![]() ![]() "It could mean that Einstein was right in some respects, but not completely. They would not have been superluminal, or faster than light. Yet this counter-intuitive idea would also save Einstein's reputation.īy traversing into an extra dimension, the particles would in effect have taken a short cut to get to their destination. If so, our traditional concept of the Universe would be ripped apart. One possibility: the speed of light can be broken and Einstein was wrong.Īnother: the particles, as they made their trip, crossed into some extra dimension or two, beyond the four dimensions of reality that we know, which comprise three of space and one of time. A team in the United States is already working to see if the result can be replicated.īut what would happen if it turns out to be true? Right now, the OPERA experiment is a long way from being accepted as "five sigma," or a claim that is tried and tested and deemed authentic. "This would be a profound revolution in physics, probably the most significant one to happen in the last 100 years." "If the effect were confirmed, it would show some particles can travel faster than the speed of light," Professor David Wark, director of the Particle Physics Department at Britain's Science and Technology Facilities Council, told AFP. Instead, the ornery little critters hit the detectors in Italy 0.00000006 seconds sooner than expected. To do the trip, the neutrinos should have taken 0.0024 seconds. ![]() They were timed at their departure and, after travelling 732 kms (454 miles) through Earth's crust, at their arrival at the Gran Sasso Laboratory in Italy. ![]() The neutrinos had been generated at the giant underground lab of the European Centre for Nuclear Research (CERN) in Geneva. The fuss began in September when a European team announced that ghostly sub-atomic particles called neutrinos had been found to travel some six kilometres (3.75 miles) per second faster than the velocity of light. Normally staid scientists rushed to defend a foundation theory of modern physics - and one even vowed to eat his blue boxer shorts if the findings were confirmed. ![]()
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