What’s Putin’s plan, and do Russians back him? Little Neutral OneĪsk a physicist to define a neutrino, and she'll probably take a deep breath. Physicists would have been loath to make a theoretical exception, even for the ethereal neutrino. The measurements' possible, though very unlikely, contradiction of Einstein's special relativity dramatically overshadowed the enormous problems neutrinos had already been presenting for decades. The 2011 OPERA experiment marked a peculiar moment of fame for the tiny neutrino. The results maintained that neutrinos travel slower than the universal speed limit. Using the underground ICARUS detector at Gran Sasso, the experiment replicated the OPERA design, with additional provisions taken to improve the accuracy of the timing measurements. The most recent CERN measurements are perhaps the best refutation yet. Earlier, in September, physicists Andy Cohen and Sheldon Glashow of Boston University published their letter on arXive that proved the measurements to be theoretically impossible. Scientists – including the team that measured the superluminal neutrinos – were never willing to discard Einstein's crucial idea after just one experimental result.ĭuring the past several months, physicists have been prodding at the experimental and theoretical bases of the contentious Oscillation Project with Emulsion-Racking Apparatus (OPERA) measurements, which beamed neutrinos from the CERN lab in Geneva, Switzerland to a lab in Gran Sasso, Italy. In late February, many suspected that a poorly calibrated atomic clock, or even a recalcitrant fiber-optic cable produced an error in the timing. Their skepticism now seems justified, as another recent CERN experiment has contradicted the measurements.Įver since Einstein published the special theory of relativity in 1905, an immutable speed of light has been an integral part of the framework of theoretical physics. When scientists at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) last year apparently measured neutrinos traveling faster than light, physicists were largely skeptical.
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