The Gran Sasso Laboratory in Italy. (Source: genevalunch.com here)
Recently the scientists at CERN, otherwise known as the European Organization for Nuclear Research, released the results of an experiment that may have recorded neutrinos that were travelling faster than the speed of light. To date, light has the fastest speed of anything we've ever observed, clocking in at a speed of about 186,000 miles per second. If these neutrinos were travelling faster than the speed of light, all of our theories of relativity (provided to us by the great Albert Einstein) could be completely wrong, and our modern physics would be gone ... just like that.
Now the reason that this is so important is that our theory of relativity is based on the speed of light being the fastest particle in our universe. For example, you right now are moving at a speed that is a very,very, very tiny fraction compared to the speed of light; therefore time is moving along at its normal rate. However, the closer you get to the speed of light, the slower time would pass. If you were to actually reach the speed of light, time would pause, and as well exceeding the speed of light would cause time to rewind. This concept is what we use to measure planets and galaxies hundreds of light-years away, by measuring the amount of time the light would take to originate from one spot and reach another.
(The Universe within 12.5 light-years , the Nearest Stars. Source: atlasoftheuniverse.com here)
Now what the scientists at CERN produced might be evidence that light may not be the fastest particle in the universe. Neutrino molecules are elementary subatomic particles that do not have an electrical charge, and can pass through matter without being effected by it. For example, lets say that you have two containers, both are closed, and one has a flashlight pointing out and the other has a neutrino gun pointing outward. The light would remain in the container because it cannot pass through its material, while the neutrinos are so small that they can pass freely through the material of the container.
CERN scientist, conducting research called the OPERA experiment, had sent neutrinos from Switzerland to a detector in Italy. After the scientists compenstate for all margins of error that they might have had during the experiment, the concluded that their results of the experiment might be off by 10 nanoseconds. They recorded the neutrinos reaching the detector 60 nanoseconds faster than what should be "physically" possible.
Since the release of the results, many scientists have been trying to figure out just how exactly this happened. One of the most convincing theories, as well as probably the most easily overlooked is that our technology is not fast enough. Ronald van Elburg, from the University of Groningen, proposes that the OPERA scientists forgot to compensate for the amount of time a GPS (Global Positioning System) signal takes to travel from Earth to orbiting satellites and back. Van Elburg believes that this amount of time will compensate for the approximate 60 nanoseconds that the results were off by.
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Read more about the Neutrino experiments.
Read about the possible solution
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