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Recent CERN reports of faster than light neutrinos will be found to be mistaken within 3 months.

Created by JoshuaZ on 2011-09-22; known on 2011-12-22; judged wrong by muflax on 2011-12-22.

  • JoshuaZ estimated 85% on 2011-09-22
  • gwern estimated 75% and said “that’s very fast” on 2011-09-22
  • JoshuaZ said “So are these neutrinos. (Couldn’t resist.) Tags: [physics][CERN]” on 2011-09-23
  • PseudonymousUser estimated 40% on 2011-09-23
  • fergus estimated 90% on 2011-09-23
  • JoshuaZ said “Hmm, in retrospect my 85% is probably overconfident. Not sure where to adjust though. ” on 2011-09-23
  • Konkvistador estimated 40% and said “It will take longer.” on 2011-09-23
  • Oscar_Cunningham estimated 55% and said “A year would give 80%” on 2011-09-23
  • gwern estimated 60% and said “here you go Oscar: http://predictionbook.com/predictions/3432” on 2011-09-23
  • faws estimated 45% on 2011-09-23
  • fergus estimated 40% and said “Missed the time limit.” on 2011-09-24
  • clemux   judged this prediction wrong on 2011-09-24.
  • clemux   judged this prediction unknown on 2011-09-24.
  • clemux estimated 35% and said “So many checking and re-checking already done, it looks like it will take longer.(Sorry for the spam – clicked the wrong button.)” on 2011-09-24
  • JoshuaZ estimated 75% and said “Updating to deal with probable overconfidence. Starting to look more like a marathon than a sprint. ” on 2011-09-24
  • nialo estimated 40% on 2011-09-25
  • gimpf estimated 30% and said “3 months seems to be a short time to sort this out.” on 2011-09-25
  • Nic_Smith estimated 20% and said “3 months is too soon, IMHO” on 2011-09-26
  • Arets Paeglis estimated 85% on 2011-09-27
  • faws estimated 22% on 2011-09-28
  • Sandra Åhlén estimated 65% on 2011-09-29
  • Isaac estimated 25% and said “Tesla was right, 2007 research was right, now CERN is right.” on 2011-10-01
  • Serge estimated 65% on 2011-10-01
  • army1987 estimated 30% and said “They’ve been checking this stuff for years; unlikely that an error will be discovered in the next 12 months IMO. Personally, I’m waiting for MINOS to repeat the experiment” on 2011-10-03
  • Gedusa estimated 40% on 2011-10-04
  • OAGr estimated 80% on 2011-10-05
  • siodine estimated 90% on 2011-10-06
  • hi5pat estimated 50% and said “It will be interesting to see how this proceeds” on 2011-10-07
  • mat33 estimated 5% and said “It was just too well tested in all the obvious ways. It wouldn’t be “just an error”, it looks like something more sophisticated.” on 2011-10-08
  • phob estimated 40% on 2011-10-08
  • Metus estimated 70% on 2011-10-08
  • Sniffnoy estimated 31% on 2011-10-08
  • Sniffnoy estimated 35% on 2011-10-08
  • jasticE estimated 23% on 2011-10-09
  • xerocrossings   judged this prediction wrong on 2011-10-09.
  • JoshuaZ   judged this prediction unknown on 2011-10-09.
  • JoshuaZ said “Xenocrossing, the deadline hasn’t happened yet. ” on 2011-10-09
  • Anubhav estimated 30% on 2011-10-10
  • Jayson Virissimo estimated 20% on 2011-10-10
  • CryingWolf estimated 75% on 2011-10-10
  • Arets Paeglis estimated 70% on 2011-10-11
  • BrandonReinhart   judged this prediction wrong on 2011-10-12.
  • BrandonReinhart   judged this prediction unknown on 2011-10-12.
  • BrandonReinhart estimated 20% and said “Not enough time to find an answer.” on 2011-10-12
  • Grrrr estimated 70% on 2011-10-14
  • velocirhymer estimated 70% on 2011-10-19
  • JoshuaZ said “Brandon, that’s looking more and more likely. I think I was way overconfident here. ” on 2011-10-19
  • amcknight estimated 95% and said “I hope I’m wrong.” on 2011-10-20
  • amcknight estimated 60% and said “Ahh, I forgot about the 3 months part. Not as likely as I thought.” on 2011-10-20
  • JoshuaZ estimated 30% and said “Doesn’t look like this is happening. I massively overestimated how quickly this would be resolved. ” on 2011-11-17
  • JoshuaZ estimated 5% and said “OPERA’s redone results apparently match. Updating chance that this is real. Even if it isn’t probably not going to find error by the 22nd. ” on 2011-11-18
  • Anubhav estimated 5% and said “Likewise.” on 2011-11-18
  • kilobug estimated 25% and said “95% chance it’ll be “mistaken” that neutrinos go higher than “c” (as the fundamental constant of GR), but time frame is too short.” on 2011-11-18
  • Isaac said “Anyone else read that CERN used shorter wavelength neutrinos to confirm the original reports?” on 2011-11-20
  • JoshuaZ said “isaac, yes see the discussion above causing Anuhbav and me to update our estimates. ” on 2011-11-20
  • fork estimated 90% and said “http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/11/20/us-science-neutrinos-idUSTRE7AJ0ZX20111120” on 2011-11-21
  • fork   judged this prediction right on 2011-11-21.
  • JoshuaZ   judged this prediction unknown on 2011-11-21.
  • JoshuaZ said “Fork, the ICARUS results don’t show that the OPERA results are mistaken, they just contradict them under somewhat conservative extensions of the standard model. ” on 2011-11-21
  • fork said “The contradiction is more reliable and does show the results to be mistaken. Bob does a study showing homeopathy works—it’s contentious. Jill does a study showing it doesn’t. Bobs are likely mistaken. Proof by contradiction.” on 2011-11-21
  • Anubhav said “That… is a rather radical idea of what a proof is. Refresher: An experiment isn’t a proof; it’s impossible to PROVE anything in empirical science. Anyhow, shown to be mistaken <=> Someone finds out what the mistake was.” on 2011-11-21
  • Anubhav said “You might actually be thinking about something like http://predictionbook.com/predictions/3781 . If you do make a prediction like that, remember to change “anyone” to “anyone but the guys who did it the first time around.”” on 2011-11-21
  • fork said “I’m not talking about a mathematical proof. Should have been obvious where I said “likely”. It’s not “finds out what the mistake was” but “found to be mistaken”. It has.” on 2011-11-21
  • fork   judged this prediction right on 2011-11-21.
  • Anubhav said “OK, I’ll concede that. My <=>was probably too simplistic. Just read the article (was going by Joshua’s explanation earlier) and we do have reputed scientists claiming the results were mistaken. Shouldn’t that be valid enough?” on 2011-11-21
  • JoshuaZ said “From the beginning we had lots of scientists saying it was mistaken and lots of proposed mistakes. If having people think this was mistaken or contradicted other experiments then it would have already been done on day 1 (e.g. SN 1987A). ” on 2011-11-21
  • fork said “So, really, JoshuaZ you meant the claim for this prediction to be “Methodological errors will be found in the CERN reports of faster than light neutrinos within 3 months”? Rather than the results will be shown to be incorrect.” on 2011-11-21
  • fork said “Because it’s your prediction, I’ll accept your intention rather than actual claim.” on 2011-11-21
  • fork   judged this prediction unknown on 2011-11-21.
  • fork estimated 5% on 2011-11-21
  • JoshuaZ said “Yes, sorry, illusion of transparency here. Thanks. ” on 2011-11-21
  • procran estimated 2% on 2011-12-11
  • muflax said “no general refutation that I’m aware of, so judging it wrong; Joshua can change the judgment if he disagrees” on 2011-12-22
  • muflax   judged this prediction wrong on 2011-12-22.
  • JoshuaZ said “Seems like the right judgment. ” on 2011-12-22