CERN Experiment Indicates Faster-Than-Light Neutrinos

intellitech writes "Puzzling results from Cern, home of the LHC, have confounded physicists — because it appears subatomic particles have exceeded the speed of light. Neutrinos sent through the ground from Cern toward the Gran Sasso laboratory 732km away seemed to show up a few billionths of a second early. The results will soon be online to draw closer scrutiny to a result that, if true, would upend a century of physics. The lab's research director called it 'an apparently unbelievable result.'" Also on the AP wire, as carried by PhysOrg, which similarly emphasizes that the data are preliminary. Update: 09/22 20:43 GMT by T : Reader Curunir_wolf adds a link to the experiment itself, the Oscillation Project with Emulsion-tRacking Apparatus, or OPERA, which "was developed to study the phenomenon of neutrino transmutation (neutrinos changing from one type to another. The speed of the neutrinos, of course, was an entirely unexpected observation."

First Post

[Anonymous Coward]

The Particle then go back in Time!

Einstein replied "Check your measurements, son"

[elrous0]

EOM

CERN IS faster than light

[JetScootr]

I searched for 'faster than light' on the CERN website, got articles posted in 2012, 2014. They put this new discovery to work right away!

Re:Einstein replied "Check your measurements, son"

[optymizer]

Hold on, I just need to wipe the dust off of this LHC I keep in my garage and then we can try to replicate their findings.

Re:Einstein replied "Check your measurements, son"

[maxwell demon]

Hold on, I just need to wipe the dust off of this LHC I keep in my garage and then we can try to replicate their findings.

Be careful with that dust. It may still contain some dangerous microscopic black holes from your last run. :-)

Yawn. A few billionths...

[istartedi]

Somebody probably just left a slightly magnetized keychain next to something.

time travel....

[thephydes]

There was a young lady named bright : who could travel much faster than light : She went out one day : in a relative way: and came back the previous night.

Re:Einstein replied "Check your measurements, son"

[Lisandro]

How precisely did they measure the 732km?

Why, by closely watching oxens plough [wikipedia.org]!

Re:Einstein replied "Check your measurements, son"

[Anonymous Coward]

Still wondering why the stupid Europeans spent billions on this nonsense when they could have just hired you.

Re:Not so fast...

[ChinggisK]

And no, they're not using an instantaneous tau to approximate a decay distribution. Anyone who has ever cooked popcorn knows better than that.

Completely wrong. I've cooked popcorn and I have no idea what "instantaneous tau to approximate a decay distribution" means.