Hey guys,

i just want to make a few general remarks on your discussion. Take it as the humble opinion of a "professional" physicist (although i'm not so much into particle physics)

Don't believe what you read in a paper (right away).

Don't argue with models that are clearly not suited to describe your situation. (i.e quantum tunneling - and FTL blablabla)

Keep in mind the difference of a model (or theory) and the reality.

A model is a mathematical construct designed to descibe parts of reality (the world, the universe, and so on).  A good example are Newtons laws. We want to use models to predict outcomes of things we do (you may call it experiments or applications or whatever). So if i take an apple  and let it fall down i can calculate in advance how long it would take until it hits the ground with Newtons laws. And if Newtons laws are suited for the situation i want to predict they will give me the "right" results. In other cases they will not. For example you cannot predict the movement of the mercury with Newtons laws.

General Relativity, quantum mechanics and more complicated models are no different in this respect. They are made to desribe certain things and they will fail to descibe others.

Good theories like the general relativity will of cause prove more useful than maybe originally intended, and describe multiple phenomena reasonable.  However every theory is bound to break down eventually. (this is my personal opinion)

And if you interested guys look out there, you can see the signs of Einstein's limits. One the one hand relativity of course breaks down for small distances, where quantum effects take place, but even on the astronomical scales there is a debate going on. You can see something is wrong when scientists start inventing things like Dark Matter, Dark Energy and the like.

I mean seriously, although it sounds very exiting and sci-fi authors can make nice novels - if you look at the postulate of dark matter it just doesnt sound right, more like an excuse to save the general relativity.

You measure the rotation speed of the spiral arms of a galaxy. Check!

You calculate what the rotation speed should be according to general relativity and what you know about the mass of the stars in the galaxy. Check!

Spiral arms rotate too fast! Damn! What now? Two possibilities: calculated mass of galaxy too small or general relativity wrong. General relativity cannot be wrong because its the bible and Einstein is the god of all physicist.

So we just need tp add some mass to the galaxy which we dont know where it comes from.  How much do we need to add? Oh, only about 4 times what we think the galaxy has? Cool, done!

And that is now known as dark matter.

/back to topic

Experiments are the final judge of a theory.

It seems OPERA struggled with the difficulties that can just ruin your day as experimentalist and in their case also your reputation. So far no experimental validation of faster than light something.

Theoreticians can write you down any model, including or excluding faster than light neutrinos, imaginary masses and the like. And math proves nothing here, when the model could just be fundamentally wrong.

That said, the fundamental limit of the speed of light is also only incorporated in the general relativity. And because this is only a theory it could also be wrong.

TL, DR: Theories and models are just human made up nonsense. No point to break a sweat arguing about it. No experimental validation of FTL so far.

we were more arguing about our interpretations about it. But I'm not upset, and I don't think Seleucia is either. We're interested and trying to explain and understand each other's ideas... People go off and debate baseball games and chit chat about them... this is similar situation, but the topic is neutrino physics.

I do understand the difference between experimental results (measurement of the real world) and models (math that predicts what the experimental results will look like). The thing is, I dont have direct access to the experimental results, and the models are made by people who know what they are doing (more so than me) and are made to fit the experimental results as best as possible. That is the next best thing.

To sum this up, if OPERA had, without a doubt, found superluminal neutrinos and no previous experiment contradicted this, I would take it to be as close to fact as other similarly tested things (Graphene jumps to mind. It has a number of properties that are attributed to it, but it is fairly new and so every idea might not be rigorously tested). I can go even further; The Higgs... nobody has seen it. At this point, it is only unlikely that it is superluminal (I have heard of no theory on the speed of a Higgs). If someone were to come to me and say that the Higgs travels at 45 mph or something mundane, I would think that about as likely as that of superluminal neutrinos and superluminal Higgs'. My reasoning, it's not well understood, it's not well measured, and last i heard, no one was sure the thing existed.

Ah, I think I see where we diverged... I was never claiming the paper said "superneutrinos are impossible", I said that it claimed the OPERA results must be incorrect. Now, without the OPERA results, there is no evidence for superluminal neutrinos. That isn't a conclusion of any kind; I'm just stating that, like Space Ponies, there is no evidence such a thing is real.

[edit:]

well, I guess I didnt attach enough words in this sentence, I apologize. This sentence was in a paragraph talking about the OPERA results that claimed superluminal neutrinos. I guess in context, I assumed the reader would read 'if neutrinos were faster than light' as 'if neutrinos traveled at the speed OPERA claims'...

Well you guys, the first and the easiest step to make it more realistic, is to make your PC mute!

In space no voice will be heard!

...... and it is totally boring. So please don't be too realistic.