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CERN Experiment Indicates Faster-Than-Light Neutrinos

Posted by timothy on from the they're-ahead-of-their-time dept.

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."

10 of 1,088 comments (clear)

  1. First Post by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Funny

    The Particle then go back in Time!

  2. Einstein replied "Check your measurements, son" by elrous0 · · Score: 4, Funny

    EOM

    --
    SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
    1. Re:Einstein replied "Check your measurements, son" by optymizer · · Score: 5, Funny

      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.

    2. Re:Einstein replied "Check your measurements, son" by maxwell+demon · · Score: 3, Funny

      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. :-)

      --
      The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
    3. Re:Einstein replied "Check your measurements, son" by Lisandro · · Score: 5, Funny

      How precisely did they measure the 732km?

      Why, by closely watching oxens plough!

    4. Re:Einstein replied "Check your measurements, son" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Funny

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

  3. CERN IS faster than light by JetScootr · · Score: 4, Funny

    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!

    --
    Pavlov wouldn't be so famous if he'd used a can opener instead of a bell.
  4. Yawn. A few billionths... by istartedi · · Score: 1, Funny

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

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    For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
  5. time travel.... by thephydes · · Score: 5, Funny

    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.

  6. Re:Not so fast... by ChinggisK · · Score: 4, Funny

    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.