Tom Roberts wrote:
In the standard model of particle physics, the neutrino is an elementary
particle with spin 1/2 (etc.); there are 3 different flavors of
neutrinos, plus their antiparticles. All neutrinos and antineutrinos
propagate with positive energy.

The standard model also says that neutrinos have non-negative mass. On
the other hand, pretty much all experiments agree on the fact that
neutrinos appear to have negative mass squared. The standard model
description of neutrinos simply does not agree with experiment.

It is very amusing to note how physicists proudly proclaim that
neutrinos have a small but finite mass based on such experiments, while
surreptitiously shoving under the carpet the fact that the observations
suggest something quite different. Why, you are doing it yourself!

My point abofe is: if photons are some sort of a "combination of
neutrinos", how can a photon have such a VASTLY smaller mean free path
than its "constituents"?

That is so stupid. How come a neutron is not strongly deflected in an
electromagnetic field when it is made out of charged quarks?



Tom Roberts

Actually, I am being slightly uncharitable. Photons can in principle be
described by oscillations of bound states of any fermion-antifermion
pair, though your expectations of constituents of bound states are
still ridiculous.

LEJ Brouwer wrote:
Tom Roberts wrote:
LEJ Brouwer wrote:
my own model that predicts from first principles that photons are
described by bounded oscillations of neutrinos and antineutrinos
If that is so, how do you explain the fact that neutrinos and
antineutrinos have a mean free path in rock of ~a light year, while
visible-light photons have a mean free path in rock of ~microns?

That is so stupid. It's like expecting up and down quarks to have the
same properties as neutrons. There is no reason whatsoever for a bound
state to have the same physical properties as its constituents.

Sure. But you are supposed to read what I write, and not make up your
own statement and then ridicule it as if I wrote it.

I repeat: how do you explain this enormous difference?


In the standard model of particle physics, the neutrino is an elementary
particle with spin 1/2 (etc.); there are 3 different flavors of
neutrinos, plus their antiparticles. All neutrinos and antineutrinos
propagate with positive energy.

The standard model also says that neutrinos have non-negative mass. On
the other hand, pretty much all experiments agree on the fact that
neutrinos appear to have negative mass squared. The standard model
description of neutrinos simply does not agree with experiment.

Everything you say here except the first sentence is wrong. The original
standard model assigned zero to the masses of all neutrinos; we now know
that was an error, and tiny masses must be assigned because nonzero mass
differences are observed. The standard model has been simply extended to
accommodate the observations of neutrino oscillations. This is how
science works: new information can require modifications to theories.

Perhaps you are confused by the fact that the current experiments do not
put bounds on the neutrino masses, but rather on the squares of the mass
differences. And there are 3 unknown neutrino masses, and therefore 2
independent mass differences squared; we know that one pair of mass
eigenstates has a much larger difference than the other pair, and we
don't know if the close pair is higher or lower mass than the other.


It is very amusing to note how physicists proudly proclaim that
neutrinos have a small but finite mass based on such experiments, while
surreptitiously shoving under the carpet the fact that the observations
suggest something quite different. Why, you are doing it yourself!

I know of no experiment that claims "negative mass squared" for
neutrinos; indeed it does not make sense (in the context of the standard
model). I know of several that claim nonzero masses, and in fact am
involved in research intended to explore this phenomenon with greatly
increased resolution (google "neutrino factory").

If you actually expect to be able to do physics, you need to read more
accurately.


My point abofe is: if photons are some sort of a "combination of
neutrinos", how can a photon have such a VASTLY smaller mean free path
than its "constituents"?

How come a neutron is not strongly deflected in an
electromagnetic field when it is made out of charged quarks?

Because the charge of a bound system is the sum of the charges of its
constituents, and for a neutron they sum to zero. shrug

Note also this goes the other way -- the constituents have shorter mean
free paths than the composite object. That can be explained by
cancellation as above, but it is not at all obvious how a composite can
have such an enormously shorter mean free path; that's why I asked.

BTW the mean free path of neutrons in matter for energies above a few
MeV is comparable (within factor of 2) to the mean free path of protons.


I repeat: how does YOUR MODEL explain this enormous difference for
photons and neutrinos?


Tom Roberts

Tom Roberts wrote:
LEJ Brouwer wrote:
Tom Roberts wrote:
LEJ Brouwer wrote:
my own model that predicts from first principles that photons are
described by bounded oscillations of neutrinos and antineutrinos
If that is so, how do you explain the fact that neutrinos and
antineutrinos have a mean free path in rock of ~a light year, while
visible-light photons have a mean free path in rock of ~microns?

That is so stupid. It's like expecting up and down quarks to have the
same properties as neutrons. There is no reason whatsoever for a bound
state to have the same physical properties as its constituents.

Sure. But you are supposed to read what I write, and not make up your
own statement and then ridicule it as if I wrote it.

I did read what you wrote. You claimed that it was a glaringly obvious
problem that the mean free path of a visible photon in rock was not the
same as that of a neutrino or antineutrino. As I said, to suggest that
the physical properties of a bound state should be the same as its
constituents is ridiculous. Similarly, to infer that photons cannot be
bound states on that basis is also ridiculous.

I repeat: how do you explain this enormous difference?

Because the photon is a bound state and does not have the same physical
properties as its consituents. In particular, the photon interacts with
charges, whereas neutrinos and antineutrinos do not.

In the standard model of particle physics, the neutrino is an elementary
particle with spin 1/2 (etc.); there are 3 different flavors of
neutrinos, plus their antiparticles. All neutrinos and antineutrinos
propagate with positive energy.

The standard model also says that neutrinos have non-negative mass. On
the other hand, pretty much all experiments agree on the fact that
neutrinos appear to have negative mass squared. The standard model
description of neutrinos simply does not agree with experiment.

Everything you say here except the first sentence is wrong.

Everything you _ever_ say is wrong. So there.

The original
standard model assigned zero to the masses of all neutrinos; we now know
that was an error, and tiny masses must be assigned because nonzero mass
differences are observed.

Neutrino masses have not directly been observed. Your claim of tiny
(positive, I presume) masses is based upon the assumption that (the
correction to) to the standard model is correct. This need not be the
case. In fact, it is very likely not the case as electron neutrinos
have been measured to have negative mass-squared. Like the proverbial
ostrich, the way physicists appear to deal with this embarassing result
is to ramp up the systematic and measurement errors on their
experiments to make it appear feasible that the mass squared may in
fact be positive.

http://cupp.oulu.fi/neutrino/nd-mass.html

"To be exact, the experiments measure the neutrino mass squared.
Curiously, when taken at the face value, all results point to a
negative mass squared, particularly the oldest experiment. This is
probably due to a systematic error, and actually two running
experiments, Mainz and Troitsk, have been able to measure physically
acceptable values."

Why don't you just face the fact that you don't understand the
neutrino, and are trying to fudge the results to fit an incorrect
model? Why don't you fix the model instead?

The standard model has been simply extended to
accommodate the observations of neutrino oscillations. This is how
science works: new information can require modifications to theories.

Okay, so try building a model which explains the apparent negative mass
squared AND the neutrino oscillations. Hint: My model predicts that
neutrinos are gravitational dipoles.

Perhaps you are confused by the fact that the current experiments do not
put bounds on the neutrino masses, but rather on the squares of the mass
differences. And there are 3 unknown neutrino masses, and therefore 2
independent mass differences squared; we know that one pair of mass
eigenstates has a much larger difference than the other pair, and we
don't know if the close pair is higher or lower mass than the other.

Perhaps you are confused because your head is stuck firmly in the sand.

It is very amusing to note how physicists proudly proclaim that
neutrinos have a small but finite mass based on such experiments, while
surreptitiously shoving under the carpet the fact that the observations
suggest something quite different. Why, you are doing it yourself!

I know of no experiment that claims "negative mass squared" for
neutrinos; indeed it does not make sense (in the context of the standard
model).

I just love the way that you put this in brackets. Why don't you write
it in capitals instead? Well, I have given you a link summarising the
experimental results - all of which suggest a negative mass squared for
the electron neutrino. If you really are working on neutrino
experiments, then this surely represents a rather glaring gap in your
knowledge. And yes, it DOES NOT MAKE SENSE IN THE CONTEXT OF THE
STANDARD MODEL, so either all of these experiments just happen to have
erred in the same direction (with the help of rather large error bars),
OR your model (i.e. your adjusted version of the standard model) is
wrong. That would be painful, wouldn't it?

I know of several that claim nonzero masses, and in fact am
involved in research intended to explore this phenomenon with greatly
increased resolution (google "neutrino factory").

That's nice. But what about the negative mass squared observations?
Will you be interpreting your results in terms of a model that can
actually account for the data? I presume that the error bars will be
smaller in your 'neutrino factory', so that you won't be able to make
the same excuses again?

If you actually expect to be able to do physics, you need to read more
accurately.

I can read just fine. To do physics YOU need to be more open-minded and
not dig your head in the sand.

My point abofe is: if photons are some sort of a "combination of
neutrinos", how can a photon have such a VASTLY smaller mean free path
than its "constituents"?

How come a neutron is not strongly deflected in an
electromagnetic field when it is made out of charged quarks?

Because the charge of a bound system is the sum of the charges of its
constituents, and for a neutron they sum to zero. shrug

I see you've still got the shoulder problem then?

Note also this goes the other way -- the constituents have shorter mean
free paths than the composite object. That can be explained by
cancellation as above, but it is not at all obvious how a composite can
have such an enormously shorter mean free path; that's why I asked.

Actually, you didn't really ask. You stated that this was a glaring
problem in the composite picture of the photon. I don't understand your
logic at all. Naively, one should expect that the composite, being more
complex, would have the shorter mean free path, as is observed. But as
I said, that is neither here nor there.

BTW the mean free path of neutrons in matter for energies above a few
MeV is comparable (within factor of 2) to the mean free path of protons.

I repeat: how does YOUR MODEL explain this enormous difference for
photons and neutrinos?

Funnily enough, the derivation of the composite nature of the photon
did not include an analysis of its mean free path through solid rock. I
will however note that for next time.

Tom Roberts

Tom Roberts wrote:
That's just the most glaringly obvious problem with such a model, there
are many others....

Would you be kind enough to provide us with a list? Or were you just
exaggerating as usual?

LEJ Brouwer wrote:
Tom Roberts wrote:
[snip]
The standard model has been simply extended to
accommodate the observations of neutrino oscillations. This is how
science works: new information can require modifications to theories.

Okay, so try building a model which explains the apparent negative mass
squared AND the neutrino oscillations. Hint: My model predicts that
neutrinos are gravitational dipoles.

Yes, I can live with that postulate, I use
something similiar.

Perhaps you are confused by the fact that the current experiments do not
put bounds on the neutrino masses, but rather on the squares of the mass
differences. And there are 3 unknown neutrino masses, and therefore 2
independent mass differences squared; we know that one pair of mass
eigenstates has a much larger difference than the other pair, and we
don't know if the close pair is higher or lower mass than the other.

Perhaps you are confused because your head is stuck firmly in the sand.

Tom Robert's is 90 years out of date, he's
stuck on Newton, can't learn GR, we've tried,
he's too old.
Good stuff Sabbir!
Ken

Ken S. Tucker wrote:
Tom Robert's is 90 years out of date, he's
stuck on Newton, can't learn GR, we've tried,
he's too old.
Good stuff Sabbir!
Ken

Anything to please! ;-) Tom knows his stuff well enough - in fact
that's probably why he's so rude when someone says anything
contradicting what he KNOWS to be correct. He seems to be rather, shall
we say, 'conservative' in his thinking, which is a shame as his
attitude, if commonplace (which unfortunately it is), would tend to
stifle any kind of creativity - and this in turn means slo-o-o-ow
progress. Come to think of it, didn't Lee Smolin just write an entire
book on this subject? As Rupa once said, "only dead fish go with the
flow". Of course I responded by saying that "a fish out of water
quickly dies", but I don't think that holds in this case if physics is
just a hobby and not the source of ones livelihood. Talking of which,
it's curious how when people rebel against the herd, they tend to do it
in a herdlike way? But I digress...

- Sabbir.

LEJ Brouwer wrote:
Tom Roberts wrote:
I repeat: how do you explain this enormous difference?

Because the photon is a bound state and does not have the same physical
properties as its consituents. In particular, the photon interacts with
charges, whereas neutrinos and antineutrinos do not.

I see, you simply assume it, rather than explain it. As I said before,
this is a surprising assumption, as it is not a cancellation of
interactions as in conventional EM theory.


The original
standard model assigned zero to the masses of all neutrinos; we now know
that was an error, and tiny masses must be assigned because nonzero mass
differences are observed.

Neutrino masses have not directly been observed. Your claim of tiny
(positive, I presume) masses is based upon the assumption that (the
correction to) to the standard model is correct. This need not be the
case. In fact, it is very likely not the case as electron neutrinos
have been measured to have negative mass-squared.
http://cupp.oulu.fi/neutrino/nd-mass.html

Oh. You see minus signs and think they are significant. They aren't
significant when the errorbars are comparable to or larger than the
(negative) value.


The standard model has been simply extended to
accommodate the observations of neutrino oscillations. This is how
science works: new information can require modifications to theories.

Okay, so try building a model which explains the apparent negative mass

This is science, not whatever it is you are trying to do. What is
required is that the theoretical predictions fall within the errorbars
of the experiments (or even outside them, occasionally). The current
fits of neutrino masses to the data result in small POSITIVE masses.

BTW that page is rather old and outdated in a rapidly progressing field
-- look at the overview talks from NuFact06:
http://nufact06.physics.uci.edu/Work...m/Plenary.aspx
For instance, Wojciki's slides 10, 13 (right plot), 16 (right plot), 23
(right plot), 25....
These are contour plots of theoretical values allowed by the experiments
(which is the way these results are now presented).

[...]


Tom Roberts

Tom Roberts wrote:
LEJ Brouwer wrote:
Tom Roberts wrote:
I repeat: how do you explain this enormous difference?

Because the photon is a bound state and does not have the same physical
properties as its consituents. In particular, the photon interacts with
charges, whereas neutrinos and antineutrinos do not.

I see, you simply assume it, rather than explain it. As I said before,
this is a surprising assumption, as it is not a cancellation of
interactions as in conventional EM theory.

Actually, I don't assume it, I derive it from first principles. I am
writing up a paper on this, and you will be able to read the details
for yourself in good time. As point of fact, you didn't say it was
merely a 'surprising assumption', you said it was 'the most glaringly
obvious problem' with the model, which is hardly the same thing. Also,
you have still failed to state what you believe the other glaringly
obvious problems with the model are, so I can understand that why you
are trying now to retract/alter your original ill-though-out
exaggerations.

The original
standard model assigned zero to the masses of all neutrinos; we now know
that was an error, and tiny masses must be assigned because nonzero mass
differences are observed.

Neutrino masses have not directly been observed. Your claim of tiny
(positive, I presume) masses is based upon the assumption that (the
correction to) to the standard model is correct. This need not be the
case. In fact, it is very likely not the case as electron neutrinos
have been measured to have negative mass-squared.
http://cupp.oulu.fi/neutrino/nd-mass.html

Oh. You see minus signs and think they are significant. They aren't
significant when the errorbars are comparable to or larger than the
(negative) value.

I see *eight* minus signs out of *eight*, some with relatively small
error bars, so yes, I do think they are significant. In fact I don't
just think so. They _are_ so. YOU need to STUDY basic statistics. You
also need to get your head out of the sand.

The standard model has been simply extended to
accommodate the observations of neutrino oscillations. This is how
science works: new information can require modifications to theories.

Okay, so try building a model which explains the apparent negative mass

This is science, not whatever it is you are trying to do. What is
required is that the theoretical predictions fall within the errorbars
of the experiments (or even outside them, occasionally).

This is so wrong it's not even funny.

The current
fits of neutrino masses to the data result in small POSITIVE masses.

No, they result in small IMAGINARY masses.

BTW that page is rather old and outdated in a rapidly progressing field
-- look at the overview talks from NuFact06:
http://nufact06.physics.uci.edu/Work...m/Plenary.aspx
For instance, Wojciki's slides 10, 13 (right plot), 16 (right plot), 23
(right plot), 25....
These are contour plots of theoretical values allowed by the experiments
(which is the way these results are now presented).

Which bit of what I am saying is it that you don't understand? First of
all, I am *not* denying the existence of neutrino oscillations.
Secondly, I am not talking about _differences_ in mass-squared between
different families of neutrinos. Thirdly, the slides you refer to do
*not* predict a positive mass (or even a positive mass-squared) for the
neutrinos. Fourthly, these results are based upon a model which is most
probably *WRONG*. Get it???

You are so obsessed with your own little worldview that you don't seem
to realise that the world doesn't need to be how your vain desires
would like it to be.

- Sabbir.

Tom Roberts wrote:
BTW that page is rather old and outdated in a rapidly progressing field

I almost missed this hilarious comment. If you look closely you will
see that the page was updated on 11th April 2005. I can only imagine
that the reason that so few subsequent experiments were done (only one
as far as I can tell, in 2005) was that the results were simply
embarassing.

If you want to see a really stark example of physicists throwing away
inconvenient data which doesn't fit theory preconceived models, take a
look at page 5 of this (up-to-date) document from the particle data
group:

http://pdg.lbl.gov/2006/listings/s066.pdf

They throw away the results of ten, yes TEN, independent experiments
all of which measure the neutrino to have negative mass-squared, and
keep the results of just TWO - both of which _still_ suggest a negative
mass-squared, but just happen to have error bars large enough for their
preconceived model not to be totally invalidated. If there had been an
independent investigation, the physicists coming to these dubious
conclusions would have been locked up!

Yet another fine example of *blatant* dishonesty from our respected
physicist friends.

Your (standard) model of the neutrino is plain WRONG. You can either
continue to bury your head in the sand and fudge your experiments (or
simply avoid doing them), or you can do what is right and try to fix
your broken model.