Post date: Sep 23, 2011 11:13:36 AM
International scientists make breakthrough discovery as sub-atomic particles are found to be quicker than the speed of light, casting doubts on our knowledge of space, time and the creation of the universe
ESA/HUBBLE - Scientists were expected to unveil a piece of research in Geneva on Friday (September 23) that could disprove one of physics' most fundamental laws: that nothing can beat the speed of light.
On Thursday, scientists from the CERN nuclear research centre revealed that neutrinos - sub-atomic particles - that had been fired from Geneva to the sister lab in Italy, had been recorded travelling 60 nanoseconds faster than light would have done.
The CERN researchers were so stunned by their results that they have been working hard to try to disprove them. However, they have been unable to find any inconsistencies in their research, and are now handing over their findings to scientific colleagues for approval and testing.
"We have made a totally unexpected observation. We have measured the time it took for neutrinos, which are elementary particles, to travel 730 km, which is the distance between their source at CERN in Geneva and our detector, located in an underground laboratory in the Italian mountain of Gran Sasso," said CNRS Researcher and Particle Physicist Dario Autiero.
"Over that distance, we have observed that neutrinos were ahead by 60 nanoseconds, in other words 60 billionths of a second, of the time it would take light to cover the same trajectory. Or, in terms of distance, they were 20 meters ahead out of a distance of 730 km. It is the first time that we have experimental evidence of a particle travelling faster than light, which is completely unexpected in physics as we know it," he added.
Neutrinos are mysterious sub-atomic particles which can pass undetected through matter, including the human body. The most common particle in the universe, neutrinos originate from the sun and radioactive disintegration.
To arrive at the lab in Italy, the neutrinos were pushed out from a special installation at CERN and had to travel through water, air and land.
"The fact that, as part of Einstein's theory, particles can't travel at a higher speed than light is directly linked to the time-space structure and this result therefore suggests that, at a very small scale, such structure is significantly different from what we imagined. This is interesting as it could apply to the very first instants of the universe as envisaged by the Big Bang theory," said the Director of the Astroparticles and Cosmology Laboratory, Pierre Binetruy.
"This may be the first, very small insight into a new physics that would have applied during the Big Bang. It is therefore of paramount importance in our comprehension of time, space and the universe," he added.
CERN researchers have been working on their theory since 2008, and made their initial discovery in March, at which point they spent a further six months verifying their data.
In 1905, Nobel-prize winning physicist Albert Einstein presented his theory of special relativity - stating that nothing could possibly travel faster than light. And after more than one hundred years of testing, his theory seemed incontestable.
But now, as international researchers at the two centres await confirmation that their research is accurate, the world is holding its breath for what could be physics' biggest breakthrough of the century.