Physics isn’t religion and Einstein ain’t God!

Thank God for both!

It is quite unusual of me. I read about some material thing (as opposed to spiritual, mental) going faster than the speed of light in a New York Times article on September 22^nd (Tiny Neutrinos May Have Broken Cosmic Speed Limit), by Dennis Overbye. Then, came a series of articles on the same in The Guardian (Faster than light particles found, claim scientists, September 22, Ian Sample; Professor Einstein, you can relax. E still equals mc². Probably …, by Frank Close). Then came a tortoise paced, strolling article from The Economist (Faster than speed of light, October 1^st), and then a still slower paced but ironically titled Faster than light? By Alok Jha and Ian Sample in Frontline, issue dated October 21 (obviously syndicated). Yet, it has taken me more than two weeks to enter my thoughts here. I can’t wait any longer.

The news is that a strange particle, with stranger quantum properties (it can change its personality on the way to somewhere), has reached someplace earlier than light, traveling through vacuum, could have reached that same place from the same starting point. This is earth shaking. No, universe shaking. The universe should not have known how to exist if only it had known this possible fact.

I am not into physics deep enough to explain what all the excitement is about. In this post, I will merely restate what some researchers in the field have said, and how the matter is being reported and similar second hand information.

The matter is encapsulated in this joke.

The barman said: “Sorry, we don’t serve neutrinos.” A neutrino enters the bar.

Where is the joke? The fact that cause precedes effect depends on the current understanding, validated to a high level of accuracy, that nothing can convey information faster than light can, traveling in a vacuum. A non-joke it would have been had the sentences been presented in reverse order. That is the joke.

“Some physicists are wondering whether their subject has just had another Michelson-Morley moment.” That was the start of the dismantling of Newtonian physics. The implication is, perhaps the Gran Sasso experiment could do the same to Einsteinian physics.

“Particles travelling faster than light, capable of carrying information, would alter everything.” Back to the Future, the movie that launched Michael J. Fox out of the idiot box and onto the big screen, would have been a humdrum comedy.

But, before going on to further quotes, let me say how much faster this neutrino was traveling compared to light in vacuum: 0.0025% (25 parts in a million). Lightspeed in vacuum = 299,752,458 m/sec. Neutron speed as observed during its travel from CERN to Gran Sasso in the Italian Alps is 299,758,454 m/sec. It is that six kilometres per second speed difference that could let you go back in time and make sure your father and mother did not marry, and you were never born. That is, you could kill yourself before you will be born!

Yes, this is the weirdness physicists are excited about. They are also quite unnerved. For one thing, the theory of relativity may have to be reworked or abandoned altogether. They are not afraid of the spirit of Einstein, but they respect the results of some experiments at CERN that agree with the theory of relativity to “better than one part in a trillion.” As irony would have it, it is another experiment from the same lab that has put out the surprising results.

“The result is so unlikely that even the research team is being cautious with its interpretation. Physicists said that they would be sceptical about the findings until other laboratories confirmed the result.” The scepticism shown by physicists is evident. The thing is just too big, the physics equivalent of banks or other institutions of finance that are “too big to fail”.

Antonio Ereditato, coordinator of the OPERA (a screwed up acronym – Oscillation Project with Emulsion tRacking Apparatus) experiment, said, “We are very much astonished by the result, but a result is never a discovery until other people confirm it.” It is like Moses, coming down from the mountain, asked someone else to go up and check on the burning bush! Physicists do that. It is a different question whether religionists should also do a double check. But, till such time they don’t, there is no point calling science another religion.

“If there is a problem, it must be a tough, nasty effect, because trivial things we are clever enough to rule out,” said Ereditato. How clever? At least as clever as the GE ex-chairman who made a name for himself with the vaunted six sigma stuff, Jack Welch.

“[P]hysicists can claim a discovery if the chances of their result being a fluke of statistics are greater than five standard deviations, less than one in a few million. The Gran Sasso team’s result is six standard deviations.” Before I shout, “Take that Welch, and belch!” let me say I do not know how this assessment has been made, because only 15,000 neutrinos had been timed in three years. Of course, the six meter per second violation from the base velocity of about 300 million meter per second may validate the six sigma level accuracy. I do not know.

Some other doubts also have been raised; like what Professor Frank Close, a theoretical physicist at Oxford University, says: “The beams of particles at Cern, travelling within a mere fraction of light speed, arrive at their destination on time only when the subtlety of relativities are included in the accounting.” While this may sound a clincher against the results, using something to disprove that same something, I am not so sure. The team in the news is obviously aware of such circularities and must have accounted for them. But that is speculation. We must let the game be played out.

Alan Kostelecky, another physicist, said "It's such a dramatic result it would be difficult to accept without others replicating, but there will be enormous interest in this." Dave Wark, another academic and researcher, demanded “[A] high standard of proof and confirmation from other neutrino experiments around the world.” I will try to draw a parallel: A devotee of Lord Shiva, after proving to himself that Lord Shiva exists, asks a Christian or a Muslim to confirm his observation. Good for all of them, if only they can agree to the proposal!

The Gran Sasso experiment is not the first time neutrinos were observed, rightly or wrongly, travelling faster than light. This “anomaly” had been observed in 2007 in the MINOS experiment conducted in the US. “The MINOS result, too, was thought an error. Now researchers are not so sure.” But, the clincher is: “Most are unwilling to believe Einstein was wrong.” Here, physics comes closest to religion, yet, stays far. Scientists neither accept nor reject either Gran Sasso results or Einstein. They bide their time. Religionists never do that. It is instant parochialism and that is that.

One may ask why not have a “drag strip” for a race between light and neutrinos? Well, there is no such thing as vacuum, unfortunately.    

Newtonian physics was thrown out not by one finding, but by a series of what appeared to be anomalous results. Perhaps the Gran Sasso results are at the top of the slippery slope for Einsteinian physics. We do not know now. I would like any religionist to subscribe to a similar line of thought about religion or God.

“These guys have done their level best, but before throwing Einstein on the bonfire, you would like to see an independent experiment.” That is, Einstein is not God but perhaps he was close enough. Let us respect, while also cleaning it up as necessary, the path he had shown. This appears to be the sentiment behind the above quoted statement.

Einstein is hanging by a thread. That thread may well be the string theory, that in some version or the other, posits a total of 11 dimensions, all except the obvious four, curled up (if that made any sense to you; it didn’t to me because that requires a brain that is orders more capable than mine). Perhaps neutrinos travel through the other dimensions, making it appear they are travelling faster than light in the four dimensional medium.

The above speculation is a boon to string theory. Leo Smolin, an expert in quantum theory of gravity has been a thorn in the side of the string theorists – string theory has not made, and perhaps cannot make, any testable predictions. Gran Sasso may have opened the door to experimental verification of string theory, but only if the possibility of neutrinos traveling via the curled up dimensions is accepted a priori.

A lot of excitement is in store. “Ereditato said the OPERA team is going through a mix of feelings. ‘There is excitement, adrenaline, because you feel you have hit something hot. Another feeling is exhaustion. A third feeling is let us look again and again and think of other checks we have not yet done.’”

On the other side, there is the following assertion, “[f]or in their heart of hearts, even the sceptics who say they think the result from OPERA must be a mistake hope that it is not.” That is, scientists may not mourn too much if Einstein is found to have missed something.

There it goes: the definitive statement that physics is not religion and Einstein was never God.

Raghuram Ekambaram