"It was Albert Einstein, no less, who proposed more than 100 years ago that nothing could travel faster than the speed of light.

But last night it emerged that the man who laid the foundations for the laws of nature may have been wrong.

The science world was left in shock when workers at the world’s largest physics lab announced they had recorded subatomic particles travelling faster than the speed of light

If the findings are proven to be accurate, they would overturn one of the pillars of the Standard Model of physics, which explains the way the universe and everything within it works.

Einstein’s theory of special relativity, proposed in 1905, states that nothing in the universe can travel faster than the speed of light in a vacuum. But researchers at the CERN lab near Geneva claim they have recorded neutrinos, a type of tiny particle, travelling faster than the barrier of 186,282 miles (299,792 kilometers) per second.

The results have so astounded researchers that American and Japanese scientists have been asked to verify the results before they are confirmed as a discovery.

Antonio Ereditato, spokesman for the researchers, said: “We have high confidence in our results. We have checked and rechecked for anything that could have distorted our measurements but we found nothing.”

Scientists agree if the results are confirmed, that it would force a fundamental rethink of the laws of physics.

John Ellis, a theoretical physicist, said Einstein’s theory underlies “pretty much everything in modern physics”.

Speed of light 'broken' by scientists - Telegraph

Hmmmmmmm..........

"Speed-of-light experiments give baffling result at Cern

Puzzling results from Cern, home of the LHC, have confounded physicists - because it appears subatomic particles have exceeded the speed of light.

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.'"

Caught speeding?

The speed of light is the Universe's ultimate speed limit, and much of modern physics - as laid out in part by Albert Einstein in his special theory of relativity - depends on the idea that nothing can exceed it.

Thousands of experiments have been undertaken to measure it ever more precisely, and no result has ever spotted a particle breaking the limit.

But Dr Ereditato and his colleagues have been carrying out an experiment for the last three years that seems to suggest neutrinos have done just that.

Neutrinos come in a number of types, and have recently been seen to switch spontaneously from one type to another.

The team prepares a beam of just one type, muon neutrinos, sending them from Cern to an underground laboratory at Gran Sasso in Italy to see how many show up as a different type, tau neutrinos.

In the course of doing the experiments, the researchers noticed that the particles showed up a few billionths of a second sooner than light would over the same distance.

The team measured the travel times of neutrino bunches some 15,000 times, and have reached a level of statistical significance that in scientific circles would count as a formal discovery.

But the group understands that what are known as "systematic errors" could easily make an erroneous result look like a breaking of the ultimate speed limit, and that has motivated them to publish their measurements.

"My dream would be that another, independent experiment finds the same thing - then I would be relieved," Dr Ereditato said.

But for now, he explained, "we are not claiming things, we want just to be helped by the community in understanding our crazy result - because it is crazy".

"And of course the consequences can be very serious." "

BBC News - Speed-of-light experiments give baffling result at Cern

There are bound to be many other things faster than the speed of light, but they are probably of some cosmic frequency that would have little bearing on earthly physics.

Not buying it. After careful consideration, I'm sure it will be determined to be instrument error.

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"The ultimate decision about what is accepted as right and wrong will be made not by individual human wisdom but by the disappearance of the groups that have adhered to the "wrong" beliefs."
-- F.A. Hayek

Wonder if instead of changing the neutrinos are replacing.

Great article, Merc

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214 Days
9 Hours
56 Minutes Days till Christmas

Precisely. Isn't it a bit presumptious to say that one little human from an 'uncivilsed' planet can hold the key to the universe? Isn't it more likely that there are things more wonderful and more terrible than we can yet imagine?
Shouldn't we be saying " Space Travel here we come" if we can remove the limitations of light speed?

They're going to have to come up with a theory to explain WHY the particles can exceed the speed of light. It's also going to have to be confirmed before it's accepted.

Looks interesting, but it's far from proven.

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"The ultimate decision about what is accepted as right and wrong will be made not by individual human wisdom but by the disappearance of the groups that have adhered to the "wrong" beliefs."
-- F.A. Hayek

Where are the AGW Kooks telling us that the science is settled?

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“Quod scripsi, scripsi"

"Sometimes, the source of the beautiful dawning light that drives back the darkness, is your house burning"

Exactly. I would even think they were phasing in and out before I believed they were traveling at the speed of light.

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The voice in your head that says "you can't do this" is a LIAR!!!

Kooks is right. Kooks that don't understand science.

__________________
"The ultimate decision about what is accepted as right and wrong will be made not by individual human wisdom but by the disappearance of the groups that have adhered to the "wrong" beliefs."
-- F.A. Hayek