Nobel Prize-winning physicist Albert Einstein’s theories of relativity, popularized by his mass-energy equivalence equation, “E=mc^2,” have been tested and proven consistently for decades.
They are considered to be among the bedrock of physics theory.
However, researchers involved with the Gran Sasso, Italy-based OPERA (Oscillation Project with Emulsion tRacking Apparatus) project, in conjunction with researchers from the Switzerland-based European Center for Nuclear Research (CERN), may have potentially found a new area of physics that Einstein’s theories do not cover. The group has discovered particles that hold mass which might possibly move faster than the speed of light (“c” in Einstein’s equation; roughly 186,000 miles per second), something that was previously thought to be extremely hard to do.
Unexpected Results
In early September, over 170 researchers from OPERA published a report titled “Measurement of the neutrino velocity with the OPERA detector in the CNGS beam,” which detailed an experiment from 2009 to 2011.
Neutrinos are vz particles with no electrical charge and an extremely small mass. The OPERA experiment had initially been designed to view the change of muon neutrinos, into tau neutrinos (a process called neutrino oscillation), but had the added function of accurately measuring neutrino velocity from “the source of the CNGS neutrino beam at CERN and the OPERA detector at LNGS,” 730 kilometers away.
Once the experiment was completed, the test results were sent off for blind analysis. What the analysts reported they found after checking, double-checking and triple-checking the data, as well as accounting for systematic errors, was that the muon neutrinos arrived at the Gran Sasso neutrino collider a full 60 nanoseconds faster than the speed of light.
They concluded, “We cannot explain the observed effect in terms of presently known systematic uncertainties. Therefore, the measurement indicates an early arrival time of CNGS muon neutrinos with respect to the one computed assuming the speed of light in a vacuum.”
OPERA scientists ended their report on a cautious note, saying “Despite the large significance of the measurement reported here and the stability of the analysis, the potentially great impact of the result motivates the continuation of our studies in order to investigate possible still unknown systematic effects that could explain the observed anomaly. We deliberately do not attempt any theoretical or phenomenological interpretation of the results.”
Science Community Skeptical
When OPERA’s discoveries were made public late last month, the possibility of a particle with a definite mass moving faster than light sent the public atwitter, but other scientists maintain some skepticism.
Astrophysicist and television presenter Neil Degrasse Tyson tweeted to his followers days after the news came out: “Misbehaved neutrinos? Three options: 1) mistake; 2) They live backwards in time—okay w/ Einstein; 3) Extend Relativity.”
“Most physicists suspect that there is some systematic error they’re not accounting for,” UCO physics professor Weldon J. Wilson said.
According to his page on the Engineering and Physics department website, Wilson’s research has worked towards addressing “problems in quantum and classical field theory, general relativity, gauge interaction, geophysics, statistical physics, fluid dynamics, and biology.”
He said that astronomical studies have not borne out the same results that OPERA scientists obtained, specifically citing SN1987A, a supernova event in 1987 that was visible to the naked eye in the Southern Hemisphere.
In that event, neutrino bursts were detected by three separate neutrino detectors only a matter of hours before astronomers were able to view the light from the supernova.
“SN1987A neutrinos should have gotten here days before,” he said. “They got here at around the same time that we saw the explosion.”
New Regimes?
Experiments designed to test OPERA’s research are scheduled to begin soon at Fermilab in Illinois and J-PARC (Japan Proton Accelerator Research Complex) in Japan.
Wilson maintained his skepticism, but said that the ind of unexpected results OPERA had were desired.
“If you’re in the business of physics, that’s what you look for,” he said.
Wilson also urged caution on the part of the popular press when it comes to proclaiming Einstein’s Theories of Relativity bunk, making the point that in the event of new physical regimes, new theories would have to be created.
“Maybe we’ll find a regime where Einstein’s Theory of Relativity breaks down,” he said. “We never abandoned Newton’s theory of gravity.”