The Neutrino Effect

Last week, science geeks everywhere awoke to potentially astonishing news: the OPERA (Oscillation Project with Emulsion-tRacking Apparatus) experiment, which analyzes subatomic particles as they travel unimpeded through miles of underground tunnels, has recorded a neutrino traveling (slightly) faster than the speed of light! It seems impossible according to everything current physicists know about quantum mechanics; in fact, if this result can be corroborated (Fermilab and others are already attempting this), Einstein's special theory of relativity may be thrown into doubt. (Probably not, but more on that in a minute.) Scientists everywhere are understandably dubious, and some even responded by saying that such tentative data shouldn't have been released to the public to begin with, since it's very likely that the experiment was affected by yet-unidentified human error. Additionally, science tends to be unfriendly (if excitable) toward data that doesn't support their existing paradigm--which, for now, rests solidly with the Standard Model and special relativity. But this finding exhibited a six-sigma deviation, which is suggestive enough to raise a lot of eyebrows.

There are a couple of reasons this is so exciting, and why prominent physicists are saying that this could re-write our fundamental understanding of the universe and the way it works. The speed of light, and its relationship to energy and mass, is one of the most revered equations in the history of science--to question it would result in chaos in cosmology, QM, QED, and other fields. However: it's possible that this result can be interpreted in a slightly different way; instead of assuming that the neutrino is literally moving faster than the speed of light, it could be that it found a shortcut by slipping through a different dimension. This idea is as revolutionary as exceeding the speed of light, but with completely different stakes: suddenly, theories that predict multiple dimensions via theoretical math (string theory/M-theory) have empirical evidence! It may not be the Higgs, but it's enough to allow critical analysis of the Standard Model to emerge into more mainstream scientific circles.

If (and right now, it reamins a massive "if") this result can be corroborated, we may be in the midst of what Thomas Kuhn would call a paradigm shift. In his seminal text The Structure of Scientific Revolutions he argues that movement from one paradigm to another (in this case, possibly from the Standard Model to string theory) must be preceded by an evidential anomaly (the neutrino moving faster than the speed of light) which, if scientists are repeatedly unable to solve using current data problem sets, leads to a scientific crisis. A crisis in this case would result in physicists being forced to re-examine some of the aspects of science that they've long taken for granted--like our perception of only four dimensions, or the speed limit of light. A true paradigm shift would occur if the scientific community is able to change their world view (and attract enough scientists to that community) regarding how certain tenets can be re-interpreted in light of new data. The result is adoption of the new paradigm and scientific revolution.

My fingers are crossed that we'll get to experience this revolution in our lifetimes: if the neutrino effect proves accurate, and physics moves past the Standard Model--but importantly, retains Einstein's special theory of relativity--into a realm of competing multi-dimension theories, there could be some dramatic truths revealed about the universe and our role in it. Pursuit of a grand unifying theory may have gone out of fashion in the past quarter century, but it's still a romantic ontological goal. It could be that the string theory boom of the 1990s was the start of the paradigm shift, and with CERN and OPERA able to articulate experiments beyond the wildest imaginations of scientists fifty years ago, we're just now seeing data that has the kind of anomolous strength required to presage a true revolution.

Could it be?

Physicists at Fermilab have big news: they've identified a three-sigma bump in their data, which could be (keep enthusiasm very tentative) "evidence of a new elementary particle" or force. Obviously, Higgs is on the tip of everyone's tongue, but it's probably something else--the data doesn't exactly align with the expected decay patterns of the Higgs. Still, this would be a huge coup for the underdog accelerator, which has basically run out of money and plans to close for good later this year. Scientists expect that if this data bump is for real, the LHC will soon see similar evidence, which will really get the particle physics world excited. Fermilab's holding a press conference tonight at 11pm EST.

More here, here, here, and here.

U-S-A! The Higgs Race is Getting Heated

The good folks over at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, where America's particle accelerator is still going strong, claim to be closing in on the Higgs, and with the LHC still months from gathering data, it could be a glorious homecoming for domestic scientific accomplishment. But if Fabiola Gianotti, the new head of ATLAS, has anything to say about it, dark matter will be discovered under her watch: "I would be very, very happy if we discover the particle that explains 20 per cent of the universe's composition. Accelerators like the LHC allow us to study the infinitely small - the basic constituents of matter - and this can tell us about the structure and evolution of the universe, stressing the link between the infinitely small and the infinitely big."

While an international (and there are many US scientists working on the LHC project) effort is symbolic--undiscovered particles bear no racism, so to speak--it would be nice for the US to be able to boast such a significant contribution to (and perhaps beyond) the Standard Model, especially in the wake of such an anti-science administration. I mean, it's seriously embarrassing that Ron Howard is our antiparticle representative, no?

For more on the wonders of Fermilab, check out Fermilab: Physics, the Frontier and Megascience by Lillian Hoddeson, Adrienne W. Kolb and Catherine Westfall. Focusing on the first two decades of research at Fermilab, the authors trace the rise of what they call "megascience," the collaborative struggle to conduct large-scale international experiments in a climate of limited federal funding. Good stuff.

The Holographic Principle, Redux

There is some excellent work being done over at the British-German GEO600 experiment: New Scientist reports that the giant detector has identified some curious noise as "microscopic quantum convulsions of space-time," which would support the framework of the holographic principle theory put forth by Gerard d'Hooft and Leonard Susskind (see my earlier post on how this idea is explored in Susskind's The Black Hole War). Craig Hogan, director of Fermilab's Center for Particle Astrophysics, says, "If the GEO600 result is what I suspect it is, then we are all living in a giant cosmic hologram." This would be a physical manifestation of concepts heretofore demonstrated only within the comforting boundaries of theoretical math--the mind boggles!

If the noise detected does represent quantum jitters, this has profound implications for the future of the unified theory: suddenly, analysis of information at Planck length might be feasible via its much-larger "projection," which "brings microscopic quantum structure within reach of current experiments." This is nothing short of AWESOME. Stay tuned.