[time-nuts] FTL neutrinos or timing error - where did the energy come from

[Bill Hawkins]

The January 28th Science News has an editorial by Tom Siegfried that
points out that neutrinos were predicted to conserve the energy in
radioactive beta decay. The OPERA results show unbalanced energy
in the other direction. The pions that decay and create neutrinos
do not have enough energy to get them past the speed of light.

Either energy is coming from somewhere new, or something is wrong
with the speed measurement apparatus.

Then again, it could be something undiscovered about the
propagation velocity of neutrinos in the crust of the Earth.
Something like the velocity gain of spacecraft diving into a
planet's gravity well and escaping again.

More details are in the article on page 9, "Neutrino parents set
speed limits" subtitle "FTL flight would violate conservation laws."
The article refers to a paper by Xiaojun Bi in the Dec 9 "Physical
Review of Letters."

Just when you thought there were no new physics to be discovered,
time appears to be out of joint.

Bill Hawkins

As Yogi Berra once said, "It's tough to make predictions,
especially about the future."