Einstein's theory of relativity is shaken.
Hundreds of scientists gathered in the auditorium of one of the world's most advanced laboratories to find out how a neutrino surpassed the previously insurmountable speed of light.
The physicists on the team that measured subatomic particles that appeared to travel faster than the speed of light said on Friday that they were as surprised and skeptical as their critics by the results, which seem to violate the laws of nature as established by science. Hundreds of scientists gathered in the auditorium of one of the most advanced laboratories on the border between France and Switzerland to find out how the neutrino surpassed a speed they believed to be insurmountable, almost 300 kilometers per second, and which would have shaken Albert Einstein's theory.
"To our great surprise, we found an anomaly," said Antonio Ereditato, a scientist who participated in the experiment and spoke on behalf of the team. According to Einstein's special theory of relativity, formulated in 1905, nothing can exceed the speed of light, exactly 299.792 kilometers per second. Until now, it was considered a cosmic speed limit.
The team, comprised of a collaboration of scientists from the French National Institute for Nuclear Research and Particle Physics and the Gran Sasso National Laboratory in Italy, fired a neutrino beam 730 kilometers underground, from Geneva, Switzerland, to Italy. The team discovered that the neutrino traveled 60 nanoseconds faster than light. This means sixty thousand millionths of a second.
"Some might say that this is insignificant, but it's not. It's something we can measure with great precision and minuscule uncertainty," Ereditato told the Associated Press.
If the experiment is repeated independently—most likely by teams from the United States and Japan—then it would necessitate a revision of the principles of modern physics.
"Everyone knows what the speed limit is, the speed of light. If someone finds a particle of matter like the neutrino that travels faster, it's something that will immediately attract everyone's attention, including ours," added Ereditato, a researcher at the University of Bern, Switzerland.
Some physicists not involved in the experiment are skeptical. Alvaro De Rujula, a theoretical physicist at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), near Geneva, the city from which the neutrino beam was launched, attributed the reading to some as-yet-undetected human error.
According to him, if that is not the case, it could open the door to unusual possibilities. A person, De Rujula said, "could theoretically travel to the past and kill their mother before they were born."
But Ereditato and his team aren't concerned with these science fiction conjectures. "We will continue our studies and patiently await confirmation," he said.