Talk:OPERA experiment

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Merge proposal[edit]

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
The result of this discussion was to not merge. --83.89.0.118 (talk) 09:02, 25 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

So far I think we can merge the OPERA neutrino anomaly here until at least one independent confirmation of the finding. Before an independent verification the issue seems to remain within the OPERA experimental framework. Ehud (talk) 21:08, 19 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

  • Oppose. 1) Many sources already discuss this topic as a seperate subject. 2) It would litter the OPERA experiment article with all sorts of quotes and analysis not related to the experimental setup itself. 3) Other anomalies, like the Pioneer anomaly, exists as seperate articles.--83.89.0.118 (talk) 21:17, 19 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. This would overwhelm the OPERA article. Those who are looking for information on OPERA itself will have a hard time finding it. Those looking for information on the apparent faster-than-light result, the majority, will also have a harder time finding it. --Ajoykt (talk) 21:22, 19 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. Most readers are probably more interested in this FTL-anomaly than in the operation of OPERA itself, so this separate article is justified. --D.H (talk) 21:39, 19 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. Daft idea. -- cheers, Michael C. Price talk 14:48, 23 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Superluminal results[edit]

Well, this article is going to need some updating soon. OPERA is about to become either very famous or very INfamous in the physics world.--Grapplequip (formerly LAR) (talk) 23:06, 22 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I added mention of the news in this article. Unfortunately I don't know enough about OPERA (or have time right now) to check what else is out of date in this article, so I've left the "Out of date" tag intact. --Grapplequip (formerly LAR) (talk) 00:03, 23 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

On second thought, as no one has explained why the article is outdated, I've decided to removed the outdated tag. It seems odd to simultaneously have "current event" and "outdated" tags on the article. I'm going to add a current event tag at the top of the article now that information about is in the lead. Note, I have every intention of fixing the info I've added in the article, as well as removing the section in the lead, if this experimental result turns out to be false, which I fully expect to happen. For the moment, however, it is big news.--Grapplequip (formerly LAR) (talk) 00:13, 23 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The paper seems to diagram a "proton beam" traveling all the way to Italy through the Earth. This surely can not be correct, so how are they keeping their clocks up to date with the required accuracy? Hcobb (talk) 16:23, 23 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The beam passes through several hundred kilometers of the Earth's crust. What exactly is your confusion? --OuroborosCobra (talk) 17:08, 23 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Neutrinos can pass right through the Earth, but protons? Hcobb (talk) 18:46, 23 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The section states: "This result has not been detected by previous experiments; for instance, in 2007, Fermilab reported results consistent with neutrinos traveling at lightspeed." This is incorrect, at least the first sentence. While the results were certainly not 6-sigma, they did give a velocity higher than the speed of light:
A total of 473 Far Detector neutrino events was used to measure (v-c)/c = 5.1 +/- 2.9 x 10^-5 (at 68% C.L.).
See also this this science blog: One experiment based out of Chicago, a few years ago, found marginal evidence that neutrinos might move just a tiny bit faster than the speed of light, at 1.000051 (+/- 0.000029) c.
Those results can be called consistent with the speed of light, but that's because it was a low (not even two) sigma event, meaning there's a chance of maybe 3% for these results to occur by accident. DS Belgium (talk) 19:01, 23 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I think most likely is they didn't measure the distance between CERN and OPERA correctly, bearing in mind also that the OPERA lab is deep underground.
Wikipedia articles are about WP:Verifiability, not truth. The truth that the scientist speaking on behalf of Opera was being very conservative in his quote about Fermi isn't very relevant (at 2 sigma). It doesn't change what he said. He claimed that Fermi's results may contradict OPERA's. That he said it is more important than whether or not there actually is a contradiction. He says that there was. --Wragge (talk) 22:32, 23 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Clarification to earlier point: an interpretation by a participant in a WP:SECONDARY source trumps any WP:OR or blog opinions, even/especially when those are based on primary source data. --Wragge (talk) 22:48, 23 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
you are saying that wikipedia rules insist on presenting clearly erroneous statements not merely as quotes, but as facts? And trusting a newspaper more than scientific publications? And a source is less trustworthy than another source telling us what the first source told us? So a third source commenting on the second one would always trump both of them, and so on? How many sources do you want?
Tell me, have you any source that claims the Fermi results didn't show velocities higher than c? The way the article reads now is blatant misleading crap. "Previous experiments have not detected statistically significant faster-than light motion" "measurements were consistent with neutrinos traveling at lightspeed". You know damn well that those results were even more consistent with a higher than c speed. And for the record, I don't believe the results, but wikipedia is supposed to be objective, not choose wording and sources to create a false impression just because the results are likely embarrasing for scientists. DS Belgium (talk) 13:49, 24 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Could the timing be affected by gravitational time dilation? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.80.119.67 (talk) 00:41, 24 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I would think it's possible, sure. However, from what I understand of the design of this experiment and the way gravitational time dilation works, this would cause the beam to appear slower than would be expected (since the beam travels through the earth, putting it through lower gravitational potential) instead of faster. Take this comment for what it is, though: the barely-literate semi-informed ramblings of a physics student who graduated more than 10 years ago. (lol) 206.28.38.227 (talk) 02:10, 24 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I've gone and restored some of the stuff that was removed about CERN/Fermilab/T2K spokesmen's statements. I don't know who removed the quotes to begin with, but if there's an issue, let's talk about it before doing so again, eh? Thanks. Also, I predict this incident is going to require its own article sometime in the not too distant future. Most likely in the same vein as Fleischmann–Pons Cold Fusion article, unless something truly stupendous has occurred. Hopefully it doesn't turn out to be quite so embarassing for OPERA as that was for Fleishchmann and Pons. After all, there're 160 physicists working on OPERA.--Grapplequip (formerly LAR) (talk) 07:17, 24 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I hope that they remembered to measure the straight-line distance between the two cities through the interior of the Earth, instead of the great-circle distance on the surface of the Earth, which is slightly longer. --76.21.41.59 (talk) 21:36, 25 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Could this result mean that neutrinos do not interact with the gravitational field? If so, they would travel through a shorter straight line instead of following the spacetime curvature. Vhilden (talk) 10:29, 27 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Balance and language in the article[edit]

Hi all,

It's clear that taking a level-headed approach is essential in handling the superluminal thing. I was the first to put up news about it in this article yesterday, and I apologize if the tone of my edits was insufficiently skeptical. Some of the revisions made since have actually made the artical seem less skeptical, however, which is why I restored my sentence from yesterday in the end of the lead.

On another note, I noticed that all of the quotes I included from the folks at OPERA and CERN were removed in the superluminal section, even though they were fully cited. I believe those quotes were balanced and worth including, and plan to restore them. I think the inclusion of such quotes will make the article more accessible to the general public, who might have a greater than usual interest in it at the moment. I fully support the detailed, technical language being included as well.--Grapplequip (formerly LAR) (talk) 06:59, 24 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

That's a fair point; after all, this page got 10.9k views yesterday. So I would say now that it's fine if you want to include a representative selection of quotes of various physicists. Apologies for removing them so quickly without a discussion.
For reference, the physics community tends to deal with unexpected announcements by being cautious but skeptical. But it's much harder to figure out reasons for the skepticism if you aren't familiar with the topic or know of contradictory work, and just hear it being a bit sensationalized in the media, after all. Seleucus (talk) 13:39, 24 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Personally, I don't see direct quotations from related physicists a show of insufficient skepticism. If anything, I'd see it as being similar to the statements made by proponents of a fringe theory (for example, quoting Bart Sibrel on the Apollo Moon Landing hoax accusations page). For all intents and purposes, that's what this whole superluminal travel hullabaloo is...a fringe theory that now relies on further scientific work to either debunk or support.
That said, the actual non-quotation article wording does need to remain sufficiently skeptical. This announcement potentially challenges something that's widely accepted as a physical constant, and while it's not necessarily the Einstein-demolishing paradigm shift the Daily Mail would have you believe it's a pretty extraordinary claim and as such requires extraordinary evidence placed under extraordinary scrutiny. 206.28.38.227 (talk) 16:20, 24 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The article seems too sceptical to me and not sufficiently neutral. In particular the section calculating the time difference for neutrinos from supernova SN1987A looks like original research - the result here is based on neutrinos travelling through a few hundred kilometers of the Earth's crust, extrapolating the result to 168,000 light years is a big jump without a reference. This is certainly not a fringe theory, the results have already been checked and repeated over the past three years before being made public. The claim is extraordinary but does not contradict widely accepted physics. There are many papers available discussing the possibility that neutrinos are superluminal particles, including ones referring to SN1987A as supporting evidence. I understand the desire to maintain a healthy level of scepticism, but I think it more likely the media is in overplaying the significance of the result rather than the physicists at the OPERA experiment not being sufficiently thorough. Rattle (talk) 17:02, 24 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Hi all, I essentially agree with the statements made above, though I do want to clarify just a wee bit. In spite of my comparison (see the superluminal results talk section) of this incident to the Fleischmann-Pons "Cold Fusion" incident, I think it is a little premature to start comparing the claims being made here to moon-landing conspiracy theories. There is nothing "fringe" about the science being done here in that sense. From the looks of it, far from making outlandish claims and jumping to conclusions, the CERN-OPERA collaboration scientists are essentially saying "Here we have this totally anomalous measurement, can someone please help us figure out whether it is an experimental error or not?" The language they've used to describe the situation fully accomodates skepticism. This is exactly what they should be doing as scientists. Ereditato and friends may yet turn out to be cranks, but they haven't made any procedural missteps (ethically speaking, not in regards to their experiment) yet. And even if they do turn out to be wrong (which is very, very likely), I doubt their error will prove to more than an honest (if foolish) mistake, rather than the kind of willful falsification or wishful thinking that has characterized so many other, similar incidents in science. I think the honest mistake outcome particularly likely, considering the number of scientists involved in the experiment. I agree that we need to be careful in how we deal with information from mainstream newspapers, who tend to do a terrible job of discussing these things, but we shouldn't shy away from using quotes in those sources if they are from expert scientists. I think we all concur on this, again I just wanted to clarify.--Grapplequip (formerly LAR) (talk) 16:41, 24 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I strenuously object to using quotes, and naming scientists in the body of the text. Encyclopedic writing should report the scientific consensus, and not attribute opinions to particular scientists--especially non-notable scientists. I do not want to get in an edit war, but I will not allow this article to be stunk up with quotes by guys who do not have a Wikipedia article! Speciate (talk) 04:00, 26 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Speciate, I appreciate your concern, and I think I essentially agree with you that the quote you removed is not a very good one. However, discussion between editors here on the talk page is currently addressing that issue (see Talk:OPERA Experiment#OR and Including SN1987A), and at the moment that quote is the best thing we have addressing the point that comparisons between SN1987A observations and those at OPERA may not be meaningful. If you know the quote to be in error scientifically, please explain. Or, if you can find a better source that will provide the same information, please do so.
As regards your point about quotes in general being unencyclopedic: There is no rule on Wikipedia against the inclusion of quotes. In fact, quoting reliable sources is perfectly acceptable here. See WP:MOSQUOTE and WP:QUOTE for more information. Further, there is no rule stating that a person must, as you suggest, "have a wikipedia article" in order to be quoted here. To offer commentary on your point: Such a rule would be a disaster, as scientists are one of the most under-represented groups in biographies here on Wikipedia, and your rule would prevent us from quoting virtually all of them.
Regarding your point about consensus: The section you edited refers to an event about which no consensus has yet emerged. So the best we can do is attempt to provide an honest representation of the opinions being thrown around by relevant, informed and notable persons.
So, please do not remove quotes merely because they are quotes. If you have better quotes, or sourced text you'd like to contribute to replace them, I'm sure we would all appreciate your help, if you are willing to join the discussion. The last thing this article needs right now is edit warring.--Grapplequip (talk) 04:45, 26 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
There is a difference between writing an article for a news outlet and writing an encyclopedia article. That difference is that encyclopedias do not call their local college and ask if there is a prof who is willing to comment. In any case, the article has a much better tone now, with measured statements from groups of scientists. Whoever rewrote the article should be commended. Speciate (talk) 20:21, 28 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Just wanted to say that I think you're being a bit too literal in regards to my above "fringe theory" comment. I'm not directly comparing this to the moon hoax stuff, nor do I think what's being done at the OPERA is in any way "pseudoscience". I was just using the moon hoax stuff as an example of highly contentious subject matter using appropriate quotations from people who are directly related to said subject matter, and my "fringe theory" analogy was a simple illustration that this alleged discovery is not as of yet widely regarded as scientific fact (i.e., it is not definitive proof of superluminal travel and from what I understand with conversations with colleages most currently believe this to be experimental error...but that's what makes scientific discovery fun!).
Anyway, the whole point of this is whether or not including these quotations is Wikipedia:NPOV, and I personally believe it is. All the people directly related with this experiment, while excited about this potential discovery, seem to be remaining appropriately skeptical while the scientific community at large takes a closer look at the data. In fact, the only people who seem to be heavily slanted one way or the other are the media outlets reporting the story. With that in mind, I think actual quotations are fine as long as the views of the secondary sources are kept out of the article since they seem to want to push some kind of "Einstein was wrong" agenda. 206.28.38.227 (talk) 19:08, 24 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
206.28.38.227 Thanks for clarifying. From your the rest of your comment, I didn't quite think you meant to characterize the OPERA situation as "fringe" in the crackpot sense, but I responded as I did just in case, and also took it as an opportunity to clarify that the OPERA scientists seem to be behaving very well, and that I felt the article should therefore quote them as necessary. I suppose my alarm went off a little because you used the term "fringe theory", when no one has actually proposed a theory to explain the events yet. (Except for the few half-baked ruminations from unaffiliated sources that have been reported.) However, I see now that I was taking you too literally. As you describe your position in your latest post, I entirely agree.--Grapplequip (talk) 04:14, 26 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

SN1987A - What is right?[edit]

The article claims with no uncertainty that the neutrinos connected with SN1987A really came from SN1987A, but now I'm not so sure, so I think this article shouldn't be so sure either. The article SN1987A claims that:

At 7:35 a.m. Universal time, Kamiokande II detected 11 antineutrinos, IMB 8 antineutrinos and Baksan 5 antineutrinos, in a burst lasting less than 13 seconds. Approximately three hours earlier, the Mont Blanc liquid scintillator detected a five-neutrino burst, but this is generally not believed to be associated with SN 1987A.

28 antineutrinos are pretty convincing, but why were there happenstance 5 unrelated neutrinos 3 hours earlier? Are antineutrino bursts that common? I think there is some small chance that the 28 antineutrinos may in fact be something else, and that the article shouldn't be so certain in its formulations, that might in fact be interpreted as biased against the OPERA claims. Rursus dixit. (mbork3!) 17:12, 24 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I believe the 24 came from the direction of SN1987A and the 5 earlier ones came from a different direction. Nurg (talk) 05:13, 25 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Can't find any evidence that current technology detectors are as yet able to measure the direction from which a neutrino emanates. Old_Wombat (talk) 10:31, 25 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

OR and Including SN1987A[edit]

Another remark: WP:OR refers to undue synthesis (WP:SYNTH). I think it is not undue to apply simple formulae as in section References part Notes. Simple maths should not be regarded as research at all, so the [original research?] are simply not justified. I'll delete them. Rursus dixit. (mbork3!) 17:27, 24 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The issue is not the formula, it is in using the supernova as contradictory evidence without reference. This result may be a special case which does not apply in a vacuum or over longer distances. Rattle (talk) 17:57, 24 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
You are wrong, there is no room for interpretation. The rule is very clear: "The term 'original research' (OR) is used on Wikipedia to refer to material—such as facts ... for which no reliable, published source exists." Whether or not you deem the calculation "simple math" is not relevant - if there is no verifiable source, it is original research. (WP:SYNTH is merely a special case of WP:OR, not the definition of it.)--83.89.0.118 (talk) 20:00, 24 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Simple equations aren't necessarily OR, but in this case, I think the paragraph that starts "Other previous experiments have contradicted OPERA observations." is OR. I've been reading about 1987A, and it's a not totally straight forward situation. We should allow reliable sources to guide us on it. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) 20:30, 24 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I agree. The statement is certainly correct, but it looks a little odd not having sources there. I think we need to find something that develops and substantiates the comparison to measurements on SN1987A. There's been much made of the fact that the neutrino burst from 1987A arrived at a time consistent with movement at lightspeed, and that no burst is known to have occurred four years before. But I've not seen a reliable source stating something like "no neutrino burst consistent with a supernova event was detected in the time approx. 4 years before SN1987A's observation, as would be expected if the OPERA results were correct." I'm sure somebody's looking over the data on that now if it isn't already a confirmed fact, so perhaps something will soon be available, if it isn't already. Peregrine Fisher, has your reading on the subject indicated that the work has already been done?--Grapplequip (formerly LAR) (talk) 21:00, 24 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Observations are merely data points. It's not right to say that one data point contradicts another. If anything, the data point contradicts some (unsourced) conclusion inferred from the other. But ultimately, both data points must be consistent with (i.e. not contradicting) the same as-of-yet undetermined theoretical model.--83.89.0.118 (talk) 22:55, 24 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The Scienceblog source is pretty good and simple. Here's another source that tells us that OR basically isn't allowed in this case.
'John Beacom of Ohio State University told Discovery News that the comparison to SN1987A neutrinos might not be the best one to make: "It's meaningless without knowing how the speed might vary with neutrino energy, distance, etc."'[1]
So whatever we say it should be sourced. The article I mention's author (I think) did the same calculations we did, and that's the response I just quoted. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) 23:09, 24 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

83.89.0.118, you're right about that. I suppose I was referring more to what I think the editor meant by the statement, i.e. "other experiments have indicated neutrinos don't exceed lightspeed, contradicting the OPERA results' indication that maybe they do." That's the assessment I was calling "certainly correct". But it would be silly of me to assume that everyone is going to interpret that rather ambiguous sentence the same way as me. So I agree, bad sentence, bad use of terminology.

Addressing Peregrine's point: You are correct also. And given that, perhaps for the moment we should simply omit reference/comparison to SN1987A, until such time that some notable physicists start making the comparison in more explicit detail.

Another point however: I think we still need to include something about the fact that previous experiments have indicated that neutrinos do not exceed lightspeed. Going into much detail about it would be a bad idea in the context of the OPERA article, however. So, methinks we should put just enough of a mention of that fact in (if we can find a source for it) to keep the section balanced and leave it at that. Subsequently, if this situation continues to develop and the OPERA results aren't quickly proven erroneous, we should give the OPERA Affair it's own article (I'm not really suggesting we call it that!) and discuss conflicting evidence in more detail there.--Grapplequip (talk) 23:57, 24 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I've tacked a [citation needed] on the formulation used under Faster-than-light#Time_of_flight_of_neutrinos and added Peregrine's quote above about why the comparison is inadequate.--83.89.0.118 (talk) 00:30, 25 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The initial objection to the inclusion of the 1987A data was based on Wikipedia policy, OR, and SYN were mentioned. Since multiple sources can now be found for all of this, I'm concerned that we are moving away from WP:V, and policy. If the Discovery Channel publishes something, then it is notable, although not necessarily scientifically reputable. To keep that material off this page, somebody has to give a better reason than WP:OR, or WP:SYN, which clearly no longer apply. --Wragge (talk) 02:36, 25 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Instead of deleting the material outright on legalistic grounds of WP:V, the person should improve the sourcing of it or leave someone else the chance to do it. The OPERA team refers to SN1987A as a previous result themselves, thus it is silly to pretend that we should not.--83.89.0.118 (talk) 02:58, 25 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Plenty of sources discuss it. It is not uncontroversial. Therefore, we should use sources instead of our own calculations.
I don't have time/am too lazy to add the exact same info from reliable sources right now, but hopefully someone else will add it. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) 03:08, 25 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
So far the best summary of the argument I've found is here.--83.89.0.118 (talk) 03:46, 25 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
That's a great one. If you could summarize it and ad a link, that would be great. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) 04:07, 25 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

While I agree that a discussion of SN1987A is relevant to the OPERA/neutrino anomaly situation, (though not necessarily important enough to include here) removing the unsourced text and leaving only this-

"According to physicist John Beacom of Ohio State University, a comparison between SN 1987A and the OPERA anomaly is "meaningless without knowing how the speed might vary with neutrino energy, distance, etc."

-Turns the whole comparison into a non-sequitur. We need to discuss the fact that the comparison is being made before refuting it, otherwise we have a "no cannibalism in the royal navy" error. With that in mind, I'm going to remove the remaining reference to SN1987A and suggest we start from scratch. (Before accusing me of editing warring, please read on.) First let's decide whether SN1987A should be included in this article at all, and if we decide it should be, let's draft the statement about it here before pasting it into the article body. That way we won't have constant cutting and editing going on that reduces the article to incoherence. Then, once we've done that, we can utilize that consensus to reduce future destabilizing edits. How about it?--Grapplequip (talk) 06:58, 25 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps it's best to wait a few days until the scientists have munched over the argument a bit. Then it will be clearer how everything fits together.--83.89.0.118 (talk) 07:20, 25 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed. My 2c; I think as SN1987a is mentioned in the OPERA paper it should be mentioned here, and as this article is about the OPERA experiment the mention should at least start with how they interpret the observation. The original text is "At much lower energy, in the 10 MeV range, a stringent limit of |v-c|/c < 2×10-9 was set by the observation of (anti) neutrinos emitted by the SN1987A supernova", they cite [1]. I would welcome interpretation from subject experts (which I am not), but my take is they say the supernova observation puts a limit on how much lower energy neutrinos than those observed in OPERA might exceed the velocity of light by. Other responses to the experiment should follow this, but more general discussion on faster than light neutrinos should go in the Superluminal article and linked out to. Rattle (talk) 12:03, 25 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I've tried adding this again: [2].--83.89.0.118 (talk) 17:23, 25 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The current discussion of SN1987A seems OK to me. (Though it may still be debatable whether it is relevant to the OPERA article. Indisputably it is relevant in the section on neutrinos in the faster-than-light article, but here, I'm not sure.) The main problem with the faster than light section now is that it is rather unfocused and under-written. I'll work on this issue.--Grapplequip (talk) 22:07, 25 September 2011 (UTC)--Grapplequip (talk) 22:07, 25 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Ideally, I'd prefer a seperate article (similarly to Pioneer anomaly and Flyby anomaly). If the measurement stands up to the first few weeks/months of intense global scrutiny, I see no reason to not break it out of this article.--83.89.0.118 (talk) 23:13, 25 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I agree. We'll see where things stand in the weeks ahead.--Grapplequip (talk) 23:50, 25 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

References

  1. ^ K. Hirata et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 58 (1987) 1490; R. M. Bionta et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 58 (1987) 1494; M. J. Longo, Phys. Rev. D 36 (1987) 3276

General Sourcing[edit]

Hi all,

I know that the little details of OPERA aren't really why this article is generating so much interest right now, but I just happen to have noticed that almost nothing in this article is sourced outside of the section about the time-of-flight anomaly. If anyone has time, we definitely need to source this article. I'll try to work on it a bit tomorrow as well.--Grapplequip (talk) 07:17, 25 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

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Term "Neutrino"[edit]

The term "neutrino" is commonly used to mean electron-neutrino, muon-neutrino, tau-neutrino, even muon/tau-neutrino both collectively and individually.

However in experimentation it is often necessary draw distinctions, for example light wave or light particle.

The SN1987A observations involved photons and electron-neutrinos travelling some considerable distance and arriving about the same time (in astronomical scale). In 1987 electron-neutrinos were the only neutrinos being talked about, so just "neutrinos" sufficed. The following year the 1988 Nobel Prize was awarded to the discovery of new types of neutrinos. Despite this, CERN, OPERA and CNRS's own recent publicity still seem to prefer a generalisation of "neutrino".

The OPERA experiment involved muon-neutrinos and tau-neutrinos. The characteristics of these particles are different as apparently are the various observations down the years. I propose therefore, that the time has now come to make this important distinction in Wiki articles and this article in particular should be re-written to make it know extactly what type (or even "flavour") of neutrino is being talked about. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.109.179.93 (talk) 10:32, 25 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

From what I can see, pretty much every use of the word "neutrino" in the article is immediately preceded with the type of neutrino being discussed already. I fail to see any ambiguity here. 206.28.38.227 (talk) 15:30, 25 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Really poor reportage[edit]

this story seems to really cross the line into bad reporting and hyperbole, and uninformed editorializing. I am concerned that this story was the #1 link on this event at the Google News Aggregator today. I think a section showing sources criticizing uninformed reportage on this would be good, if there are any respectable scientists or journalists criticizing the bad reporting. (i have a problem with International Business Times being an apparently unreliable source).Mercurywoodrose (talk) 15:15, 25 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Ugh. This is exactly the type of "Einstein was wrong"-pushing media agenda I'd mentioned in the above quotation discussion. It seems as if various media sources really, really want our current understanding of the physical universe to be proven incorrect somehow. Not sure if it's just an attempt to make a hard-to-swallow subject palpable to the general public or what, but it's definitely annoying. This quote is particularly disturbing: "If proved correct, this exotic particle called neutrino that is 60 nanoseconds quicker than light will establish the fact that humans can travel back in time." Seriously?
I'd be a bit wary of adding any of this type of "uninformed reportage" to the article, even if it's just to show how ridiculous it is. Wouldn't any mention of these fall under Wikipedia:Npov#Due_and_undue_weight? 206.28.38.227 (talk) 15:26, 25 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Nevermind uninformed, that article is straight up irresponsible journalism.(!!!) I completely agree that much of the reporting on this incident has been assinine. But as far as including something about "uninformed reportage", I think such a section would only be called for if we were making an article specifically about this incident. Here, we're merely summarizing the incident as it relates to OPERA, and so it isn't appropriate, methinks, to go into some kind of hermeneutic meta-analysis of the press coverage in this article. Further, if we did include such a section, we would have to do it through quotes from notable and reliable sources discussing the problem of irresponsible coverage, otherwise we'd be transgressing WP:OR and WP:SYN. At the moment, it doesn't seem enough such commentary is available to justify such a section. So I agree with 206.28.38.227, and think it's best to avoid mentioning it entirely. Let's just use good and/or useful sources and leave the junk out.--Grapplequip (talk) 20:14, 25 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Meta source[edit]

Digging around for explanations and counterarguments I think the following well informed blog link is suitable for editors to read:

viXra log: Can Neutrinos be Superluminal? Ask OPERA!

The blog seems to be pretty skeptical, but delivers arXiv links to possible explanations, such as "neutrinos really are tachyons", and then "neutrinos are temporarily able to shortcut outside our 3D material universe bran under the influence of gravity". The SN1987A is often mentioned, but the simple maths of a simple extrapolation of the OPERA discrepancy to the scale of the distance between that supernova and us, is not so simple anymore. If as some theories claim, neutrinos jump outside our universe, then the discrepancy cannot be extrapolated by multiplying with the distance, if on the other hand neutrinos are tachyons, then high energy neutrinos from SN1987A should go slower than low energy neutrinos from the OPERA. Rursus dixit. (mbork3!) 17:16, 25 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Here is a link for the SN1987A argument, should anyone consider including it. Rursus dixit. (mbork3!) 17:24, 25 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Source for many error types, notably: distance errors, time-of-flight errors, and errors in the timing of neutrino production. Rursus dixit. (mbork3!) 16:34, 26 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I took advantage of the Wired source in the lead, so it is now in the reflist. I'll put it to additional use elsewhere in the article.--Grapplequip (talk) 19:24, 26 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Distance between CERN and Gran Sasso[edit]

Could it be that the distance between CERN in Switzerland and Gran Sasso in Itally is no longer 732km?, and now is 731.999... km. Earth crust moves all the time, so it may be possible that the sensors moved.

Lastly, if c is constant, and nothing can surpass c, then either we have a slower second or a shorter meter.macross (talk) 21:25, 25 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

While reminding you that Wikipedia is not a forum, tectonic movements has been taken into account in the measurement.--83.89.0.118 (talk) 21:42, 25 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I thought of plate movement, and also gravity of the Sun and/Moon deforming the shape of the Earths crust slightly like tidal effect. I couldn't find much searching on google. But the time anomaly was 1/40,000 which means the particals would be about 18.3 metres ahead of light after 732km, (on a video on youtube they say 20 metres) or the two locations would have to be 18.3 metres closer than they thought. After reading I found the fastest tectonic plate movement is thought to be around 10cm a year; and the greatest Earth tide is 38.5cm. Neither of these could make two locations 18 metres closer in a short space of time. Carlwev (talk) 10:34, 5 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

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Fargion paper[edit]

Currently, the page includes a paper by Fargion regarding the neutrino speed claim [3]. Having looked over the paper, I'm strongly inclined towards removing it, and hence I'm explaining my decision here.

  • The argument is a bit of a straw man. The main argument of the author (the one mentioned in the article) is a basic one - essentially, he assumes that neutrinos are tachyons (that is, they always travel faster than light), and applies the standard special relativity equation to show that that doesn't work (in short, in special relativity, tachyons travel faster as they lose energy.) The problem with that is nobody is claiming that neutrinos are tachyons - indeed, that's one of the things newspaper articles did get right in their "Was Einstein Wrong?" articles. The only way that this result could be true would be for neutrinos to be using some sort of loophole, or Einstein to be wrong.
  • The paper is poorly written. I realize that the author is of the University at Rome and not a native speaker, but the informal unscientific tone coupled with various spelling/grammar mistakes makes it difficult to understand and does not help its credibility. In addition, I'm not familiar with the author's work, but a brief look through arXiv shows that his papers tend to only rarely be cited, and even then, only by himself.

I'm a skeptic of the result (as are most other physicists), but I really don't think including this article does any service to readers Seleucus (talk) 02:17, 1 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It seems like you took out a reference that you didn't mean to. Discover News or something. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) 02:24, 1 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks! Added them back in Seleucus (talk) 02:51, 1 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Including studies in response to the FTL result[edit]

Hi all,

While I'm as eager to include skeptical info about this result as anyone, I question the wisdom of including response studies in the article at this early stage, especially if we're including any kind of explication of their conclusions. For one thing, these articles are not WP:NOTABLE, as they haven't yet had any time at all to be cited by anyone. Further, since we're drawing from the articles as primary sources, it seems to me that we're transgressing WP:OR rules by including detailed discussions of them. If the validity of their results were discussed in secondary sources, then we could have that discussion, perhaps. But as is, even if these articles are by notable physicists such as Sheldon Glashow, we have little business making use of them. There is some argument for inclusion by saying that these articles can be considered secondary source discussions of the opera result, but then we can only include them as such, and must refrain from commenting on their accuracy or validity until an independent source does so, or a consensus assessment of the whole FTL result emerges. With this in mind, I'm going to remove the section which seems problematic to me, and reduce the mention of such articles to a single sentence. Please let me know if you disagree.--Grapplequip (talk) 21:37, 2 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

== Re: Including studies ...

I agree. I don't think there is any consensus on what could be wrong with the experiment, or whether there is anything wrong (other than the unlikeliness of an extraordinary result). I think the page should reflect that. A consensus on the experiment being right can emerge only if it gets verified. The reverse consensus requires somebody pointing out something wrong with what the Opera people did, and nobody so far has. If we are going to cite and source the arxiv.org studies, we will have to be careful they don't reflect just one person's opinion (arxiv.org isn't exactly peer-reviewed). Ajoykt (talk) 22:28, 2 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The content of the article by Glashow is a straightforward application of the theory of Lorentz invariance breaking developed by Glashow and Coleman in [ this article], and that article has been cited more than 700 times. So, I think we should explain the argument here in more detail, as it is based on a well developed field of physics. Count Iblis (talk) 22:38, 2 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Apparently, it isn't so well-developed as someone has now published a rebuttal of Coleman and Glashow's "straightforward application of the theory of Lorentz invariance breaking". This illustrates why a source shouldn't be considered divine truth just because someone wrapped it in academic formatting and put it up on arXiv.--95.209.255.206 (talk) 01:38, 7 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Glad to hear you agree, Ajoykt. Count Iblis, I don't think anyone wants to dispute the validity of Glashow and Cohen's conclusion, and in hindsight, I see the Glashow article deserves a bit more weight in the article, perhaps. However, I believe we should give it that weight without going into too much detail, as complex, multi-paragraph refutations of the FTL thing are beyond the purview of the OPERA Experiment article. (As evidenced by the ongoing bloat of the FTL anomaly section in relation to the rest of the article.) We should mention and give due credence to such refutations, even go so far as saying "the whole idea of FTL neutrinos is bogus" once we have enough sources saying so. Perhaps we can compromise by including single sentence summaries of such papers by notable physicists in a dedicated paragraph? It would be particularly good for the article if we include all of that in the same paragraph as the discussion of SN1987A and so on, and restructure the discussion so we're not going back and forth in an "OPERA said, then other physicists said, then OPERA said..." way. In the future, as this whole situation gets sorted out, I think we ought to move the entire discussion of the FTL anomaly to its own article, and leave only a small paragraph here, as has already been done at Faster than light#Time of flight of neutrinos. Such a move would give us room to discuss such refutations to our hearts' content. (Though I don't think the time for that move is yet at hand.) Anyway, Count, if you have text which you'd like to put in, I won't take exception. But be prepared for the possibility of my trimming it and fusing it into a single paragraph with the other counter-evidence material.--Grapplequip (talk) 23:19, 2 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Perhaps I'm way off base here, but shouldn't these types of in-depth discussions regarding the analysis of the event be reserved for a separate article specifically for said event (like 2011 OPERA superluminal neutrino detection event or something)? I'm growing concerned that this article is becoming too much about an event that occurred at OPERA than OPERA itself. It's kinda like finding a trenchant analysis of morbid obesity on the Little Chef page. 206.28.38.227 (User ) 05:28, 3 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
My feelings exactly 206.28.38.227. See my comments above. However, I still doubt that the subject is notable enough for its own article. I think we should wait a little longer, and see if any more scholarship is done in the next month or so.--Grapplequip (talk) 07:30, 3 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Ah, you did mention something similar above. I'll admit to a bit of skimming instead of reading in detail, and for that I apologize...I should know better. I'm still having difficulty finding quality, well-sourced information about the experiment itself in order to flesh out this article though. Almost everything I'm coming up with is data regarding the experiments being done there and almost nothing about the facility itself. An odd situation to be in...the scope is greater than a single article, but there's insufficient information to flesh out two articles at this point. I'm really hoping that this event helps to spotlight the facility itself so we can get more sources. Maybe we might have to look into Italian and Swiss media sources? The English-speaking world seems to have ignored this subject now that the novelty of their horrible "OMG, people can travel through time!!1!" journalism has worn off. 206.28.38.227 (talk) 15:24, 5 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The experiment is detailed in a PhD thesis - http://operaweb.lngs.infn.it:2080/Opera/ptb/theses/theses/Brunetti-Giulia_phdthesis.pdf. She describes the experiment in detail. There is then the arxiv.org paper of the OPERA team: http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1109/1109.4897.pdf — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ajoykt (talk • contribs) 20:43, 5 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Removal of all preprints[edit]

We now have the rather strange situation that we don't have any references to expert opinions expressed in these preprints, but we do have many statements in much more unreliable news media, most of which are gut feelings expressed by a few notable physicists in the hours and days after the announcement of the OPERA results. Count Iblis (talk) 17:59, 5 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I think we can cite both Cohen and Glashow (C&G) and Ehrlich's answering of their objection: http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1110/1110.0736.pdf. While Ehrlich is not a Nobel winner, he is a GMU professor with a Princeton Experimental Physics PhD with a background in neutrino experiments, and his argument is clear even to a non-physicist (perhaps, more to those less into theory): the detected energy reported by Opera is more a random sample of what was generated at the source, and it is possible the speed of the neutrinos varied from slightly over c to well over c. Only those well over c (greater than 20 ppm) would suffer from significant C&G energy attrition. Ajoykt (talk) 20:32, 5 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Why in the world were the preprints removed? Those were the highest-quality sources available! Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 20:41, 5 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
What's "high-quality" about a bunch of unreviewed internet documents? Anyway, I removed the unsupported claim from the sentence.--79.138.230.169 (talk) 21:50, 5 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The arxives.org physics section is not totally unreviewed - it just isn't peer reviewed. One has to be a bonafide physicist to post there. And there are no anonymous posts allowed. And, yes, considering the visibility of this issue, that means reputations are at stake. Check the authors - these are professional physicists, theoretical and experimental physicists, not people with nothing else to do. BTW, what is "unsupported" about the claim some people have supported the OPERA results? The Cohen & Glashow article is a preprint on arxive.org. If we quote that, why can't we quote its refutation, published in the same place? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ajoykt (talk • contribs) 22:47, 5 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Please try familiarizing yourself with Wikipedia's guidelines before engaging in these lengthy edit wars. "Sources should directly support the information as it is presented in an article". This means that when you write that "someone has been receptive", then you have to be able to WP:CITE an article stating that exact same thing practically verbatim. Linking to a bunch of unreviewed, unedited papers and saying "there's a 'receptive' paper in there somewhere, honest" is not directly supporting the claim. If you are making a claim "not directly and explicitly supported by the source, you are engaging in original research".[4] — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.209.255.206 (talk) 23:58, 6 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I support including the preprint sources, as long as you directly link to the receptive ones (and check the authors are reliable) rather than simply linking to a list. Seleucus (talk) 00:04, 7 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Paraphrasing a specific preprint is legitimate, yes. Whether or not the preprint is 'receptive' is a matter of WP:OPINION. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.209.255.206 (talk) 00:19, 7 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

new page?[edit]

should the superliminal nuetrino results have a new page? after all, its a pretty important results. also should suggestions as to why this happened be included as a new section-thats probably what most people visiting the page are looking for. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Yair1234 (talk • contribs) 20:39, 6 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I propose/welcome/invite drafting the new page here.--Anders Feder (talk) 00:01, 8 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It became a new article: OPERA neutrino anomaly. --D.H (talk) 16:26, 9 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

GPS time sources and monitoring[edit]

It seems a bit strange. From my experience, in industrial setups, monitoring is used to detect problems in components.

Plus, GPS receivers dedicated to clock synchronization usually provide easy ways to read out their state of synchronization with the time source - in this case, GPS.

So how did this happen? In a setup as complex as this, did they go without industrial-style monitoring?

Sbohmann (talk) 20:14, 7 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

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