Still Faster than the Speed of Light

A repeat of the neutrino experiment has found the same results. So … time travel?

Remember that time in September when everyone panicked because an experiment suggested that neutrinos could travel faster than the speed of light, thereby leaving us feeling utterly inadequate about our understanding of the universe, and breaking physics forever? After members of the scientific community tried to cast doubt on the finding by suggesting that the long-lasting bunches of neutrinos could cause inaccurate results, the same team at Cern repeated the experiment, this time with shorter–lasting bunches. In their latest test, they found the same result even after 20 runs. The new study has been submitted to the Journal of High Energy Physics, but has yet to be peer-reviewed. Other possible errors in the study will be examined next year by independent teams at Europe's Borexino and Icarus and Japan’s T2K experiment.

Image courtesy of Predo Vera.