Yes, but our measurements of the distance to the moon are based on lasers bouncing off those reflectors. We can't very well determine the speed of light over a distance determined by what we think the speed of light is.

What we need is a mirror an independently known distance from a light source/receptor, all in some semblance of hard vacuum. And then, of course, we have the question of whether there is any kind of delay in reflection in the mirror. For that, you'll need to find someone who knows more about quantum physics than I do.

The value of c is hardly a measurement though, it's an exact value that Ein to the Stein obtained by working through relativity. It should be right.

I know know the speed of light varies when it passes through non-vacuum medium. I was referring to the actual constant not being a constant but rather a variable. I don't think I explained that well.

Imagine that the speed barrier c is not stable but depends on certain conditions. And any information cannot move past this speed no matter what it is. For example, nothing loves faster than c on Wednesday, but Friday space time permits 2c, etc.

It seems much more likely to me that the thing which we know happens but can't observe occurred, rather than the thing which is mathematically and experimentally supported is wrong.

In other words, it seems more likely to me that space-time is simply bending a way we can't observe rather than the fundamental mechanics underlying our understanding of mass and energy are completely wrong. Not that the latter is impossible, but it certainly seems less plausible.

Yeah I guess that makes more sense, but is less fun to speculate

Do you think space time is generally bent or that the experiment caused it to bend due to some reason; maybe some law related to the energy/ speeds involved.

It's bent around all mass and dense energy. Probably a time machine that a futurecat set up to send neutrinos from the future to fuck with us petty humans.

I know that it bends due to mass. I was assuming the bend would have to be something outside of relativity's predictions to cause what happened. So the question is what abnormal feature of the experiment would cause the bend and what kind of bend would make and object arrive faster. When I think of bends, they seem to increase travel distance.

I have very little information on this theory, but perhaps someone could expand on it:
Basically, the receptors detected the neutrinos before they arrived, and the photons at the time they arrived, therefore making the photons seem slower than the neutrinos.

Think of it as a fold instead, if that helps. You have a piece of paper (2-Dimensional Plane) and you can fold across a third dimension so that two otherwise distant edges touch, making the trip from edge to edge much faster than normal. You take a 3D object and fold across an undetectable dimension which is predicted by M-Theory/String theory whathaveyou, and you could do the same thing, effectively making "faster than light" travel without actually breaking any rules. We know high energy interactions can cause distortions in space/time, so this sort of thing would be entirely consistent with modern theoretical science. It would be amazing to have this verifiable lab evidence of objects travelling through +3 dimensions of space, though!

From Scientific American: Zichichi speculates that the "superluminal" neutrinos detected by OPERA could be slipping through extra dimensions in space, as predicted by theories such as string theory.

It's nice to see a theory I thought up on the last page is actually under consideration by real scientists.

ooh. So we are not disproving Einstein, but proving string theory? NICE!

There are some equations that dictate what c is based on various fundamental constants, and in that sense c is determined formulaically. However, the values of some of those constants are determined from our measured value of c, because we can't measure those things directly.

I was looking at the updates on this and found the best abstract ever.

...that University has been spamming me.

I can't believe they didn't take that into account or even think about it. I can''t wait to see how this pans out.

The XKCD comic about this was right it seems.

If this experiment is already proved then its a very interesting development and they would have proud of doing this and its good because this will help in many other experiments.

Meh, I think that XKCD sucks

I hate that site.

I'm still confused. I've seen that site multiple times, so is it supposed to be taken seriously or satirically?

The subtitle is: "[a] vitriolic and bitter collection of unwarranted nastiness about a silly and harmless comic." so satirically, it seems.

So if their going faster than the speed of light, does that mean that they're aging backwards?

they're*

And since the formula is based on the assumption that nothing can go faster than the speed of light, if something does manage to achieve this, then the formula would become void I would imagine.

Feel free to correct me.

The latest I've heard about this is that the results were wrong, neutrinos do not travel at a speed greater than the speed of light, they travel at light speed.

Related article.