[Scotty]

Did you expect anything else from the press?  It's the press, of course they'll blow it out of proportion.

[MP-Ryan]

On a light-er (har har) note, Twitter has some hilarious comments on #mundaneneutrinosexplanations:  http://twitter.com/?lang=en&logged_out=1#!/search/%23mundaneneutrinoexplanations

My favorite so far:

physicsdavid David Harris
Due to austerity measures the speed of light has been reduced #mundaneneutrinoexplanations

[Mika]

Do you refer to the helium incident or some other stuff?

Few people know how extensive the damage of the helium incident was. But that's not all of it.

[Ghostavo]

I for one blame ponies.

[Bobboau]

[Nuke]

haven't certain particles been shown to teleport under certain conditions? perhaps this happens as a result of the neutrinos changing type.

[Bobboau]

neutrons neutrinos changing type are soft particles.

[edit]by neutron I mean neutrino[/edit]

[Nuke]

meh, got my particles mixed up there.

[deathfun]

I got hard particles if you catch my refraction

[Herra Tohtori]

Ironically, neutrons do change type. Free neutrons' half-life is 881.5±1.5 seconds, and they decay into proton, electron, and electron's antineutrino.

Of course, neutrons in unstable nuclei also exhibit this behaviour, in which case it's called beta^- decay. The half-life of neutrons in nuclei is longer, though, due to nuclear interactions.

...although you shouldn't be too quick to assume that a neutron is made of an electron and a proton. It doesn't work that way - a neutron is made of three quarks of up, down, down variety, while a proton consists of up, up, down quarks in the standard model of particle physics.


...and just to confuse things, a proton in unstable atomic nucleus can also decay into a neutron, a positron, and electron's neutrino. This is called beta⁺ decay.

Like before, you shouldn't think that a proton is made of a neutron and a positron.

[Cyborg17]

Edit: Misread something.

[deathfun]

Like before, you shouldn't think that a proton is made of a neutron and a positron.

Are you positive about that? /badpun

[Enzo03]

Something a friend of mine said on this matter, in another forum:

consider the following:

1) Based on currently accepted theories, c is the universal speed limit.
2) Photons travel at c in a perfect vacuum.
3) Photons travel at less than c in any medium other than a perfect vacuum.
4) The observations did not occur in a perfect vacuum.
5) Photons interact with matter more frequently than Neutrinos.
6) More interaction leads to greater friction.
7) If the Neutrinos have sufficient energy, the lower friction they have compared to photons could result in the Neutrinos outrunning the photons.
8) Ignoring Photonic friction can lead to an inaccurate measure of c.
9) 7 and 8 combined can lead to the appearance that the Neutrinos have exceeded c when the sub-c photons have actually been sufficiently slowed down.

Just one possible explanation that maintains current understanding of the universe.

I can't *really* comment because I don't go looking up this kind of stuff for fun. :S
It's mostly beyond me.

[Black Wolf]

It's not a question of the neutrino's arriving before the photons - the experiment is 720 kms away from the source, so the photons are never going to make it - curvature of the earth and all that. It's a question of the neutrinos arriving before the photons possibly could, even at their vacuum speed.

[666maslo666]

Could it be explained by photon having a very small mass and not actually travelling at c (meaning the true relativistic limit)? The mass of a neutrino would simply be even lower than that of a photon. No particle (maybe except hypothetical gravitons) would thus be massless. I wonder what would that mean for the Higgs mechanism?

[watsisname]

Not likely -- photons are electromagnetic oscillations and thus have no rest-mass associated with them.  If they did have mass, then they would impart more momentum to whatever objects they impacted on, and we should be able to measure this.

[Bobboau]

but it could be an indication of negative mass 

[Herra Tohtori]

but it could be an indication of negative mass 

Not negative. Imaginary.

[Bobboau]

could be both, right now we have no idea why this is happening, could be they mis-measured the detectors position by 60 feet, could be there is an alien time ship buried in the earth's lower crust in just the right place to effect the particles.

honestly, I have a feeling that the fact that they were passing through the earth immediately after being created might have something to do with it, if this doesn't just turn out to be a systematic error, [Eeyore]which it probably will [/Eeyore].

[Scourge of Ages]

What would be the implications or issues if the speed of neutrinos were actually the new maximum speed?