Written by Danielle Salley, Four Green Steps

Scientists at the world’s largest physics lab, Cern located in Geneva, Switzerland, have announced a potentially jarring scientific breakthrough.  This breakthrough, if found to be statistically replicable from the scientific community worldwide, would dislodge Einstein’s fundamental theory of relativity (E=mc²)—the basis of physics wherein nothing can travel faster than the speed of light.

The experiment known as OPERA was testing neutrinos, a subatomic particle that spontaneously switches from one type to another (three types include: electron neutrino, muon neutrino and tau neutrino).  The Cern team prepared a beam of muon neutrinos and sent them through the Earth to an underground laboratory at Gran Sasso in Italy to determine how many show up as a different type, tau neutrinos.

The physicists noticed a major finding through the course of the experiments: the neutrinos travelled the 732 km to the laboratory at Gran Sasso 60 nanoseconds faster than the speed of light.  Upon replicating their results for the following few months to find errors that would dismantle their startling findings, they merely state a 10 nanosecond error bar— one that is still statistically significant.  In fact, the Cern team measured the travel times of neutrinos 16,000 times and has reached a level of statistical significance of high scientific formality.

Now the physicists of OPERA have announced their measurements in the hope that the scientific community will replicate their experiments and either confirm or refute their results.  They want to ensure their premise is correct before making any claims, because such claims would destroy the key concepts supporting modern physics.

Image courtesy of Creative Commons.

| More...