Physicists shock the science world by telling that neutrinos travel faster than light. Einstein proposed that light is the fastest thing in the universe. So, was Einstein wrong?
Neutrinos are virtually invisible, shape-shifting particles. They're "among the weirdest denizens of the weird quantum subatomic world," says Dennis Overbye in The New York Times. And they travel effortlessly "through walls and planets like wind through a screen door." Over three years, the OPERA team fired 15,000 beams of neutrinos underground from CERN to the subterranean Gran Sasso laboratory south of Rome — primarily to study the shifting properties of neutrinos, not the speed at which they travel. But their speed "is becoming a main issue," says OPERA leader Antonio Ereditato, dryly.
According to the scientists, light travels the 454 miles from CERN to Gran Sasso in 2.4 thousandths of a second, and the neutrinos beat that time by 60 nanoseconds, or 60 billionths of a second.
Source: The Week
Neutrinos are virtually invisible, shape-shifting particles. They're "among the weirdest denizens of the weird quantum subatomic world," says Dennis Overbye in The New York Times. And they travel effortlessly "through walls and planets like wind through a screen door." Over three years, the OPERA team fired 15,000 beams of neutrinos underground from CERN to the subterranean Gran Sasso laboratory south of Rome — primarily to study the shifting properties of neutrinos, not the speed at which they travel. But their speed "is becoming a main issue," says OPERA leader Antonio Ereditato, dryly.
According to the scientists, light travels the 454 miles from CERN to Gran Sasso in 2.4 thousandths of a second, and the neutrinos beat that time by 60 nanoseconds, or 60 billionths of a second.
Source: The Week
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