From Yahoo News:
CERN claims faster-than-light particle measured
GENEVA (AP) — Scientists at the world’s largest physics lab say they have clocked subatomic particles traveling faster than light, a feat that — if true — would break a fundamental pillar of science.
The readings have so astounded researchers that they are asking others to independently verify the measurements before claiming an actual discovery.
“This would be such a sensational discovery if it were true that one has to treat it extremely carefully,” said John Ellis, a theoretical physicist at the European Organization for Nuclear Research, or CERN, who was not involved in the experiment.
Nothing is supposed to move faster than light, at least according to Albert Einstein’s special theory of relativity: The famous E (equals) mc2 equation. That stands for energy equals mass times the speed of light squared.
But neutrinos — one of the strangest well-known particles in physics — have now been observed smashing past this cosmic speed barrier of 186,282 miles per second (299,792 kilometers).
Full story here: http://news.yahoo.com/cern-claims-faster-light-particle-measured-180644818.html
From the BBC:
Neutrinos sent through the ground from Cern toward the Gran Sasso laboratory 732km away seemed to show up a tiny fraction of a second early.
The result – which threatens to upend a century of physics – will be put online for scrutiny by other scientists.
In the meantime, the group says it is being very cautious about its claims.
“We tried to find all possible explanations for this,” said report author Antonio Ereditato of the Opera collaboration.
“We wanted to find a mistake – trivial mistakes, more complicated mistakes, or nasty effects – and we didn’t,” he told BBC News.
“When you don’t find anything, then you say ‘Well, now I’m forced to go out and ask the community to scrutinise this.’
Full story here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-15017484
h/t’s to WUWT readers Peter Hodges and pearlandaggie
The science is settled…
I’m betting on bad stopwatches …
Amazing!!!!
Thanks for exciting info.
Such a great methodology of undertaking science professionally. This is what we have done. Here is our research. We can’t explain the results.
Compare that with trying to get the information and details of a single graph from climate scientists.
Sorry, the science on this subject has been completely settled for a long time. Their observations are impossible and (various snarky remarks about the CERN team.)
/sarc_off
Seriously though, this would be pretty amazing if true. I think they’ll need some pretty vigorous confirmations, though.
Couldn’t be, the science is settled!
Seriously though, if ture this would shatter all kinds of notions we have about the universe. They better make sure that everything in that facitlity is fit and finished since I would imagine we’re dealing with a speed difference in the millionths, or billionths, of a second.
”It doesn’t take 100 scientists to prove me wrong, it takes a single fact.” -Albert Einstein
There is the fact…
What a great example of proper science being done with a true sceptical bent. Scientists asking for their work to be thoroughly checked by independent observers and hoping that they will be proved wrong. Nice to see there are still plenty of scientists in the world who understand the scientific method.
Our Climate Science ‘community’ and the IPCC should take note.
Sulu, Warp 5.
Localised gravitic differences affecting timing – but what do I know?
Why not just model it?
Whoa!!!
String theorists must be going ga-ga. From what I recall they have been predicting this for quite a while based on the inconnectivity of objects reacting to each other instantaneously, ie faster than light speed. I think… it’s been a while since I read about it and it took some serious work to wrap my head around a lot the stuff.
Wait, they checked their math and then put everything out there for others to analyze and comment on? Well, obviously these aren’t “real” scientists, the warmist climatologists are the real scientists and they never do that!
Seriously though, nice to see some folks not practicising post normal science for a change. And an interesting observation, it will be fascinating to see what the end result is.
The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not “Eureka!” but “That’s funny…”
— Isaac Asimov
This needs to be confirmed with models.
To me, these physicists are acting like real scientists should — publishing their measurements openly and with a call to others in the scientific community to try to replicate their findings (or disprove them).
Too bad so-called climate scientists haven’t been as forthcoming and open (science is settled).
I read somewhere that the effect of gravity could maybe be traveling faster than the speed of light.
They will need to make a special-special theory of relativity.
According to Wikipedia this isn’t the first time neutrinos have been observed travelling faster than light but earlier events were dismissed, not “robust” enough I suppose.
Wow! Right up my alley. Love this stuff. Thanks Anthony for posting this – it gets me very excited indeed. The implications are mind boggling just as a quick though if proven to be accurate. And CERN scientists are very conservative in their approach – I imagine they have done their due diligence even before the thought releasing this for the larger scientific community. Holy crap – the more I concentrate of this the larger the implications –
Maybe it’s not a question of speed but a question of distance. There are 730 km between the CERN and Gran Sasso and it seems that the neutrinos beam has exceeded the speed of light by only 20 meters. This could be explained by a slight uplift of the earth crust du to a tide effect. The Moon has a well known and visible effect on ocean tides and a very slight but real effect on the earth crust. They had some problems with that at CERN, a few years ago, because this tide effect made it difficult to adjust their beams of particles in their Large Hadron Collider. If the Moon was above Switzerland or Italy when they measured the speed of their neutrinos beams, the culprit may be easy to fix.
I feel sorry for the neutrino, not even time for a quick pint on the way.
If true, this is a real game changing moment in history. It also, of course means that if one of the fundmental laws we accept as true is in fact not, that climate scientists shrill cries of “the science is settled” will look nothing short of the rantings of madmen.
I thought Neutrinos already did this? So what “…fundamental pillar of science…” has been broken?
Luboš Motl had written about this some days ago:
http://motls.blogspot.com/2011/09/italian-out-of-tune-superluminal.html
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