Neutrinos May Still Have Broken Light Barrier – Or Not
Neutrinos which appeared to have undermined a basic law of the universe by exceeding the speed of light might have done so even faster than first thought – or might not have done it at all, said scientists at the Gran Sasso laboratory in Italy. Tests on the equipment used in their experiment had led to two question marks over its sensational results, because of problems with possibly faulty cabling and separately with a timing mechanism.
The first “could have led to an underestimate of the time of flight of the neutrinos” while the second could have resulted in “an overestimate,” said the statement by the Italian laboratory’s OPERA group of neutrino specialists, relayed by the CERN particle physics research centre in Geneva. The latest turn in the story, which set the scientific world in uproar when it first broke last September, left the basic question – did they or didn’t they? – unanswered, with more tests set for the coming weeks and months.