I My lecturer says "Special relativity is absolutely wrong"

[Seanra]

Hi guys

In an assignment I wrote for university I was penalised for claiming that FTL neutrinos would violate special relativity.

Below is the relevant part of my assignment and the response from my lecturer. Could somebody please explain what he could mean by that because as far as I can tell, FTL particles violate special relativity and special relativity is not "absolutely wrong".

https://imgur.com/bXt3O6K

 

[DrSuage]

Faster than light neutrinos don't exist - the experiment that purported to find them in 2011 turned out to have electrical flaws that lead to misleading data.
Of course were they to exist they would violate SR.

 

[DrSuage]

His little schpiel about General Relativity allowing faster than light travel is absolute hokum.
Special Relativity is not wrong in the way that Newtonian mechanics is not wrong. They are just approximate theories - effective only within their domain of application.

 

[russ_watters]

What class/level is that for?

 

[Battlemage!]

If I'm not mistaken, general relativiy posits that curved spacetime must reduce to the physics of special relativity for small free falling areas. Which would suggest in a free falling frame (a local inertial frame) the speed of light is still the max speed locally.

 

[Orodruin]

Locally, the speed of light is the upper limit, GR and SR agrees on this. On a global level, you would have to (very carefully) define what you mean by "travelling faster than light" if you are going to make such blanket statements.

 

[Seanra]

Faster than light neutrinos don't exist - the experiment that purported to find them in 2011 turned out to have electrical flaws that lead to misleading data.
Of course were they to exist they would violate SR.

Yup, the contention of my assignment was that scientific anomalies such as the "discovery" of FTL neutrinos are usually due to experimental error.

His little schpiel about General Relativity allowing faster than light travel is absolute hokum.
Special Relativity is not wrong in the way that Newtonian mechanics is not wrong. They are just approximate theories - effective only within their domain of application.

Yup exactly what I thought. Alas I'm still going to lose marks sigh...

What class/level is that for?

A philosophy of physics class at one of the top universities in Australia. Kind of disappointing. (btw guys please don't go trying to message my lecturer saying he is wrong, I get the feeling that would screw me over pretty bad).

 

[Seanra]

Okay guy's i really need to know if I'm missing something here or is my lecturer brainwashing my entire class into thinking special relativity is wrong and completely superseded by general relativity.

Here is a discussion one of the students in my class had with the lecturer:

https://imgur.com/kysV8bn

 

[Seanra]

Locally, the speed of light is the upper limit, GR and SR agrees on this. On a global level, you would have to (very carefully) define what you mean by "travelling faster than light" if you are going to make such blanket statements.

Putting aside what my lecturer said for a moment, I have a question: Due to the expansion of the universe, galaxies the distance between distance galaxies grows extremely quickly over time. Can we say in any sense that these galaxies are traveling faster than the speed of light?

 

[jbriggs444]

Putting aside what my lecturer said for a moment, I have a question: Due to the expansion of the universe, galaxies the distance between distance galaxies grows extremely quickly over time. Can we say in any sense that these galaxies are traveling faster than the speed of light?

No. It would be better to stick with the statement that their separation grows quickly over time.

Edit: One could pick a coordinate system in which one galaxy is at rest and the other galaxy has a velocity faster than the speed of light. But that "velocity" is as much an artifact of the choice of the coordinate system as anything physical. Pick another coordinate system and you get another "velocity". One ought not give such "velocities" the courtesy of calling them by that name.

 

[jbriggs444]

On the notion of SR being "absolutely wrong", Isaac Asimov had something to say...
http://hermiene.net/essays-trans/relativity_of_wrong.html

 

[russ_watters]

A philosophy of physics class...

Taught by a physicist or philosopher?Just the title makes my skin crawl.

 

[Seanra]

Taught by a physicist or philosopher?

Just the title makes my skin crawl.

I think you can guess the answer to that...

On the notion of SR being "absolutely wrong", Isaac Asimov had something to say...
http://hermiene.net/essays-trans/relativity_of_wrong.html

Ahaha that's a good read.

Guys are there ANY circumstances under which special relativity is superseded by general relativity? Is there at least an inkling of truth to what he is saying?

 

[ChrisVer]

Why would FTL particles violate SR?
Something that could potentially violate SR is for massive particles to travel at the speed of light... the region of traveling slower and faster than the speed of light are nicely defined in SR.

 

[jtbell]

Guys are there ANY circumstances under which special relativity is superseded by general relativity?

General relativity applies when there is gravity. Special relativity is a good approximation when gravitational effects are "small enough" that we can ignore them for the purposes at hand.

 

[atyy]

Hi guys

In an assignment I wrote for university I was penalised for claiming that FTL neutrinos would violate special relativity.

Below is the relevant part of my assignment and the response from my lecturer. Could somebody please explain what he could mean by that because as far as I can tell, FTL particles violate special relativity and special relativity is not "absolutely wrong".

https://imgur.com/bXt3O6K

Your lecturer is wrong, because special relativity is a great approximation to general relativity in some domain, and the report of superluminal neutrinos was in the domain where special relativity is expected to hold.

 

[atyy]

Putting aside what my lecturer said for a moment, I have a question: Due to the expansion of the universe, galaxies the distance between distance galaxies grows extremely quickly over time. Can we say in any sense that these galaxies are traveling faster than the speed of light?

In a strict sense, general relativity forbids the comparison of velocities of distant objects. Only special relativity permits it.

There is a sense in which the galaxies can be said to be traveling faster than the speed of light, but it is not in the same sense in which the neutrinos were said to be traveling faster than light.

See post #10 by jbriggs444 above.

 

[Seanra]

In a strict sense, general relativity forbids the comparison of velocities of distant objects. Only special relativity permits it.

There is a sense in which the galaxies can be said to be traveling faster than the speed of light, but it is not in the same sense in which the neutrinos were said to be traveling faster than light.

See post #10 by jbriggs444 above.

Thanks for that explanation. So I guess the question is, if I want to go about trying to convince him that he is wrong (an extremely difficult thing to accomplish when he has based entire lectures on SR being wrong) how should I go about it and what are some of the best sources I can use to back up my claims?

 

[Orodruin]

Well, technically, he is not "wrong", just as SR is not "wrong". The concept of "wrong" is not very useful when dealing with scientific models and it is much more relevant to discuss whether a model is "useful" or not. Newtonian mechanics might be considered "wrong" as it does not describe what we can observe at large velocities or small distances. However, this does not invalidate Newtonian mechanics, it just restricts its domain of applicability. It still works perfectly fine for most every-day applications.

In the same sense, SR is not "wrong" it is just not applicable to some situations when space-time curvature becomes significant. If your lecturer wants to take his argument to the extreme - GR is also "wrong", although its domain of applicability is larger than that of SR.

 

[russ_watters]

So I guess the question is, if I want to go about trying to convince him that he is wrong (an extremely difficult thing to accomplish when he has based entire lectures on SR being wrong) how should I go about it and what are some of the best sources I can use to back up my claims?

I would talk to a physics professor at your university about it. You are unlikely to win an argument like this on your own, regardless of what sources you provide.

 

[russ_watters]

Well, technically, he is not "wrong", just as SR is not "wrong". The concept of "wrong" is not very useful when dealing with scientific models and it is much more relevant to discuss whether a model is "useful" or not. Newtonian mechanics might be considered "wrong" as it does not describe what we can observe at large velocities or small distances.

So...[to the OP] in the context of the Asimov essay, don't argue with the prof that he's wrong, argue that you aren't wrong. If you don't make them mutually exclusive it may go over better......even if I disagree with Orodruin based on the professor's wording choice: "absolutely wrong". About the only time one can be totally right or totally wrong on something like this is to make a binary/absolute claim!

 

[atyy]

Thanks for that explanation. So I guess the question is, if I want to go about trying to convince him that he is wrong (an extremely difficult thing to accomplish when he has based entire lectures on SR being wrong) how should I go about it and what are some of the best sources I can use to back up my claims?

A major counterargument are the neutrinos from supernova SN1987A:
http://resonaances.blogspot.sg/2011/09/phantom-of-opera.html
https://profmattstrassler.com/artic...-than-light/opera-comparing-the-two-versions/

Although the counterargument does use neutrinos that have traveled large distances, at each point their velocity is well-defined in the same sense that special relativity holds locally, even in general relativity, so it is a valid argument where the concept of velocity is consistent throughout (as opposed to the "superluminal" expansion of the universe, which refers to a different type of "velocity").

A further source supporting your argument is http://arxiv.org/abs/1109.4897 which says the the OPERA result would contradict Lorentz invariance. In the context of GR, one would understand the term to mean local Lorentz invariance, ie. that special relativity holds locally.

For a source that the "superluminal" expansion of the universe is not a correct counterexample, one can cite https://preposterousuniverse.com/wp-content/uploads/grnotes-three.pdf "In cosmology, for example, the light from distant galaxies is redshifted with respect to the frequencies we would observe from a nearby stationary source. Since this phenomenon bears such a close resemblance to the conventional Doppler effect due to relative motion, it is very tempting to say that the galaxies are “receding away from us” at a speed defined by their redshift. At a rigorous level this is nonsense, what Wittgenstein would call a “grammatical mistake” — the galaxies are not receding, since the notion of their velocity with respect to us is not well-defined." [bolding by me]

 

[Seanra]

Well, technically, he is not "wrong", just as SR is not "wrong". The concept of "wrong" is not very useful when dealing with scientific models and it is much more relevant to discuss whether a model is "useful" or not. Newtonian mechanics might be considered "wrong" as it does not describe what we can observe at large velocities or small distances. However, this does not invalidate Newtonian mechanics, it just restricts its domain of applicability. It still works perfectly fine for most every-day applications.

In the same sense, SR is not "wrong" it is just not applicable to some situations when space-time curvature becomes significant. If your lecturer wants to take his argument to the extreme - GR is also "wrong", although its domain of applicability is larger than that of SR.

Hey just to make sure we're all on the same page, have you seen the screencap I posted in my first message that shows what I said and what my lecturer said? Is SR relevant to the discussion of the now debunked FTL neutrinos that were "discovered" by OPERA?

 

[Seanra]

A major counterargument are the neutrinos from supernova SN1987A:
http://resonaances.blogspot.sg/2011/09/phantom-of-opera.html
https://profmattstrassler.com/artic...-than-light/opera-comparing-the-two-versions/

Although the counterargument does use neutrinos that have traveled large distances, at each point their velocity is well-defined in the same sense that special relativity holds locally, even in general relativity, so it is a valid argument where the concept of velocity is consistent throughout (as opposed to the "superluminal" expansion of the universe, which refers to a different type of "velocity").

A further source supporting your argument is http://arxiv.org/abs/1109.4897 which says the the OPERA result would contradict Lorentz invariance. In the context of GR, one would understand the term to mean local Lorentz invariance, ie. that special relativity holds locally.

For a source that the "superluminal" expansion of the universe is not a correct counterexample, one can cite https://preposterousuniverse.com/wp-content/uploads/grnotes-three.pdf "In cosmology, for example, the light from distant galaxies is redshifted with respect to the frequencies we would observe from a nearby stationary source. Since this phenomenon bears such a close resemblance to the conventional Doppler effect due to relative motion, it is very tempting to say that the galaxies are “receding away from us” at a speed defined by their redshift. At a rigorous level this is nonsense, what Wittgenstein would call a “grammatical mistake” — the galaxies are not receding, since the notion of their velocity with respect to us is not well-defined." [bolding by me]

Thankyou so much for this Atyy, I'm going to head to bed now but I'll read over this in the morning and get back to you and everybody else :)

Thanks again everybody, I really appreciate your input!

 

[PAllen]

In a strict sense, general relativity forbids the comparison of velocities of distant objects. Only special relativity permits it.

There is a sense in which the galaxies can be said to be traveling faster than the speed of light, but it is not in the same sense in which the neutrinos were said to be traveling faster than light.

See post #10 by jbriggs444 above.

Right, and in that sense, SR also allows FTL motion. Using Milne coordinates (cosmological analog coordinates in flat spacetime) in SR, test bodies may have arbitrarily large growth rate of separation between them. Celerity (another type of velocity in SR) may also be unbounded. There is close analogy between cosmological recession rates and SR celerity.

 

[ProfuselyQuarky]

Kind of off topic and I'm not so sure about the university level, but sometimes when I dispute with a teacher about something (i.e. supposed error in my work) I will email them with my explanation (w/ sources) and I get back the credit and points that I would have initially lost. Especially when it has to do with theory or even writing style. Could you try that? (Or do I just happen to have nice instructors?)

 

[PAllen]

Why would FTL particles violate SR?
Something that could potentially violate SR is for massive particles to travel at the speed of light... the region of traveling slower and faster than the speed of light are nicely defined in SR.

Well, note that massive particles traveling FTL clearly violates SR. What is allowed (if one does not include causality assumptions in your definition of SR) is imaginary mass particles traveling FTL. Thus, kinematic SR states emphatically: massive particles travel < c, massless particles travel at c, and imaginary mass particles travel >c, always. If imaginary mass particles can interact with massive matter, then messages can be sent to your past.

 

[gjonesy]

Hmmm...a simple way to end that debate is repeating the results of that experiment. If its not repeatable and the findings verified and peer reviewed well then that assumption of FTL can not hold true ...correct?

 

[Orodruin]

Hmmm...a simple way to end that debate is repeating the results of that experiment. If its not repeatable and the findings verified and peer reviewed well then that assumption of FTL can not hold true ...correct?

There is nothing "simple" about repeating the OPERA experiment. It is a big collaboration and has taken several years of planning and performance. There are other neutrino experiments who have done similar measurements with negative results and the OPERA experiment itself has retracted the claim, I do not see a point in continuing to beat that particular dead horse.

 

[gjonesy]

I do not see a point in continuing to beat that particular dead horse.

My point exactly,... I should have specified that his lecturer should confirm his belief that neutrinos were FTL via a repeatable experiment...lol That was my attempt at humor and sarcasm.

 

[Jonathan Scott]

Note that FTL communication in a specific frame of reference does not necessary directly lead to causality problems, although it would directly contradicts SR because it requires a preferred frame. Some interpretations of non-locality for QM entanglement effectively rely on this concept. The communication path transforms between frames like a spacelike separation, and for fast moving frames the effective speed in one direction may be only fractionally greater than the speed of light.

If it were possible to communicate faster than light by at least a minimum fixed amount in all frames, that would lead directly to causality problems, as it would make it possible to receive a reply to something before it was sent.

 

[Orodruin]

My point exactly,... I should have specified that his lecturer should confirm his belief that neutrinos were FTL via a repeatable experiment...lol That was my attempt at humor and sarcasm.

If you read the thread, this is not his lecturer's belief.

 

[gjonesy]

In an assignment I wrote for university I was penalised for claiming that FTL neutrinos would violate special relativity.

The OP's opening statement was that his lecture believe that the 2011 OPERA experiment was correct for it's observation wrong in some other unspecified way and that SR was absolutely wrong? Isn't that what the thread is about? Basing his own personal conclusion that SR is wrong because of that one OPERA experiment even though it was later retracted because the experiment was flawed? what am I missing?

If you read the thread, this is not his lecturer's belief.

what am I missing?

 

[jbriggs444]

The OP's opening statement was that his lecture believe that the 2011 OPERA experiment was correct for it's observation wrong in some other unspecified way and that SR was absolutely wrong? Isn't that what the thread is about? Basing his own personal conclusion that SR is wrong because of that one OPERA experiment even though it was later retracted because the experiment was flawed? what am I missing?

The attachment on the original post makes the professor's viewpoint clear -- that SR is "absolutely wrong", having been superseded by general relativity, that general relativity does not forbid faster than light travel and that the Opera result would have violated SR, but that does not matter since SR is "absolutely wrong". The professor's contention is that any objection to the plausibility of the Opera result that is grounded in SR is a non-starter precisely because SR is known to be "absolutely wrong" -- that any such objection must be couched in terms of GR for it to have validity.

Of course, that's hogwash.

 

[gjonesy]

Of course, that's hogwash.

Agreed

I misunderstood the reason for the penalization and thought it was for specifically sighting the OPERA experiment. How can you give someone a bad grade for being right?

Just to clarify before I get schooled again regardless of the lecturer's personal belief that (SR is wrong) according to SR FTL neutrinos would be a violation and therefore it would be a correct textbook answer.

 

[Orodruin]

Agreed

I misunderstood the reason for the penalization and thought it was for specifically sighting the OPERA experiment. How can you give someone a bad grade for being right?

It is easy, you just have to be wrong.

 

[ChrisVer]

Well, note that massive particles traveling FTL clearly violates SR

you mean particles with positive mass-squared traveling FTL could violate SR... because as far as I know SR doesn't necessary tell you that the mass squared has to be positive or negative for it to work. In fact Lorentz transformations can be used for both spacelike and timelike 4vectors (I guess).

Thus, kinematic SR states emphatically: massive particles travel < c, massless particles travel at c, and imaginary mass particles travel >c, always.

imaginary mass wouldn't make much sense, that's why I'd prefer the negative mass squared term.
Even in the kinematics of SR if you try to include imaginary masses you will end up with real energies and momenta (indistinguishable to what you had in the slower than light region)...and well the equation:
E^2 - p^2 = m^2
won't be affected at all...(cause invariants are not affected by the region you are looking).

If imaginary mass particles can interact with massive matter, then messages can be sent to your past.

well I am OK with this explanation, but... this is just an interpretation based on the common notion of causality.. it is not SR (neither excluded thanks to it).
Causality arises because in "our region" of SR you can define events that happened before and led to later events...In a tachyonic region, you wouldn't have that effect (however you would have a similar one)...

Negative mass squared effects can be found there and here...but SR is not violated by them.

 

[PAllen]

you mean particles with positive mass-squared traveling FTL could violate SR... because as far as I know SR doesn't necessary tell you that the mass squared has to be positive or negative for it to work. In fact Lorentz transformations can be used for both spacelike and timelike 4vectors (I guess).

It depends on what formulas you consider to be SR. The norm of a 4-vector involves a square root. The norm of the 4-momentum of an ftl particle is imaginary.

imaginary mass wouldn't make much sense, that's why I'd prefer the negative mass squared term.

Well, if you look at historic the literature on tachyons, it is presented as imaginary mass.

Even in the kinematics of SR if you try to include imaginary masses you will end up with real energies and momenta (indistinguishable to what you had in the slower than light region)...and well the equation:
E^2 - p^2 = m^2
won't be affected at all...(cause invariants are not affected by the region you are looking).

Yes, of course imaginary mass traveling FTL produces real energies.

well I am OK with this explanation, but... this is just an interpretation based on the common notion of causality.. it is not SR (neither excluded thanks to it).
Causality arises because in "our region" of SR you can define events that happened before and led to later events...In a tachyonic region, you wouldn't have that effect (however you would have a similar one)...

As I said, it depends on your definition of SR. MANY have been used over the years. Please note that what I said was: if tachyons could interact with ordinary matter and were consistent with SR (e.g. followed the POR), THEN you could send a message to your own past. This much is inarguable. Whether you take this as violating SR depends on whether you include causality assumptions in your definition of SR.

Negative mass squared effects can be found there and here...but SR is not violated by them.

Not per se. And if you take it that tachyons cannot interact with ordinary matter, then you don't violate causality either. On the other hand, then Occam's razor would lead to reject them.

 

[PAllen]

Let me clarify what I mean about different formulations of SR. One alternative to traditional axiomatic frameworks is to start from causal structure. One type of causal structure leads to Galilean space+time. A different causal structure leads to SR (or GR depending on what additional assumptions you add). In the GR case, you can (at this level of abstraction, without adding something more to rule them out) end up with CTCs. However in SR, starting from causal structure as an axiom, both FTL and CTC are deductively precluded. It happens that I prefer this conceptual approach - that causal structure is the essence of SR, and everything else flows from this.

 

[PeterDonis]

Lorentz transformations can be used for both spacelike and timelike 4vectors (I guess).

Certainly they can. But the way Lorentz transformations act on spacelike vectors has a key difference from the way they act on timelike vectors: a Lorentz transformation can change a spacelike vector that points "into the future" to one that points "into the past", or vice versa. (I have expressed this heuristically, hopefully it is clear what I mean--but see below for a more precise formulation.) By contrast, a Lorentz transformation can't change a future-directed timelike vector into a past-directed one, or vice versa.

A more precise way of stating the above is: all spacelike vectors form one subgroup under Lorentz transformations; a Lorentz transformation can take any spacelike vector into any other spacelike vector. But timelike vectors form two disconnected subgroups under Lorentz transformations: the future-directed ones and the past-directed ones. A LT can take a future-directed timelike vector into any other future-directed timelike vector, but not into a past-directed one; and vice versa. (Note that ordinary 3-rotations are included in "Lorentz transformations" here.)

The above means that tachyons, which have spacelike 4-momentum vectors, must be fundamentally different, physically, from ordinary particles with timelike 4-momentum vectors. Furthermore, it means that if all inertial frames are equivalent, as SR postulates, allowing tachyons to propagate causal influences inevitably leads to CTCs. The only way to have tachyons propagating causal influences without CTCs is to have a preferred frame that defines which tachyonic 4-momentum vectors are "future-directed" and which are "past-directed"; there is no way to do this without a preferred frame (because of the above).

In a tachyonic region, you wouldn't have that effect (however you would have a similar one)...

I don't see how this is possible in view of the above. Can you elaborate?

 

[rootone]

Maybe the teacher meant that special relativity was a good idea, but general relativity was even better.

 

[haushofer]

My two cents:

[*] SR is a special case of GR: if you take flat spacetime in GR, you obtain SR. So the domain of validity of GR is bigger than the one of SR. Saying that SR is therefore wrong is silly. In physics a theory always comes with a domain of validity, which is pretty much always limited. So in that sense all theories would then be "wrong", which is an empty statement.
[*] FTL speeds are not forbidden by SR or GR. We only don't really know how to interpret these so-called "tachyons" in a physical way, (in field theory they are seen as picking an unstable vacuum for perturbation theory, but that's a technicality). In SR, one cannot accelerate from v<c to v>c, but that's a different statement. In GR, one can only talk about local velocities.

 

[e.bar.goum]

A philosophy of physics class at one of the top universities in Australia. Kind of disappointing. (btw guys please don't go trying to message my lecturer saying he is wrong, I get the feeling that would screw me over pretty bad).

I'm hoping that this philosophy of physics course isn't the one at my "one of the top universities in Australia"!

 

[peety]

Relativity absolutely wrong sounds like a play on words.

 

[PAllen]

My two cents:

[*] SR is a special case of GR: if you take flat spacetime in GR, you obtain SR. So the domain of validity of GR is bigger than the one of SR. Saying that SR is therefore wrong is silly. In physics a theory always comes with a domain of validity, which is pretty much always limited. So in that sense all theories would then be "wrong", which is an empty statement.
[*] FTL speeds are not forbidden by SR or GR. We only don't really know how to interpret these so-called "tachyons" in a physical way, (in field theory they are seen as picking an unstable vacuum for perturbation theory, but that's a technicality). In SR, one cannot accelerate from v<c to v>c, but that's a different statement. In GR, one can only talk about local velocities.

It depends how you define motion and momentum, in either theory. If you define motion via 4-velocity, itself defined as derivative with respect to proper time, then tachyonic motion is ruled out by definition (as are massless classical particles). If you define motion via 4-momentum that is not necessarily connected to 4-velocity, and allow 4-momentum to be null or spacelike, then you can say null 4-momentum is associated with massless particles, and spacelike 4-momentum with imaginary mass tachyons. IMO, original SR/GR definitionally ruled out tachyons, and it required modifying definitions to allow them.

[edit] Note that the re-definition of motion for tachyons is more radical than for null momentum motion. Null motion is still past/future determinate. Tachyonic motion is characterized by inherent inability to define which part of the motion comes before another part of the motion; it is past/future indeterminate. This is not motion in any historic sense of the term. No one normally says Newtonian mechanics includes the concept of 'simultaneous motion', and modifies definitions to treat this as a 'motion', but you could; you would be led to say the mass needs to be zero, etc. This would be taken as an extension, not a natural part Newtonian mechanics. Similarly, viewed historically, tachyonic motion is extension via redefinition of traditional SR/GR.

 

[Charles Kottler]

I think there are two points worth considering.

First, SR is 'absolutely' the wrong theory to use in the context of claimed FTL measurement in this experiment. It is specifically only applicable far from the influence of gravity. In the case of this experiment it is possible that greater density close to the two end points could locally slow time at the ends more than in the middle leading to a (very small) decrease in the expected travel time of a body moving at light speed between them.

The second, and more relevant, point is that this was a 'Philosophy of Physics' course. As such the emphasis of the course should lean more towards the technicality of making a valid argument than agreeing with 'mainstream' physics. The purpose of the course should be to help you critically analyze earlier papers and discussions to find flaws in the arguments which can help lead you towards new understanding of the subject. If this lecture followed on from previous lectures and tutorials on the matter you would need to show where in his earlier arguments your professor had made a mistake, or if this specific point has not been raised before then you need to discuss with him why he believes SR does not form a valid framework for physics.

 

[atyy]

In case it hasn't been said clearly enough, one reason the lecturer's correction is wrong is that all our present theories are known to be absolutely wrong.

Secondly, it is misleading to say that GR allows superluminal travel, because the notion of velocity used in such a statement is different from the one used in the claim of superluminal neutrinos. If we use a consistent concept of velocity, neither SR nor GR permit superluminal travel.

Orodruin (post #6) and jbriggs444 (post #10) made these points earlier in the thread.

 

[Dale]

First, SR is 'absolutely' the wrong theory to use in the context of claimed FTL measurement in this experiment. It is specifically only applicable far from the influence of gravity.

Not really. It is specifically tidal gravity which requires something beyond SR. For this experiment the gravitational field is largely irrelevant, and tidal effects even less so. SR is a perfectly legitimate theory to use in analyzing the opera experiment.

The characterization of scientific theories as "right" or "wrong" is a very naïve approach to science. Theories are better characterized by their domain of applicability. The opera experiment is well within the domain of applicability of SR.

 

[PeterDonis]

SR is 'absolutely' the wrong theory to use in the context of claimed FTL measurement in this experiment. It is specifically only applicable far from the influence of gravity.

This is not correct. SR is applicable in any region of spacetime in which the effects of spacetime curvature are negligible. This is a more permissive condition than "far from the influence of gravity"; the presence of gravity restricts the size of a region of spacetime in which SR can be applied, but it does not prevent it from being applied in a region of small enough size. The term used to describe the application of SR in a small enough spacetime region is "local inertial frame". So you can't just make a blanket statement that SR isn't applicable when gravity is present; you have to actually look at the size of the spacetime region under consideration to see if it's small enough to be considered a local inertial frame.

In the case of the neutrino experiments, the time of flight was several milliseconds and the distance traveled was about 731 km. Since the neutrinos were traveling at essentially $c$, the time of flight gives essentially the same "size" as the distance traveled for the region of spacetime under consideration. The test of whether a given region of spacetime can be considered a local inertial frame is the magnitude of the corrections to the metric coefficients due to spacetime curvature. For the neutrino experiments, these corrections are given by $L \sqrt{GM / c^2 R^3}$, where $L$ is the size of the region of spacetime in question (here the distance traveled by the neutrinos), $G$ is Newton's gravitational constant, $M$ is the mass of the Earth, $c$ is the speed of light, and $R$ is the radius of the Earth. This gives a result of about $3 \times 10^{-6}$, which is quite small--several orders of magnitude smaller than the margin by which the neutrinos were originally thought to exceed the speed of light (which was about 1 part in 1000). So the region of spacetime occupied by a run of the neutrino experiments is small enough to be considered a local inertial frame for the purpose of analyzing the experiments, and SR can be applied.

 

[vanhees71]

I would talk to a physics professor at your university about it. You are unlikely to win an argument like this on your own, regardless of what sources you provide.

I'd even go further and appeal in some official way against the statement by the professor posted in the OP. Is this even a physics professor? If so, I'd say, there's a big problem in the physics faculty, which is perhaps very difficult to solve!