You may have heard the news that the latest experiments at the largest particle accelerator in the world, based at CERN, outside Geneva have indicated that Einstein’s General Theory Of Relativity may be wrong.
Scientists at CERN fired a beam of neutrinos from Switzerland to Italy, a distance of 454 miles. Much to their surprise, after studying 15,000 neutrinos, they found that they traveled faster than the speed of light (over 60 nanoseconds faster!), something not allowed by Einstein’s theory.
So what does it mean? If proven correct, this means that Einstein’s theory is wrong and physicists have to go back to the drawing board and modify it to account for the neutrino’s speed. Today, modern physics is based on two theories, relativity and the quantum theory, so half of modern physics would have to be replaced by a new theory.
Its important to point out, however, that challenges to Einstein’s theory occur every few years and have always been proven wrong. The truth is that people measuring unfathomably small particles traveling over 450 miles, and arriving 60 billionths of a second faster than they should, tend to make errors.
Albert Einstein’s work is incomplete (he wanted one theory that explained everything) but I doubt it is incorrect. In the case of the latest CERN discovery, I’d say Einstein rules, don’t bet on the neutrino.
