What’s maybe the most shocking announcement for the scientific community this whole millennium came earlier today from Geneva, when scientists at CERN dropped the bomb shell according to which they’ve managed to break the speed of light barrier. If their three years study of measurements with re-checks upon re-checks proves to be valid, than the entire current laws of physics must be re-written and thus prove one of Einstein’s theory wrong for the very first time.
It’s Einstein’s most important theory ever stipulated by the famous physicist actually, first pronounced in 1905 and called the theory of special relativity which simply states that the speed of light is an universal constant and that nothing can travel faster than it – E = m*c^2. Apparently, European researchers claim they clocked an oddball type of subatomic particle called a neutrino going faster than the 186,282 miles per second cosmic barrier. Pumped from CERN near Geneva to Gran Sasso in Italy, the neutrinos had arrived 60 nanoseconds quicker than light would have done.
“The feeling that most people have is this can’t be right, this can’t be real,” said James Gillies, a spokesman for the European Organization for Nuclear Research, or CERN, which provided the particle accelerator that sent neutrinos on their breakneck 454-mile trip underground from Geneva to Italy.
A neutrino is one of the most mysterious sub-particles known to man, dazzling physicists since it was very theorized and then proven to exist more than 80 years ago. It has no mass, it has the capability to pass through ordinary matter almost unaffected, comes in three different “flavors,” may have its own antiparticle and has been seen shifting from one flavor to another while shooting out from our sun. Neutrinos are created as a result of certain types of radioactive decay or nuclear reactions such as those that take place in the Sun, in nuclear reactors, or when cosmic rays hit atoms.
There’s certainly no indication whatsoever that the European scientists are just going at it for show and glory, blasting the theory of relativity publicly just for fun. By all accounts, every scientists involved in the official research is well aware of the implications of their statements, and are now waiting for other scientists, with no relation to the research, to independently verify the CERN data. If they’re wrong, I guess their plan of going back in time and canceling that failed press conference won’t work in the first place either.
Tomorrow, Friday, a special conference by CERN will be held in which scientists outside the installation will be briefed in detail of the discovery. A live webcast will be held here. More on the subject as we’re granted to hear more.
