[link] Faster than light neutrinos due to loose fiber optic cable.

betterthanwell

A mundane cause for a surprising result. Consider this unconfirmed for now, however unsurprising it sounds.

According to sources familiar with the experiment, the 60 nanoseconds discrepancy appears to come from a bad connection between a fiber optic cable that connects to the GPS receiver used to correct the timing of the neutrinos' flight and an electronic card in a computer. After tightening the connection and then measuring the time it takes data to travel the length of the fiber, researchers found that the data arrive 60 nanoseconds earlier than assumed. Since this time is subtracted from the overall time of flight, it appears to explain the early arrival of the neutrinos.

New data, however, will be needed to confirm this hypothesis.

Source: Science/AAAS

A mundane cause for a surprising result. Consider this unconfirmed for now, however unsurprising it sounds.

According to sources familiar with the experiment, the 60 nanoseconds discrepancy appears to come from a bad connection between a fiber optic cable that connects to the GPS receiver used to correct the timing of the neutrinos' flight and an electronic card in a computer. After tightening the connection and then measuring the time it takes data to travel the length of the fiber, researchers found that the data arrive 60 nanoseconds earlier than assumed. Since this time is subtracted from the overall time of flight, it appears to explain the early arrival of the neutrinos.

New data, however, will be needed to confirm this hypothesis.

Source: Science/AAAS

In other words, the more "statistically significant" is the result in such an experiment, the more it is evidence for faulty measurement and against the experimenters' claim (here, FTL neutrinos).

It's still evidence for the claims, just also evidence for the experiment being faulty.

Technically, when viewed on the log-odds scale, it is exactly the same amount of evidence for either hypothesis.

On the (0;1) scale of probabilities it is, however, stronger evidence for flawed experiment. E.g. if we had a null hypothesis H0 at a prior P of 0.25 and two hypotheses H1 and H2 at 0.25 and 0.5, respectively, and we see evidence that has a likelihood of 5:1 for each of these hypotheses over H0. Then we have posterior P(H0|D)/P(H1|D)=1/5 and P(H0|D)/P(H2|D)=1/10, and after normalization, P(H0)=1/16, P(H1)=5/16, P(H2)=10/16. So, in this situation... (read more)

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[link] Faster than light neutrinos due to loose fiber optic cable.

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[link] Faster than light neutrinos due to loose fiber optic cable.

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