Antonio Ereditato, spokesman for the international group of researchers, said that measurements taken over three years showed neutrinos pumped from CERN near Geneva to Gran Sasso in Italy had arrived 60 nanoseconds quicker than light would have done.

"We have high confidence in our results. We have checked and rechecked for anything that could have distorted our measurements but we found nothing," he said. "We now want colleagues to check them independently."

If confirmed, the discovery would undermine Albert Einstein's 1905 theory of special relativity, which says that the speed of light is a "cosmic constant" and that nothing in the universe can travel faster.

majorspark;907122 wrote:

Glory Days;907260 wrote:yeah....but so what?

Glory Days;907260 wrote:yeah....but so what?

justincredible;907119 wrote:I've heard that ernest "finishes" faster than the speed of light so Einstein's theory of special relativity has already been undermined long ago.

chicago510;907262 wrote:Changes everything, really. So many physical calculations are based on the speed of light (c=3x10^8 m/s) being the absolute maximum possible speed matter can travel.

Glory Days;907355 wrote:yeah....but so what? nothing in our everyday life will change, especially in our lifetime with this new discovery.

Even this small deviation would open up the possibility of time travel and play havoc with longstanding notions of cause and effect. Einstein himself — the author of modern physics, whose theory of relativity established the speed of light as the ultimate limit — said that if you could send a message faster than light, “You could send a telegram to the past.”Alvaro DeRejula, a theorist at CERN, called the claim “flabbergasting.”

“If it is true, then we truly haven’t understood anything about anything,” he said, adding: “It looks too big to be true. The correct attitude is to ask oneself what went wrong.”

justincredible;907119 wrote:I've heard that ernest "finishes" faster than the speed of light so Einstein's theory of special relativity has already been undermined long ago.

chicago510;907377 wrote:I'm no particle physicist, I only took a year in undergrad, but Einstein theorized that things that traveled faster than the speed of light could travel through time, previously thought to be impossible.

I agree that it won't have tangible impact on human life anytime soon, but the theory of relativity changed the world, e=mc^2 defines the reason that nuclear power can be generated, and if this finding is true then we may find new equations that change things.

Quotes from the physicists:

ManO'War;907544 wrote:And they would have to factor in the wind effect.

chicago510;907377 wrote:I'm no particle physicist, I only took a year in undergrad, but Einstein theorized that things that traveled faster than the speed of light could travel through time, previously thought to be impossible.

I agree that it won't have tangible impact on human life anytime soon, but the theory of relativity changed the world, e=mc^2 defines the reason that nuclear power can be generated, and if this finding is true then we may find new equations that change things.

berry;907489 wrote:Hard to believe they calculated based on hand held timing. The FAT readings will show a slower speed and clear up any confusion.