September 24, 2011

Faster than light? The scientist speaks

Dario Auterio is the scientist leading the European experiment that may have identified particles moving faster than the speed of light, a result that if confirmed would turn the world as we know it upside down — for starters.

Up top is an interview he gave Thursday discussing the findings.

Below,

the webcast of yesterday's talk by Auterio about the experiment to a standing-room-only crowd at CERN, the giant particle accelerator straddling the Swiss-French border.

Below, the abstract of the paper reporting the findings.

Measurement of the neutrino velocity with the OPERA detector in the CNGS beam

The OPERA neutrino experiment at the underground Gran Sasso Laboratory has measured the velocity of neutrinos from the CERN CNGS beam over a baseline of about 730 km with much higher accuracy than previous studies conducted with accelerator neutrinos. The measurement is based on high-statistics data taken by OPERA in the years 2009, 2010 and 2011. Dedicated upgrades of the CNGS timing system and of the OPERA detector, as well as a high precision geodesy campaign for the measurement of the neutrino baseline, allowed reaching comparable systematic and statistical accuracies. An early arrival time of CNGS muon neutrinos with respect to the one computed assuming the speed of light in vacuum of (60.7 \pm 6.9 (stat.) \pm 7.4 (sys.)) ns was measured. This anomaly corresponds to a relative difference of the muon neutrino velocity with respect to the speed of light (v-c)/c = (2.48 \pm 0.28 (stat.) \pm 0.30 (sys.)) \times 10-5.

Wireless computer-to-TV HD movie transfer

Tell us more.

From the website:

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Set up an extra monitor or TV to receive video from your computer wirelessly with the IOGEAR Wireless USB-to-HDTV adapter kit.

Utilizing the Wireless USB standard, it lets you send VGA or HDTV monitor signals (with resolutions up to 1280x720) up to 30 feet away.

It's great for use with laptops for presentations or with home theater setups.

Requires Microsoft Windows XP (32-bit version) or Vista/7 (32/64-bit versions).

Connected display must have VGA or HDMI input port.

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Here be dragons: A history of map monsters

By Ken Jennings — yes, that Ken Jennings.

Slide show here.

[via Richard Kashdan]

World's first knit hat with removable beard

Think outside the box that implies it's just for men.

Acrylic.

\$38.

bookofjoeTV update: Alas, still "real soon now"

Constant readers may recall that for many years I've contended that bookofjoe is merely a placeholder/warmup for the main event, bookofjoeTV.

Recent developments both encourage and dismay me as regards the always just-around-the-corner-debut of what promises to be something unimaginable — I hope in a good way.

Here are those developments:

1. Google Hangouts is now open to everyone since Google on Tuesday opened Google+ to the public at large, removing the invitation-only sign that had somehow still let it grow to 10 million users in its first two weeks.

2. Google Hangouts is now available on mobile phones. Alas, it only works on Android for now, not the iPhone, which I will be getting next month, my first phone upgrade since 2004 when I purchased my still functional Nokia 6230. I assume that Hangouts will work with the iPhone sooner rather than later, so that may not be a factor in the delay of the rollout of bookofjoeTV.

3. The Kickstarter project that I thought would integrate the iPhone with Google Hangouts and let me broadcast live hands-free while on the go was not funded. Said project was a very clever integration of a T-shirt and iPhone holder that would let me conduct a hands-free video call that streamed whatever was in front of me. I really thought that would be the secret sauce to finally get this thing off the ground. Alas.

So there you have it, stay tuned, I feel a bit like the guy in Zeno's Paradox, always covering half the remaining distance but never arriving.