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Neutrinos Faster Than Light? Maybe Homestake Lab Will Investigate!

Last updated on 2012.02.22

Dr. Newquist provides a thorough account of the National Science Foundation's withdrawal of funding from the science lab South Dakota is trying to develop in the old Homestake Mine in Lead. The Deep Underground Science and Engineering Laboratory may not be dead, but it has been rechristened the Sanford Underground Research Facility. The lab has "substantially reduced" both its blueprint for workspace and the range of experiments it will conduct in that space.

Still on the Lead lab's research list: neutrinos. Perhaps our Black Hills scientists will get to work on the shocking results from their European counterparts at CERN, who have announced that they have caught neutrinos breaking Einstein's cosmic speed limit.

The difference in neutrino speed and light speed isn't much, just 20 parts per million over light's speed of 186,282.397 miles per second. If CERN's results are right, if I were to fire a laser and a neutrino beam from the Spearfish airport to the Madison airport, the neutrino beam would cover the 334 miles just 0.022 nanoseconds faster than the laser. (Neutrinos can travel straight through dirt, rock, and pretty much everything else, but for the laser, we'd have to either dig a tunnel or put the laser emitter and receiver on towers sufficiently tall to overcome the Earth's curvature. Darn science, always so complicated!)

Beating the speed of light by a fraction of a nanosecond may be no big deal, but Einstein's theory of relativity is based on the assumption that nothing can exceed the speed of light, not even by the smallest fraction, not even for a moment. Reaching the speed of light gets tangled up in moving infinite mass with infinite energy; getting beyond that just doesn't happen. If neutrinos can break through that limit, then maybe it's "game on!" for warp drive!

It would be exciting for scientists in the Black Hills to be part of the investigation of this potentially cosmos-shaking discovery. However, as Mr. Kurtz points out, every penny we spend on particle accelerators could also be spent on cleaning up the toxic mess left unremediated by Barrick Gold in Lead.

Update 2012.02.22 16:20 CST: Mystery solved? Various reports say that the faster-than-light result may have come from a loose cable. The obvious response: starship captains and other commuters should all loosen their cables.

11 Comments

  1. Michael Black 2011.09.23

    I am very skeptical of this claim. The precision required to measure such a small variation is speed is incredible.

  2. Anne 2011.09.23

    As the press release carefully states: independent measurements are needed before the effect can either be refuted or firmly established.

    That process of reduplication and verification is called science.

  3. tonyamert 2011.09.23

    Hello Michael,

    We routinely measures such quantities to a very high degree of accuracy. In my lab for example we frequently operate on the femtosecond time scale. Measuring pico or nano seconds is trivial. So there is no doubt in my mind that we can measure both the distances and times without a problem to compute the velocity very accurately.

    Now with that said, I believe their problem is their underlying theory of "when" the neutrino's are generated. They are being generated by a complex series of subatomic interactions. I.E. they don't have a machine where they can push a button and magically generate a neutrino beam like we generate light when we turn on an LED for instance. I would bet that what is happening here is that they are assuming one set of interactions is occuring (and remember, this is subatomic so this is only true in a statistical sense) while in fact their probability functions are slightly off and some other interaction is occuring to which improperly skews their measurement of when they are generating the neutrino's. So from a basic physics view I am skeptical.

    Secondly, there are a number of stellar phenomena that generate vast quantities of neutrinos (super nova's for example) which we routinely detect. If neutrinos were faster than the speed of light over interstellar distances we would detect neutrino bursts years before seeing the light generated by the phenomena. I know of no such observation where a neutrino burst was detected without a corresponding stellar event. So also, from our historical data, FTL neutrinos have not been observed.

  4. Douglas Wiken 2011.09.23

    So much for my lousy "I think that I shall never see a particle moving faster than c."

  5. Stan Gibilisco 2011.09.23

    When I moved to Lead in 2004, I had no idea that plans existed for any sort of scientific project here. I came only because the housing was affordable (translation: cheap), the taxes were low (relatively), and I could live anywhere I wanted, consistent with my limited income from out of state.

    Now, however, as a "science writer," I have a keen interest in the fate of the Sanford Lab project. It appears that the funding for the so-called DUSEL (Deep Underground Science and Engineering Lab) will not materialize as we, here in Lead, have hoped for so long. See:

    http://www.dusel.org/

    As a fiscal conservative, I can see the need to make cuts to government spending. But as a resident of Lead, I have an interest in DUSEL. The left and right sides of my brain (or, if you prefer, the head and the heart) clash once again!

    Go ahead and cut, but don't cut me. Go ahead and tax, but don't tax me. That's what the voices in my skull want to say. However, as an aspiring enlightened person, I can shut them up by swimming a mile at the Deadwood Rec Center's beautiful indoor pool, funded, apparently, with local dollars, a great blessing as Lead's pool has closed because of -- whether the city will admit it or not -- limited funds.

    Maybe we can justify funding DUSEL if we can figure out a way to use it to invent a new way to efficiently and cheaply and completely blow the whole world to smithereens.

    Who cares whether anything can go faster than light or not? (Well, I do, but I'm just a geek who sleeps all day and sits around spewing out equations all night.)

  6. Mike Stunes 2011.09.24

    Speaking of measurement accuracy, it's interesting to note that in their paper, you can see that their reference GPS beacons very clearly show continental drift (on the order of centimeters per year). Just thought you all might find that interesting.

  7. David Newquist 2011.09.24

    The presentation at which the measurement of neutrino speed was announced was actually an invitation for other scientists and facilities to further analyze and explain what was measured during the experiment. This was a side issue resulting from another experiment.

    Perhaps what is significant about this for the DUSEL is that while the Homestake proposal was being stalled because of Barrick Gold's antics in turning off the pumps, the experiments that could have been scheduled there went offshore, like our economy. The CERN experiment announced above was done itn collaboration with the Gran Sasso lab, which is now the largest underground lab in the world. Fermilab is collaborating on neutrino research with SNOLAB in Canada. SNOLAB is the 6,800 level of the working Creighton Mine. Workers have to go through an elaborate ritual of donning mine safety gear to get to the lab, then go through a decontamination procedure of shedding all clothing worn while getting to the lab, showering, and putting on sanitized clothing to keep the lab clean and free of any dust that could interfere with detection and measurement experiments. But they have been doing that and going ahead with the science while the Sanford group has been dreaming and chattering away about economic development.

    Politics has trumped science, and the U.S. has apparently relinquished another area of leadership in science to other parts of the world.

  8. caheidelberger Post author | 2011.09.25

    Tony: thanks for that explanation and your hypothesis on CERN's possible error. Very interesting!

    David: it's dismaying to think that our state isn't really interested in science, just the economic development surrounding it. Our misplaced priorities appear to have cost us the chance to benefit from both.

    Stan: at least you recognize and verbalize the inherent tension between your political views and your local interest. I wish our governor and Republican Congresspeople would be as honest in trying to resolve their contradications.

Comments are closed.