Einstein's relativity survives neutrino test
October 15, 2008Physicists working to disprove "Lorentz invariance" -- Einstein's prediction that matter and massless particles will behave the same no matter how they're turned or how fast they go -- won't get that satisfaction from muon neutrinos, at least for the time being, says a consortium of scientists.
The test of Lorentz invariance, conducted by MINOS Experiment scientists and reported in the Oct. 10 issue of Physical Review Letters, started with a stream of muon neutrinos produced at Fermilab particle accelerator, near Chicago, and ended with a neutrino detector 750 meters away and 103 meters below ground. As the Earth does its daily rotation, the neutrino beam rotates too.
"If there's a field out there that can cause violations of Lorentz invariance, we should be able to see its effects as the beam rotates in space," said Indiana University Bloomington astrophysicist Stuart Mufson, a project leader. "But we did not. Einsteinian relativity lives to see another day."
Mufson is quick to point out that the Physical Review Letters report does not disprove the existence of a Lorentz-violating field. Despite the sophistication and power of MINOS's detector, "It may be that the field's effects are so exceedingly small that you'd need extraordinary tools to detect it," Mufson said.
Mufson is a member of the MINOS Experiment, an international consortium of physicists dedicated to studying the mysterious properties of neutrinos, particularly their wave-like oscillations. MINOS stands for Main Injector Neutrino Oscillation Search. MINOS scientists utilize the facilities at Fermilab to create a neutrino beam. The neutrinos are aimed at two detectors: one at Fermilab (the near detector) and another in the Soudan Mine in northern Minnesota (the far detector).
To produce the neutrinos, the MINOS scientists point a proton beam at a carbon target. The interaction causes a spray of pions (or pi mesons, a type of subatomic particle), some of which decay into muon neutrinos in the direction of the detector. Neutrinos travel at close to the speed of light, are unaffected by gravitational and magnetic fields, and because of their peculiar properties, can travel right through the crust of the Earth unaffected.
The notion of a Lorentz-violating field has become popular among theoretical physicists. Known physical rules do not do a very good job of explaining the cataclysmically chaotic moments immediately following the Big Bang, so some physicists are developing new theories to sort out the mess. The possibility that some of these new theories violate relativity was proposed by Mufson colleague Alan Kostelecky, distinguished professor of physics at IU Bloomington. Kostelecky provided some advice to MINOS scientists for the present report.
Kostelecky's "Standard-Model Extension" describes the most general possible Lorentz-violating fields that could arise in the universe's beginnings and also ties together Einstein's relativity rules and post-Einsteinian quantum mechanics.
One of the implications of Kostelecky's ideas is that the Lorentz-violating field could have been very strong during the mind-numbingly brief first moments of our universe. Now that the universe has expanded to considerable size, however, the strength of the Lorentz violating field may be severely reduced, making its existence hard to detect, if it is, indeed, actually there.
"Every experiment so far has not found violations of Lorentz invariance," Mufson said. "That doesn't mean we'll stop looking. We knew the MINOS Experiment presented a new way of seeking out violations, and in a difference place. We do things that are simple and look for something profound."
Source: Indiana University
Apr 03, 2005 |
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http://superstrun...vity.gif
If the light of speed in vacuum would be constant, we could never observe some refraction phenomena even at the presence of particles, because these particles are formed by vacuum as well and the radiation of constant speed always spreads along straight path through environment. It's evident, every observer inside of gravitational lens would perceive the deformation of light path as a deformation of space-time, while the experience of the outer observer will be exactly as opposite and these perspectives are mutually dual.
Therefore the quantum mechanics, which is used to describe the objects (space-time deformations) from their outer perspective can never be reconciled with general relativity, simply because it observers the same things from reciprocal perspective.
By AWT the concept of Lorentz invariance follows from trivial fact, we can never observe the motion/reference frame of inertial environment, which is serving for energy wave spreading by using of the same kind of waves, simply because no object can serve as a mean of its own observation and the inner and outer perspectives can never be considered at the same moment, or they would lead to quantum uncertainty. With respect to surface waves the water surface appears as a perfectly void and empty environment with no obstacles or motion by the very same way, like the vacuum.
Therefore the exceptional role of relativity in vacuum is simply given by the fact, we cannot observe the light spreading by another, even faster waves (if we neglect gravitational waves) - with contrary to classicall mechanics, which is dual by its very nature, as it enables to observe every wave spreading by another waves. It means, if we would observe the surface wave spreading by using of just surface waves and by using of time/space measures, derived from surface wave spreading exclusivelly, we would observe the relativistic phenomena even at the water surface. Therefore, no ad-hoced belief in Lorentz invariance postulate is required here, despite it agrees with many experiments well.
The whole difference of relativity from classical mechanics follows by the fact, in classical mechanics we are observing the water waves spreading by using of light waves, while in vacuum we are observing the light waves spreading just by light waves. This trivial inconsistency of experimental arrangement has lead into missunderstanding of the MM experimental results and the refusal of Aether concept as such.
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From celerity curve of surface water waves follows, the speed of capillary waves increases toward both small, both large distance scale from outer perspective. The same is valid for light waves by AWT and it manifest by dispersion and causality violation (number of time arrows increases). We can observe it as a gravitational lensing, GZK limit and polarization of CMB by dark matter streaks at the cosmic scale (in the past of Universe) - while every quantum uncertainty phenomena can serve as a tangible evidence of Lorentz symmetry violation at the microscopic scale (the future with respect to Universe expansion). The MAGIC observation or GZK limit in particular can serve as a tangible evidence of Kostelecky and Aether theory - the only problem is, Mr. Kostelecky doesn't know about it...;-)
In general, the contemporary physicists are in schizophrenic situation, because they know, the QM can violate the relativity and Lorentz symmetry by many orders of magnitude - while they're still looking for another evidence of it just at the microscopic scale, as if the QM wouldn't exist at all, we use the proverb: "The darkest place is under the candlestick." for it. Such situation is the consequence of positivistic and formal thinking in mainstream science during the last one hundred years.
This is because the Lorentz symmetry and relativity requires the photons to be massless particles, which cannot interact mutually. Surprisingly enough, the GZK limit is explained just by dispersion of gamma ray photons by CMB photons without problem - while this mechanism isn't still considered as a direct manifestation of Lorentz symmetry violation due the strong intersubjective belief in it.
But we cannot have photon-photon interaction, materialization of light - and Lorentz symmetry valid at the same time. We should abandon some concept at least a bit for a moment because of omnidirectional Universe expansion. By AWT the photons are behaving like subtle blobs of vacuum density, so they exhibit the weak gravitational lensing and they disperge the another photons mutually. This dispersion is analogy of so called Rayleigh dispersion of UV radiation by Earth atmosphere and it protects the terresterial life agains deadly gamma ray flux from the most distant parts of our Universe.
And why do you have to lace your contributions with links to images you have made? The images seem to have absolutely no relevance to your point, and they tend (on the whole) to just be swirly globs that serve no discernable purpose.
Maybe AWT is an 'out there' concept, but it's pretty interesting nonetheless. All Alizee needs is an editor, and I got a mind to do it! hahahahaha!!! Wouldnt you hate that, you dour mcDoursons.
"OH! My name's Smarty McFarbistein, and look! I'm throwing clods of dirt at the outsider crackpot who dares to have something WEIRD to say! I'm defending SCIENCE." heh. I've seen some crazy shit, and one thing I am sure of, individuals like yourself don't have a clue as to WTF is going on. Of course, neither do I or ALIZEE with the crazy run-on sentences, but at least he's reaching? you dig?
If only there was a smiley for a Monty Python accent... :-)
"One of the implications of Kostelecky's ideas is that the Lorentz-violating field could have been very strong during the mind-numbingly brief first moments of our universe."
Consider my mind successfully numbed.
Anyway - at the moment when we're paying scientists, who are looking for phenomena just because they're refuting to understand the explanations of subject - we should ask, if such ignorance is really the cheapest way of research.... Frankly, would you spend your private money for research of Lorentz invariance, if you would know, it's known in the form of CMB already?
Well, every ignorance comes with own price.
Well, and the CMB fluctuation field is considered to be very strong at the Universe beginning as well...;-) But the main reason, the Kostelecky theory appears so attractive for you remains the fact, you've absolutelly no idea, how such theory should/could be working. This saturates your subconscious need of religion based belief, which has an evolutionary origin (the unbeliers were usually eaten by crocodilles hidden in the rivers first). For most people the modern science plays a role of religion: they're searching modern theories for their mysticism, not the explanations.
hey, nothing personal - but get a blog, why don'tcha?
No offense intended, but ... there's no way to say it without risking offense ... your sentences are very poorly written. Because of that, whatever merit your ideas may have is lost in the difficulty of extracting what it is you are trying to say.
It has always been hard to get across new ideas, even with excellent communication skills. The history of technology is full of such stories. So it would behoove you to study proper English more.
One example: your last sentence above would look more like this:
For most people, modern science plays the role of a religion. So what they seek in modern theories are mystical revelations rather than explanatory power.
(I, like Feyerabend, agree.)
Anyway, if somebody likes AWT concepts, it has no meaning to develop some theory by single person in poor English. The AWT is here for easier understanding of contemporary physics and optimization of further research, i.e. for money and energy saving for whole society. The common editation of Knol, Wikipedia articles about AWT is welcomed. Any new ideas about it will be welcomed as well (although I'd prefer to publish them individually first to avoid priority discussion for future). I looking for GPU programmers, willing to program particle vector simulations in many dimensions. And so on...
http://knol.googl...cale=en#
Internet enables to develop new ideas on Open Source basis. If Open Source community can develop it's own operating systems or processor designs - why not scientific theories?
http://aetherwave...ion.html
By Aether Wave Theory the Lorentz symmetry is simple consequence of fact, we are observing light wave spreading by using of light, whereas in common life we are used to observe energy wave spreading by light waves, i.e. a TWO waves are involved in observations. The exceptional character of light is simply given by fact, it's the fastest interaction, which can be used for observations (if we neglect the gravitational waves).
http://aetherwave...nce.html
It means, Feigenbaum's insight is both correct, both wrong at the same moment. Lorentz invariance isn't really related just for light wave spreading. But the exceptional role of light for relativity isn't so unsubstantiated, because we can observe whole causual reality just by light waves, not by sound or whatever else ones.