By now you are all aware of yesterday’s initial report that the OPERA experiment — famous for announcing that neutrinos traveling from CERN to the Gran Sasso Laboratory in Italy arrived 60 nanoseconds (billionths of a second) earlier than expected, thus suggesting that neutrinos can travel slightly faster than the speed of light — had found a problem with a cable connector that exactly explains the 60 nanosecond timing shift.
But the immediate source of this rumor was a science journalist, and the article was based on an anonymous source who is not described as being in the OPERA experiment. And the details quoted in the article didn’t add up, in my view. Given the number of wrong reports and rumors that I have read over the past months about this experiment, my reaction was to wait.
I didn’t have to wait long. Perhaps to avoid misinformation from hitting the headlines, OPERA has released a statement that indicates that the article from yesterday is not true. But this statement itself contains big news...
The CERN particle physics laboratory in Geneva has confirmed Wednesday’s report that a loose fiber-optic cable may be behind measurements that seemed to show neutrinos outpacing the speed of light. But the lab also says another glitch could have caused the experiment to underestimate the particles’ speed.
OPERA in Question February 23, 2012
You missed this:
It’s apparently even more complicated than that:
Official Word on Superluminal Neutrinos Leaves Warp-Drive Fans a Shred of Hope—Barely