New test finds neutrinos still faster than light
The new evidence, challenging a dogma of science that has held since Albert Einstein laid out his theory of relativity in 1905, appeared to confirm a startling finding that sub-atomic particles called neutrinos could travel fractions of a second faster.
The new experiment at the Gran Sasso laboratory, using a neutrino beam from CERN in Switzerland, 720 km (450 miles) away, was held to check findings in September by a team of scientists, which were greeted with some skepticism.
Scientists at the Italian Institute for Nuclear Physics (INFN) said in a statement on Friday that their new tests aimed to exclude one potential systematic effect that may have affected the original measurement.
"A measurement so delicate and carrying a profound implication on physics requires an extraordinary level of scrutiny," said Fernando Ferroni, president of the INFN.
"The positive outcome of the test makes us more confident in the result, although a final word can only be said by analogous measurements performed elsewhere in the world."
An international team of scientists shocked the scientific world with the original findings in September.
That first finding was recorded when 15,000 neutrino beams were pumped over three years from CERN to Gran Sasso, an underground Italian laboratory near Rome.
Physicists on the experiment, called OPERA after the initials of its formal scientific title, said they had checked and rechecked over many months anything that could have produced a misreading before announcing what they had found.
If confirmed, scientists say the findings may show that Einstein, seen as the father of modern physics was wrong when he set out in his theory of special relativity that the speed of light is a ‘cosmic constant’ and nothing can go faster.
This would force a major rethink of theories about how the cosmos works and even mean it would be possible, in theory, to send information into the past.
