Particles Travel Faster Than Light

Neutron, illustration

Physicists reported that sub-atomic particles called neutrinos can travel faster than light, a finding that - if verified - would blast a hole in Einstein's theory of relativity.


Physicists have found that tiny particles called neutrinos are making a 454-mile (730-kilometer) underground trip faster than they should — more quickly, in fact, than light could do. If the results are confirmed, they could throw much of modern physics into upheaval.


In experiments conducted between the European Centre for Nuclear Research (CERN) in Switzerland and a laboratory in Italy, the tiny particles were clocked at 300,006 kilometres per second, about six km/sec faster that the speed of light, the researchers said.


"This result comes as a complete surprise" said physicist Antonio Ereditato, spokesman for the experiment, known as OPERA. "We wanted to measure the speed of neutrinos, but we didn't expect to find anything special."


Results from the CERN laboratory in Switzerland seem to break this cardinal rule of physics, calling into question one of the most trusted laws discovered by Albert Einstein.

Speed of Light, illustration

Scientists spent nearly six months "checking, testing, controlling and rechecking everything" before making an announcement.


Researchers involved in the experiments were cautious in describing its implications, and called on physicists around the world to scrutinise their data, to be made available online overnight.


But the findings, they said, could potentially reshape our understanding of the physical world.


"If this measurement is confirmed, it might change our view of physics" said CERN research director Sergio Bertolucci, a view echoed by several independent physicist contacted by AFP.


In the experiments, scientists blasted a beam producing billions upon billions of neutrinos from CERN, which straddles the French-Swiss border near Geneva, to the Gran Sasso Laboratory 730 kilometres away in Italy.


Neutrinos are electrically neutral particles so small that only recently were they found to have mass.


"The neutrinos arrived 60 nanoseconds earlier that the 2.3 milliseconds taken by light" Ereditato told AFP.


Under Albert Einstein's theory of special relativity, however, a physical object cannot travel faster than the speed of light in a vacuum.


Newton's theory of gravity, still explains the movement of planets well enough to send missions into space, even if Einstein's theories proved that it was not quitecorrect.


Theoretical physicists are sure to begin searching for new explanations to account for the unsuspected quickness of neutrinos.


It could be that "the particles have found a shortcut in another dimension" besides the four - three in space, plus time - we know about.


"Or it could simply mean that the speed of light is not the speed limit we thought it was."