"If we do not have causality, we are buggered"...

[Pinhead]

Aside from time travel, another important benefit of discovering a 'faster than light' conduit through other dimentions would be potentially reduced, if not instant travel to the far reaches of the galaxy via these inter-dimensional shortcuts. Sub-space?

[worm]

the problem there is that, despite it's claims, psychology is not a science. It's instead an idea with only human ideas of how we think and operate as its basis, with nothing to give any external verification for those ideas.

[rabid]

wormholes? That's a big SGU isn't it?

[worm]

To measure how long something takes to travel from A to B requires a single reference point.

For you on a car journey from A to B, you can take your single reference point with you (your watch, say). But if you relied on your watch at A and someone else's watch at B, you can't be sure that the measure is right unless those watches are 100% in synch.

You could synch that other person's watch with yours on your arrival and then take the measure from their watch - but the accuracy of that measure is dependant on your watch having kept perfect time during the journey, something you can't know it has without referring back to the perfect time source that you set your watch against before you left (which is subject to a possible difference, because of the time taken to return your watch to A to make that comparison).

You could synch those watches by (say) telephone before you started your journey. But there's a delay to the telephone network so that B hears 'now' a fraction after you've said it (so they're not actually in synch), and that delay will always vary slightly because of changing conditions around the wires the signal travels along, and because of changing conditions with switchgear on the phone network

Hopefully that's made the issue I'm getting at a little clearer for you.

I'm not saying they can't do it, I'm saying that I can't think how they do it. All of the ideas I can think of have flaws, and flaws that always have variance because of changing conditions.

[eFestivals]

The time stamp comes from the timing system hardware and is within 100ns of the GPS time on the

calibrated Gran Sasso GPS receiver. The UDP datagram contains the number of seconds elapsed since midnight on January 1st 1970 including leap seconds plus the number of nanoseconds that have elapsed within the second.

so not a fixed reference point then.

And if only accurate to within 100ns, that's defo not good enough to have confidence in a result that comes out at less than 100ns, no matter how many times the experiment is repeated - after all, nano is only a billionth.

Plus there's different atmospheric conditions affecting the GPS timing signal on different parts of the world.

I can't see how that's anywhere near good enough for a measure so small.

[eFestivals]

That's not the point. The point is that a scientific experiment took place. If it was proven incorrect, then the science was wrong, not the psychology. There's a science to everything, just as there is an art. Psychology is a logic, not a science. Like all logics, it uses scientific methods and some are better than others.

yep - the science was wrong.

But what can't be known is if the 'bad' science was the 'science' called psychology, or other parts of the 'scientific' test.

As Feral's post got to show, psychologists won't ever consider that it's their whole starting premise that might be wrong, in their minds it's indisputably right and it's always the other parts that are wrong.

That very thing gets to show that psychology is no science. Science has everything under constant review, it doesn't pick and choose what it accepts as relevant.

[eFestivals]

Step forward please Prof. Brian Cox, particle physicist and keyboard player . . .

he did earlier, on 6music.

I didn't pay attention tho, so I can't tell you what he said.

[eFestivals]

What about if point a was also point b.

I've mentioned this already.

it gets past the fixed point in time issue for the measuring equipment, but then causes other issues to come into play (which may or may not have a greater impact, I'm not sure).

But anyway, that's not what they've done. They had both A & B.

And what is this 'perfect time source'? Just use that instead of the imperfect one.

there is no perfect time source as far as I can see, which is precisely why I'm puzzled for how they got what they believe is an accurate enough measure.

[rabid]

so not a fixed reference point then.

And if only accurate to within 100ns, that's defo not good enough to have confidence in a result that comes out at less than 100ns, no matter how many times the experiment is repeated - after all, nano is only a billionth.

Plus there's different atmospheric conditions affecting the GPS timing signal on different parts of the world.

I can't see how that's anywhere near good enough for a measure so small.

[fred quimby]

I can't see how that's anywhere near good enough for a measure so small.

Edited September 23, 2011 by fred quimby

[5co77ie]

I wonder if they turned it off for a while when they first got this result in the hope of turning it off and back on again would solve their problem.

[5co77ie]

I reckon I've solved it - from A to B is around the 27km circuit donut - the reason the other particles got their faster than light - they went the other way.

[rabid]

I reckon I've solved it - from A to B is around the 27km circuit donut - the reason the other particles got their faster than light - they went the other way.

[5co77ie]

Nice try

[worm]

there is no perfect time source as far as I can see, which is precisely why I'm puzzled for how they got what they believe is an accurate enough measure.

[eFestivals]

Yes it's the fixed reference from which they measure the journey time. It's the point at which it started. It's clearly within tollerances that are acceptable enough for these scientists to scratch their heads over the results for three years before publishing the results to see if anyone else can come up with the answer.

It's not a fixed reference point - you've said it has a variance of up-to 100ns, which a greater variance than the result that is gained via the use of that variable reference point.

The way I see it, that can't ever give a result that's trustworthy, no matter how many times the experiment is done to try and average things out. With the reference point variance being greater than the average result, it's very possible that the result is the result of the variance

[worm]

But what can't be known is if the 'bad' science was the 'science' called psychology, or other parts of the 'scientific' test.

[eFestivals]

I would sugest writing to them as I'm sure they may have worked it out. Not sure an articile in a paper would explain it all.

- I'm sure they've got something worked out, I'd just like to know what. A variance that's greater than the result that's gained via that variance seems by default always-untrustworthy to me.

As an aside (and I have no understanding of these things) don't they know how fast light travels so they have that measurement. Fire these new particles and then measure that.

They can't do that, for this thing, anyway. Light has a bit of difficulty travelling thru the earth.

[rabid]

It's not a fixed reference point - you've said it has a variance of up-to 100ns, which a greater variance than the result that is gained via the use of that variable reference point.

The way I see it, that can't ever give a result that's trustworthy, no matter how many times the experiment is done to try and average things out. With the reference point variance being greater than the average result, it's very possible that the result is the result of the variance

[eFestivals]

The science isn't called psychology. The method used by psychologists is called science.

If the results aren't the same then either the hypothesis or the variables are invalid. It has nothing to do with psychology.

Yet as feral said, the method they used isn't called science, it's called make-it-up-as-you-go-along-so-that-psychology-is-always-right.

So yeah, the hypothesise are wrong, the hypothesise of that thing that gets called psychology.

Edited September 23, 2011 by eFestivals

[eFestivals]

Well any reference point is only going to be accurate up to a point.

yep - but when the reference point has a variance that's bigger than the result, how safe can the result be?

I get statistical methods and how they can make something look better than it might first look, but this still seems to be out of what it can safely deal with.

I'd love to know how exactly they did it.

Here's that interview you missed

does it cover the method they used for the timing reference?

[Ed209]

Ahhh - always thought it was donut shaped - but DONUT stands for (Direct Observation of the Nu Tau)

Edited September 23, 2011 by Ed209

[rabid]

does it cover the method they used for the timing reference?

[Ed209]

yep - but when the reference point has a variance that's bigger than the result, how safe can the result be?

I get statistical methods and how they can make something look better than it might first look, but this still seems to be out of what it can safely deal with.

I'd love to know how exactly they did it.

does it cover the method they used for the timing reference?

Edited September 23, 2011 by Ed209

[5co77ie]

There's loads passing through your body all the time.