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The saga of the particles called neutrinos began at CERN in Geneva. This is where scientists created the neutrinos, which dont interact with normal matter. They can pass right through the Earth as if it was not even there. Also, neutrinos are of different types. The CERN team prepares a beam of just one type, muon neutrinos, and sends them through the Earth to an underground laboratory at Gran Sasso in Italy to see how many show up as a different type, tau neutrinos.
A fraction of a second is all it takes for the neutrinos to reach the detector called OPERA in Italy where they are recorded. By dividing the distance between those two points by the time it takes for the neutrinos to travel, we get their speed. According to media reports, when the scientists did that they found that the neutrinos were managing to reach Italy about 60 nanoseconds faster than a photon would. Photons are also particles, but they are light, so if the calculations done by the scientists at CERN are correct, then neutrinos are capable of travelling faster than light.
Is there a speed limit in the universe?
60 nanoseconds is a tiny fraction of time. It only means that the neutrinos showed up 60 billionths of a second earlier than they would have done if they had they been travelling at the speed of light. The team at CERN has measured the travel times of the neutrino bunches about 16,000 times, and have reached a level of statistical significance that in scientific circles would count as a formal discovery. The paper published by CERN is available here - http://arxiv.org/abs/1109.4897.
So was Einstein wrong? If the results from CERN are true then it means that the Theory of Relativitys prediction that the speed limit of light in a vacuum is the speed limit of the universe is false. This would overturn one of the pillars of the Standard Model of physics, which explains the way the universe and everything within it works. Einsteins theory of special relativity, proposed in 1905, states that nothing in the universe can travel faster than the speed of light in a vacuum.
More evidence is needed
The astounding results from the experiments at CERN could be due to some miscalculation. The truth is that this is not the first time that we are hearing the theory that neutrinos travel faster than light. A similar announcement had been made in 2007, but after further review it was found that the neutrinos travelled slightly slower than the speed of light. We have another good reason to believe that neutrinos dont travel faster than light this is based on our observation of supernovas.
From the source in Geneva to the detector in Italy, the distance is only about 730 km, so the commute time at the speed of light is about 2.43 milliseconds. The neutrinos seem to have outpaced light by mere 60 nanoseconds. The thing is that these measurements are too small, and hence they are prone to errors. A much better way of measuring the speed of neutrinos would be from a source that is many light years away from earth. Scientists had earlier measured that the neutrinos from supernova SN1987A reached earth at about the same time as the light.
However, it is possible that there could be difference in properties of the neutrinos from supernova and those generated at CERN. The CERN neutrinos could have more energy than that of neutrinos generated at the core of a supernova. The bottom line is that we still far from knowing how fast the neutrinos travel under what conditions. So it is best to hold our scepticism until another group of scientists confirms the CERN observations.
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