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[Il Palazzo]

The second bit. An "absolute" field is pretty much what luminiferous aether was about. So it wouldn't be luminiferous in this case, but the idea is the same.

eidit: typo

[Siquo]

I like aether theories 

[Starver]

Aether it is correct or it isn't?

[Leafsnail]

I like aether theories 

In spite of them being demonstrably wrong...?

[Il Palazzo]

I like aether theories 

In spite of them being demonstrably wrong...?

Luminiferous aether theory has been sufficiently proven wrong, but can you say the same about neutrinoferous aether?
My original comment was not aimed at ridiculing Another's remark, rather being an expression of amusement at how the old idea might just prove not to be so dead after all.

[Siquo]

I like aether theories 

In spite of them being demonstrably wrong...?

Yep, but also, what Il Palazzo said. They've been wrong so far, and "like" doesn't equal "think/believe/know aether really exists". I think I'm just naturally inclined to like a "sea of something" more than a void. And I've got a weakness for crackpot theories, I just love reading them

[alway]

http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2011-10/dutch-physicist-says-special-relativity-explains-faster-light-neutrinos

Using the altitude, orbital period, inclination to the equator and other metrics, van Elburg calculates the error rate: “The observed time-of-flight should be about 32 ns shorter than the time-of-flight using a baseline bound clock,” he writes. This is done at both clock locations, so double that, and you get an early-arrival time of 64 nanoseconds. That pretty much accounts for the OPERA anomaly.

tldr; of the article: clocks were synced using satellites whose velocity led to slight relativistic changes in the times sent out, fully accounting for the 60 nanosecond difference.

[Il Palazzo]

Surely, that's just some underhanded retconing performed to keep the old dogma around?

[palsch]

tldr; of the article: clocks were synced using satellites whose velocity led to slight relativistic changes in the times sent out, fully accounting for the 60 nanosecond difference.

Except...

Well, for one thing those sorts of corrections are so basic to the system they are built into it. The idea that it wasn't taken into account in a system designed to give 20cm resolution... yeah, not buying it.

For another, this kinda fails the smell test. The author is a theorist working in AI and the paper reads like an undergraduate attempt to get the rights numbers out of a special relativity problem. The proposed error is incredibly simple, theory wise, and yet was supposedly missed by the 175 physicist co-authors of the original paper during their six months sanity checking the result.

Finally, it looks to me like he is assuming the clock used for timing was the one on the GPS satellite. That is simply wrong. The group used a pair of atomic clocks synchronised by GPS. GPS satellites themselves have frequency correction so they are keeping earth time, so if you receive a GPS signal the only adjustment from that you need to make is for transmission time.

Most of the experimentalists I follow are very unimpressed. Try Tom (who works with atomic clocks), his follow up about time synch or Chad for the standard responses.

I'm buying the majority view here that this is going to be a hard to find error deep in their code or something interesting in the decay physics rather than the neutrino speed itself. But it's probably not a weak quantum measurement effect.

[Heron TSG]

It is almost impossible to perfectly synchronize two signals simultaneously when they are different distances from a satellite, and that satellite is moving.

[ChairmanPoo]

I think it's unfair to regard it as a crackpot theory. It was not a crackpot theory back when it was conceived. It was a decent hypothesis/theory formulated in regards to the known facts at the time. It was proven wrong afterwards, but such is the way of science

[palsch]

It is almost impossible to perfectly synchronize two signals simultaneously when they are different distances from a satellite, and that satellite is moving.

Not really given that these are GPS satellites. Really you can pull it off with any old bird, but GPS makes it incredibly easy.

GPS satellites act as orbiting atomic clocks, constantly firing off the exact time. This is coupled with similarly precise orbital details. Normal GPS location calculations use multiple time and location signals to triangulate the precise location of a receiver relative to the satellites. Note that a 1ns error in the time signal is equal to roughly 1 foot (30cm) in location signal and GPS can reach accuracies of 20cm.

There is a protocol called Common view GPS time transfer that lets you synch up a pair of clocks using an orbital reference signal. This lets you achieve sub 10ns error between two clocks.

Also note that the first paper on that page, describing the synch setup, was published in 1980. This isn't cutting edge science any more. There are even commercial services offering clock synch accurate to the 10s of nanoseconds.

[Starver]

...The author is a theorist working in AI...

...Try Tom ... or Chad for the standard responses.

Well, given these two guys' names sound like Chatbot names, and the person they are "disproving" works in AI, I think the answer is obvious.  Rather than disprove/disprove the problem at hand, our AI guy has deviously been creating AI agents whose Turin-credibility he is raising by seeding them with some arguments for them to refute.

There are absolutely no flaws in that theory.  No siree...

Hang on, someone here begs to differ.

What's that Eliza?  What about my mother?  I don't believe that's relevent, but if you wait for me to post this message, I'll tell you all about her in a moment...

[Chattox]

What's that Eliza?  What about my mother?  I don't believe that's relevent, but if you wait for me to post this message, I'll tell you all about her in a moment...

Completely off topic, but I had to study Eliza as part of my degree. Your mentioning her made me twitch involuntarily.

[Kogan Loloklam]

GORN!