[Vision2020] Baffling CERN Results Show Neutrinos Faster Than Light Speed

Ted Moffett starbliss at gmail.com
Wed Sep 28 11:04:52 PDT 2011


I agree that belief in God and in the scientific theory of evolution
are not necessarily mutually exclusive.

But as I'm sure you and most others know, some Christians, maybe
others following other religions, believe God created homo sapiens
whole as we are, not through a process of evolution from other
organisms.  Thus to insist homo sapiens evolved from other organisms
is to deny God's direct creation of humans, and can imply that God is
not necessary for humans to exist.  Evolution explains homo sapiens
existence without necessarily requiring a God for our creation, which
is why some view evolution as "atheist."

So called creation "science" argues that evolution cannot explain homo
sapien's existence, not as purely a matter of faith, but from a
scientific argument.  It is confounding to be confronted by those who
argue vehemently against the credibility of the institutions of
science, who then subversively pivot and claim the methods of science
as their own to undermine well considered scientific theory, such as
evolution.

And the arguments they put forward, supported by a long list of PhDs,
who present complex scientific appearing arguments to dismantle
evolution science, no
doubt convince many that indeed evolution is a flawed scientific
theory, in some sense.

This reminds me of the pseudo-scientific arguments against
anthropogenic global warming promoted aggressively in media, Internet
etc. that also convince many that climate science is fundamentally
flawed, as represented by the US National Academy of Sciences, or the
Goddard Institute for Space Studies, both of which present a large
body of compelling peer reviewed science, that indicates a very high
probability humans are dramatically altering Earth's climate, the
magnitude of which will continue to increase as long as human CO2
emissions continue to increase atmospheric CO2 level.

There appears to be some connection in the manner of thinking of many
religious fundamentalists who insist both evolution and anthropogenic
global warming are scientifically flawed theories.

Below from the Discovery Institute is the petition criticizing
evolution, signed by numerous PhDs:

http://www.discovery.org/

A Scientific dissent from Darwinism:

http://www.dissentfromdarwin.org/

Download the list of those who signed the petition:

http://www.discovery.org/scripts/viewDB/filesDB-download.php?command=download&id=660
------------------------------------------
Vision2020 Post: Ted Moffett

On 9/24/11, Donovan Arnold <donovanjarnold2005 at yahoo.com> wrote:

> Evolution is not an atheistic theory. It is a theory strongly supported by
> empirical data. There is nothing in evolution that states there is no God or
> there is a God anymore than the theory of gravity is atheistic. Scientific
> method cannot prove there is or is not a God, it is impartial. Agnostic is
> the only belief system supported by empirical data. Atheism is a faith based
> system, just like all religions. The only difference is that they have faith
> that God doesn't exist instead of that he does.
>
> Donovan Arnold
>
> From: Ted Moffett <starbliss at gmail.com>
> To: Moscow Vision 2020 <vision2020 at moscow.com>
> Sent: Saturday, September 24, 2011 1:45 PM
> Subject: [Vision2020] Baffling CERN Results Show Neutrinos Faster Than Light
> Speed
>
> Warp nine, captain!
>
> Given anthropogenic global warming is a hoax, promoted by "socialist
> European scientists"
> http://www.lahontanvalleynews.com/article/20070207/Opinion/102070038
> along with Darwin's atheist theory of evolution, the deniers of the
> credibility of science may pounce on this recent faster than light
> speed finding to declare that Einstein's theory of relativity is a
> fraud...
>
> Governor Perry, in his presidential bid, can hold more prayer rallys
> to promise the hoi polloi the absolute certainty of God, unlike the
> world of science that does not offer absolute unquestioning certainty
> on anything empirical.... Not that Perry would phrase it that way, of
> course.
>
> http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2011/sep/22/faster-than-light-particles-neutrinos
>
> Faster than light particles found, claim scientists
>
> Particle physicists detect neutrinos travelling faster than light, a
> feat forbidden by Einstein's theory of special relativity
>
> Ian Sample, science correspondent guardian.co.uk,
> Thursday 22 September 2011 18.32 EDT
>
> It is a concept that forms a cornerstone of our understanding of the
> universe and the concept of time – nothing can travel faster than the
> speed of light.
>
> But now it seems that researchers working in one of the world's
> largest physics laboratories, under a mountain in central Italy, have
> recorded particles travelling at a speed that is supposedly forbidden
> by Einstein's theory of special relativity.
>
> Scientists at the Gran Sasso facility will unveil evidence on Friday
> that raises the troubling possibility of a way to send information
> back in time, blurring the line between past and present and wreaking
> havoc with the fundamental principle of cause and effect.
>
> They will announce the result at a special seminar at Cern – the
> European particle physics laboratory – timed to coincide with the
> publication of a research paper (pdf) describing the experiment.
>
> Researchers on the Opera (Oscillation Project with Emulsion-tRacking
> Apparatus) experiment recorded the arrival times of ghostly subatomic
> particles called neutrinos sent from Cern on a 730km journey through
> the Earth to the Gran Sasso lab.
>
> The trip would take a beam of light 2.4 milliseconds to complete, but
> after running the experiment for three years and timing the arrival of
> 15,000 neutrinos, the scientists discovered that the particles arrived
> at Gran Sasso sixty billionths of a second earlier, with an error
> margin of plus or minus 10 billionths of a second.
>
> The measurement amounts to the neutrinos travelling faster than the
> speed of light by a fraction of 20 parts per million. Since the speed
> of light is 299,792,458 metres per second, the neutrinos were
> evidently travelling at 299,798,454 metres per second.
>
> The result is so unlikely that even the research team is being
> cautious with its interpretation. Physicists said they would be
> sceptical of the finding until other laboratories confirmed the
> result.
>
> Antonio Ereditato, coordinator of the Opera collaboration, told the
> Guardian: "We are very much astonished by this result, but a result is
> never a discovery until other people confirm it.
>
> "When you get such a result you want to make sure you made no
> mistakes, that there are no nasty things going on you didn't think of.
> We spent months and months doing checks and we have not been able to
> find any errors.
>
> "If there is a problem, it must be a tough, nasty effect, because
> trivial things we are clever enough to rule out."
>
> The Opera group said it hoped the physics community would scrutinise
> the result and help uncover any flaws in the measurement, or verify it
> with their own experiments.
>
> Subir Sarkar, head of particle theory at Oxford University, said: "If
> this is proved to be true it would be a massive, massive event. It is
> something nobody was expecting.
>
> "The constancy of the speed of light essentially underpins our
> understanding of space and time and causality, which is the fact that
> cause comes before effect."
>
> The key point underlying causality is that the laws of physics as we
> know them dictate that information cannot be communicated faster than
> the speed of light in a vacuum, added Sarkar.
>
> "Cause cannot come after effect and that is absolutely fundamental to
> our construction of the physical universe. If we do not have
> causality, we are buggered."
>
> The Opera experiment detects neutrinos as they strike 150,000 "bricks"
> of photographic emulsion films interleaved with lead plates. The
> detector weighs a total of 1300 tonnes.
>
> Despite the marginal increase on the speed of light observed by
> Ereditato's team, the result is intriguing because its statistical
> significance, the measure by which particle physics discoveries stand
> and fall, is so strong.
>
> Physicists can claim a discovery if the chances of their result being
> a fluke of statistics are greater than five standard deviations, or
> less than one in a few million. The Gran Sasso team's result is six
> standard deviations.
>
> Ereditato said the team would not claim a discovery because the result
> was so radical. "Whenever you touch something so fundamental, you have
> to be much more prudent," he said.
>
> Alan Kostelecky, an expert in the possibility of faster-than-light
> processes at Indiana University, said that while physicists would
> await confirmation of the result, it was none the less exciting.
>
> "It's such a dramatic result it would be difficult to accept without
> others replicating it, but there will be enormous interest in this,"
> he told the Guardian.
>
> One theory Kostelecky and his colleagues put forward in 1985 predicted
> that neutrinos could travel faster than the speed of light by
> interacting with an unknown field that lurks in the vacuum.
>
> "With this kind of background, it is not necessarily the case that the
> limiting speed in nature is the speed of light," he said. "It might
> actually be the speed of neutrinos and light goes more slowly."
>
> Neutrinos are mysterious particles. They have a minuscule mass, no
> electric charge, and pass through almost any material as though it was
> not there.
>
> Kostelecky said that if the result was verified – a big if – it might
> pave the way to a grand theory that marries gravity with quantum
> mechanics, a puzzle that has defied physicists for nearly a century.
>
> "If this is confirmed, this is the first evidence for a crack in the
> structure of physics as we know it that could provide a clue to
> constructing such a unified theory," Kostelecky said.
>
> Heinrich Paes, a physicist at Dortmund University, has developed
> another theory that could explain the result. The neutrinos may be
> taking a shortcut through space-time, by travelling from Cern to Gran
> Sasso through extra dimensions. "That can make it look like a particle
> has gone faster than the speed of light when it hasn't," he said.
>
> But Susan Cartwright, senior lecturer in particle astrophysics at
> Sheffield University, said: "Neutrino experimental results are not
> historically all that reliable, so the words 'don't hold your breath'
> do spring to mind when you hear very counter-intuitive results like
> this."
>
> Teams at two experiments known as T2K in Japan and MINOS near Chicago
> in the US will now attempt to replicate the finding. The MINOS
> experiment saw hints of neutrinos moving at faster than the speed of
> light in 2007 but has yet to confirm them.
>
> • This article was amended on 23 September 2011 to clarify the
> relevance of the speed of light to causality.
> ------------------------------------------
> Vision2020 Post: Ted Moffett
>
>



More information about the Vision2020 mailing list