Remember Those Neutrinos That Supposedly Were Moving Faster Than The Speed of Light? And People Said, "Eh, Probably Experimental Error"? Yeah. They Had A Loose Cable.

Loose cable? Isn't that Step Two when you call Dell Customer Support -- Step One, have you pushed the On button, Step Two, have you made sure all of your cables are securely plugged in?

Further complicating matters, even the OPERA scientists couldn't yet explain why the neutrinos clocked in as fast as they did. Now, according to Science Insider, sources familiar with the OPERA experiment say a fiber optic cable connecting a GPS receiver and an electronic card in one of the lab computers was discovered to be loose. (The GPS was used to synchronize the start and arrival times of the neutrinos).

Tightening the connection changed the time it took for data to travel the length of the fiber by 60 nanoseconds. Because this data processing time was subtracted from the overall time-of-flight in the neutrino experiment, the correction may explain the seemingly early arrival of the neutrinos. To confirm this hypothesis, the OPERA team will have to repeat their experiment with the fiber optic cable secured.

You Say You've Discovered A Procedure For Cold Fusion, Involving the Loch Ness Monster and the Chevy Volt?

Are your cables securely plugged in?

posted by Ace at 12:51 PM

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