Scientists at Cern have
validated some of their calculations regarding neutrinos, tiny particles that
they think can travel faster than
light. We say that with some uncertainty, though, because as soon as the Opera
(Oscillation Project with Emulsion [T]racking Apparatus) collaboration
published their findings regarding the particles, physicists started
desperately trying to find as many flaws in the experiment as possible.
Why is that? Well,
physics, and all the disciplines that rely on it, have many of their baseline
calculations and formulas based on the idea that nothing can travel faster than
the speed of light. This is especially important to astronomers, because calculating
how long light has to travel before we are able to see it from Earth is one of
the main ways they figure out approximately how old stars are and how far away
they are in space. If all of those calculations are suddenly proved
fundamentally flawed, well…everything
would have to change. If the findings at Cern are eventually proven true, most
of the scientific community will have to undergo a complete overhaul in the way
they think and conduct their calculations.
As soon as the earliest
results were published in September (with some trepidation—the scientists
conducting the experiments are practically begging other facilities around the
world to do what they can to try to test the experiments to see what sort of
results they get), a laundry list of possible flaws with the experiment has
started to form. One of the largest problems has just been tested, and the
original results have held.
The idea was that the
bunches of neutrinos that are tested would have produced different results
based on their string size, or the number of neutrinos that are used at one
time during the experiment. To test this, the scientists at Cern ran their
experiments at least 20 more times with smaller test sizes, and the original
results have still held true. There are still many, many more experiments that
need to be conducted to be able to say once and for all that there are some
things that can travel faster than light, but for now, one more step has been
made in that direction.