Oh, no, not just when I was beginning to understand it!

Scientists - heh!  You can't rely on them for anything.  Here's me, with a book-shelf full of books purporting to explain Einstein's theories, none of which I ever finish because what skulks in my skull pretending to be my brain is actually coagulated dandruff gathered over the years, and the one single thing I do understand and therefore cling to is that the speed of light is inviolate.  You could put Lewis Hamilton on a sub-atomic particle but not even he could go faster than the photon of light running alongside.  Up until today that is!

The BBC reports that scientists at CERN have fired off some particles down their version of the Bakerloo line which runs under the Alps, and guess what, the little critters arrived early!  Which is more than London Transport ever manages.

Puzzling results from Cern, home of the LHC, have confounded physicists - because it appears subatomic particles have exceeded the speed of light.

Neutrinos sent through the ground from Cern toward the Gran Sasso laboratory 732km away seemed to show up a tiny fraction of a second early.

The result - which threatens to upend a century of physics - will be put online for scrutiny by other scientists.

Still, unlike all those climate (so-called) scientists, Antonio Ereditato, the lead author on the published paper knows how a proper scientist should behave:

"We wanted to find a mistake - trivial mistakes, more complicated mistakes, or nasty effects - and we didn't," he told BBC News.

"When you don't find anything, then you say 'Well, now I'm forced to go out and ask the community to scrutinise this.'"

Good man!  And I hope those little scamps did run faster than anyone thought they could because I have always had my doubts about Einstein and his mad theory - well, my dears, that hair! - and now maybe I won't have to waste even more time and money buying books which fail to explain what the daft old codger was on about.

 

Comments

[Whyaxye]

Trouble is, we'll have to buy books about the even more complicated theories which replace the old guy's, and our sense of intellectual inadequacy will increase. I am enjoying, however, the sense of something exciting going on which I don't need to understand. I feel obliged to make an effort over issues such as the banking crisis or global warming, in case bad stuff happens to me. But particles can travel as fast as they like, providing they don't dent my car or make too much noise at night.

[David Duff]

Yes, that's the trouble, I do find these things exciting on the very occasional moments when I get a glimpse of the meaning, hence all the books.

[David Duff]

Yes, that's the trouble, I do find these things exciting on the very occasional moments when I get a glimpse of the meaning, hence all the books.

[A K Haart]

DD - your last comment split into two - is it some kind of new quantum effect?

[Peter MacFarlane]

What?

You mean they are not suppressing this result because it disagrees with the consensus?

Why not?

[David Duff]

No, AK, it was the result of a collision in a hydron 'wotsit', held up the traffic for hours!

I suspect because nobody understands it, Peter!

[Umbongo]

Peter MacFarlane

I suppose because this is genuine science and the people involved are genuine scientists.