: how can I get another nationality? Can some forum member guarantee for me?
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Statement by the Minister Mariastella Gelmini
"The discovery at CERN in Geneva and the Institute of Physics is a scientific event of the utmost importance."
I extend my applause and my sincerest congratulations to the authors of a historical experiment. I am deeply grateful to all the Italian researchers who contributed to this event that will change the face of modern physics.
Exceeding the speed of light is a momentous victory for scientific research around the world.
She is totally jumping the gun here.
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You were not informed correctly:
there is a tunnel from Cern to Gran Sasso labs, at least according to the italian Governmnet:
http://www.istruzione.it/web/ministero/cs230911 (http://www.istruzione.it/web/ministero/cs230911).
The italian government can say whetever they want, there is no 730 km long tunnel from CERN to Gran Sasso. There is a tunnel (which also carries car traffic) that provides entrance to the underground lab where the detector resides in order to shield it from the cosmic ray background.
The tunnel is significant because they have accurate survey markers at the ends of the tunnel, but had to use a series of laser triangulations to accurately find the position of the detector underground in order to compute accurate time-of-flight information.
Here is information about their facility:
http://www.lngs.infn.it/lngs_infn/index.htm?mainRecord=http://www.lngs.infn.it/lngs_infn/contents/lngs_en/public/about/ (http://www.lngs.infn.it/lngs_infn/index.htm?mainRecord=http://www.lngs.infn.it/lngs_infn/contents/lngs_en/public/about/)
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Dear Ciccio:
--No doubt you were mislead by the faulty understanding of the journalist. Journalists often have a faulty understanding of physical matters, and frequently this is a help to them in their persuit of policy objectives, but in this case it was probably inadvertent.
--Since on average a neutrino could pass through 27 light years (255264883798176000 meters) of lead before being stopped, a 730 km tunnel is not necessary. All that is needed is a short tunnel at each end of the projected path, so that lasers, in combination with the GPS, can be used to construct an extremely precise geometrical argument for its length. It does not seem likely that the mistake is here, more likely is an intermittent timing error.
--If, in the extremely unlikely case that there is no systematic error, these results indeed will knock everything into a cocked hat.
"World consumption of oil is still going up. If it were possible to keep it rising during the 1970s and 1980s by 5 percent a year as it has in the past, we could use up all the proven reserves of oil in the entire world by the end of the next decade." Jimmy Carter 1977
Best Regards
Clear Ether
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The italian government can say whetever they want, there is no 730 km long tunnel from CERN to Gran Sasso.
I know very well that there is no tunnel from CERN to Gran Sasso.
I got, many years ago, a degree in Nuclear Engineering, and many of my university colleagues worked or still work in one or the other facilities. I visited both of them (years ago).
It's the ministry that does non know it, but says they have payed 45 millions of euros for something that does not exist...
--No doubt you were mislead by the faulty understanding of the journalist.
Sorry, but I was not mislead: the one that was mislead is the Italian minister (or maybe some of her collaborators): the link I've posted is from the official internet site of the Ministry of (dis)Education, University and Research (and it's still there: every Italian newspaper is joking about this, but they leave it on line and don't amend it).
The fact is that my patience is limited, and I cannot accept that my intelligence is constantly insulted by these *****.
Best Regards
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Well, you know, it's obvious that particles cannot travel through 730 km of solid rock ;D There must be a tunnel, it stands to reason... ::)
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The italian government can say whetever they want, there is no 730 km long tunnel from CERN to Gran Sasso.
I know very well that there is no tunnel from CERN to Gran Sasso.
Sorry, I didn't read you post carefully enough.
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Actually, I haven't read the paper yet (and it might go over my head anyway), but one commentator remarked how the earth's surface is an accelerating frame of reference due to its rotation. One presumes the researchers must have allowed for this, since it is so obvious, but even so, can obvious things get overlooked when they are right in front of your nose?
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Dear Ciccio:
--I apologize for missing the ironic nature of your post. I neglected to read the entire quotation of the minister's speech, because I expected it to be stupid and untrue, like most of the things our US cabinet officers say. But it fooled me, it was not only stupid it was unbelievably imbecilic.
--In the US we have a representative from Texas who wondered aloud if the Mars Rover was going to visit the flag the US astronauts left the last time they were there. We have another high official who thinks the US has 57 states, and that they speak Austrian in Austria. So do not feel like the Lone Ranger.
"Does not squirrel crack nuts on bough of tree" Lao Fu
Best Regards
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--In the US we have a representative from Texas who wondered aloud if the Mars Rover was going to visit the flag the US astronauts left the last time they were there.
hahahah, brilliant!
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Greetings EEVBees:
--OK, Erik called it first, no more of topic quotes now that he has got his in. Of course Erik is correct about GHW Bush's speaking ability. Bush was also known for helping the legislature to spend huge amounts of money on federal programs. But let us get back to those neutrions.
"A low voter turnout is an indication of fewer people going to the polls." Al Gore
Best Regards
Clear Ether
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Greetings EEVBees:
sarj, you making alot of redundant text in the database. can you be more direct and deliver your msg in the speed of light? formality is good, but i hate it when looking for information. cheers :D
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I think it makes perfect sense that if you do the experiment underground in the dark you'll get faster-than-light results, because there aren't any light particles to slow things down. Simple.
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I think it makes perfect sense that if you do the experiment underground in the dark you'll get faster-than-light results, because there aren't any light particles to slow things down. Simple.
Light is not the problem here
Why is it that people so often fail to get jokes on the Internet?
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I agree! If It's dark how would the light particles be able to see where they were going? Simples! ;D
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no need smiley. i know it is a joke. Erik... good history recall. i cannot prove nor disprove.
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Dear Mechatrommer:
--I am sorry that you consider salutations (long used in written communications) as waste of space in your database. Please feel free to delete them.
--It comes down I suppose to a matter of taste. Some might consider that a person who used some 2 thousand odd words in his posts on "d*ck size" was wasting space. But not me, unless you bully people or use profanity in a gratuitous and insulting manner, I say "The answer to speech we disagree with is more speech"
"The speed of light is the fastest anything can go relative to the reference of space" Mechatrommer
Best Regards
Clear Ether
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2 thousand odd words in his posts on "d*ck size" was wasting space.
2k words on dick is not a waste compared to 2k of the same repeating word. well, thats my personal taste. agree with you.
"The speed of light is the fastest anything can go relative to the reference of space" Mechatrommer
looks like not anymore. neutrino breaks the rule.
dont take my words too seriously searg, it was just my random thought. i mean no harm ;)
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It is still too premature to conclude that sub atomic particles traveled faster than the speed of light. The Cern group will have to do series of tests that are reproduce able, means repeatedly the exact same result, before even this is accepted. It is still a null result, unless the happens all the time at exactly the same condition. It reminds me to the report of cold fusion in an university at Utah. It did not worked, but the news was excited with cold fusion, two hydrogen atoms to helium plus energy. What about room temperature super conductor, Se Cu, but it needs gases to keep it cool, so no such thing? I spent my time working with a professor on this, when I was struggling with school. We have our vintage analog sine wave HP signal generator. These are all pre mature results.
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Did they find any clues for this strange behavior?
Alexander.
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It is still a null result, unless the happens all the time at exactly the same condition.
if you read the post, they did it repeatadly, what they are suspecting is "systemic error" which error happens everytime the test is conducted. what they are looking for is another experiment with very different setup but getting the same result.
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Why is it that people so often fail to get jokes on the Internet?
<evil grin>
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There was a young lady named Bright,
Whose speed was far faster than light.
She went out one day,
In a relative way,
And returned the previous night!
Neutrinos faster than light - Sixty Symbols (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJ0m13iJw0k#ws)
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Ha! Love it!
There was a young lady named Bright,
Whose speed was far faster than light.
She went out one day,
In a relative way,
And returned the previous night!
Neutrinos faster than light - Sixty Symbols (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJ0m13iJw0k#ws)