09/11/2011
Nothing Travels Faster Than The Speed Of Light? Neutrinos Maybe.
A recent experiment conducted by CERN labs hints at neutrinos beating the speed of light. The experiment involved neutrinos traveling from a lab in Geneva, Switzerland to a detector in Italy.
Neutrinos are nearly massless subatomic particles that have a low level of interaction with other particles. An experiment called OPERA (Oscillation Project with Emulsion tRacking Apparatus) sent beams of neutrinos from a particle accelerator at CERN to a detector in the Gran Sassocavern in Italy, 730 kilometres away.
The neutrinos arrived 60 nanoseconds sooner than if traveling at the speed of light. Though 60 nanoseconds is not a big difference, if the findings are confirmed, then it defies Einstein’s theory of special relativity. According to Einsteinian physics, nothing is supposed to exceed the speed of light and the theory has stood its ground for almost a century now. The speed of light, denoted by the constant c was acknowledged in Einstein’s special theory of relativity famous equation E = mc2 (where E is energy and m is mass).
The experiment was conducted with an aim of studying the transformation of muon variety of neutrinos into tau variety. Instead the scientists found the neutrinos to be arriving at a speed a nick above the speed of light. The experiment still awaits a final nod, but if it turns out to be true, the special relativity theory would turn out to be wrong, marking this to be a big day in the history of physics.
