Light-speed busting neutrinos: was it just a loose cable?

THE LAWS of physics are looking a little more solid today after scientists who last year published evidence that particles had travelled faster than the speed of light announced that a faulty connection might account for their startling claim.

The scientists, working on the OPERA experiment at the Gran Sasso laboratory in Italy, are studying neutrinos generated 730km away at the CERN laboratory in Switzerland.

Last September they presented findings that suggested the particles had arrived at Opera 60 nanoseconds earlier than would be expected had they travelled at the speed of light - a result that runs counter to Albert Einstein's Theory of Special Relativity.

The findings were so shocking that Opera scientists have been thoroughly checking their methods and equipment to identify any faults that might explain them.

Today, they released a statement explaining they had identified two issues that could account for the faster-than-light neutrinos. Both are related to the use of GPS signals to synchronise atomic clocks in Cern and Opera.  

The first issue, which actually could have made the neutrinos appear to move slower than the speed of light, is a possible error in the "oscillator", which times the experiments.

But the prime suspect would appear to be the second issue, which is "the connection of the optical fibre bringing the external GPS signal to the Opera master clock" - in other words, a loose cable.

According to the website ScienceInsider,  which quotes unnamed sources, "after tightening the connection and then measuring the time it takes data to travel the length of the fibre, researchers found that the data arrive 60 nanoseconds earlier than assumed... it appears to explain the early arrival of the neutrinos".

Of course, further tests must be run before the possibility of faster-than-light neutrinos can be unequivocally rejected. But at the moment, it's looking good for Einstein. ·