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Six months after physicists shocked the man by announcing they ’d found particles on the face of it move quicker than light , the produce scientific consensus seems to be that the result were flawed .
Researchers at the ICARUS project in Italy have cheer an independent version of the original Switzerland - based experimentation , called OPERA , and constitute that their subatomic particle locomote at a respectable , sub - light speed .
If subatomic particles called neutrinos can go faster than the speed of light, as scientists reported Sept.22, it would require a rethinking of the basics of physics, including the possibility of time travel.
Though the result do n’t mechanically disproveOPERA ’s findings , they tot up to most scientist ' sense that the scandalous finding was an unusual person .
" The grounds is beginning to point towards the OPERA outcome being an artefact of the measurement , " Sergio Bertolucci , enquiry managing director at the CERN physics testing ground that houses OPERA , said in a program line . [ 10 Implications of Faster - Than - Light Neutrinos ]
In September , queer physicist from the OPERA collaborationannounced that they ’d sent beams of corpuscle called neutrinos from CERN , in Geneva , to a detector buried underground 454 air mile ( 730 kilometers ) away in Gran Sasso , Italy , and found that they go far 60 billionths of a 2nd sooner than light would have .
The speed of light has been long known to be the fastest possible speed in our universe. So what do you do when scientists catch subatomic particles traveling faster than light?
Such a determination is unbelievable , because thespeed of lightwas thought to be a cosmic speed limit point impose by Einstein ’s extra theory of relativity theory . The OPERA scientists were as surprised as anyone , and invited other researchers to scrutinize their solution and recreate their experiment to assist test or confute their finding .
Now ICARUS has , and the solvent evoke neutrinos might be more mundane than they in short seemed .
" The ICARUS experiment has provided an authoritative crown of thorns - check of the anomalous result reports from OPERA last class , " suppose Carlo Rubbia , spokesperson for the ICARUS experimentation . " ICARUS measure the neutrino ’s speed to be no quicker than the f number of ignitor . These are difficult and sensitive measurements to make and they underline the importance of the scientific cognitive operation . "
ICARUS , like OPERA , tracks neutrinos beam from CERN to Gran Sasso . ICARUS ' sensor is filled with 600 slews of liquid argon , in contrast to OPERA , which uses hearty lead plates interspersed with photographic movie .
Neutrinos are very hard to detect because they have almost no mass and are neutrally charged , so they very seldom interact with other subatomic particle . All types of neutrino detector rely on big hoi polloi of mote in the hope that some small fraction of neutrinos will collide with the nuclei of these atoms and release other particles that can be escort .
To furthertest the neutrino results , other experiments aim to do their own trial . Two more neutrino detectors at Gran Sasso called BOREXINO and LVD , as well as the MINOS experimentation in Illinois , and the T2 K project in Japan , will measure the upper of neutrinos severally .
" It ’s crucial to be rigorous , and the Gran Sasso experiments , BOREXINO , ICARUS , LVD and OPERA will be making new measuring with pulsed beams from CERN in May to give us the final verdict,“Bertolucci say . " In addition , cross - checks are underway at Gran Sasso to compare the timing of cosmic electron beam particles between the two experiment , OPERA and LVD . Whatever the result , the OPERA experiment has behaved with utter scientific unity in spread their measure to blanket scrutiny , and invite independent measurements . This is how science works . "
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