JOIN USThe claim of scientists at CERN (The European Organisation for Nuclear Research) based in Geneva that they have found sub-atomic particles called neutrinos travelling faster than light has created a flutter in the world of science.
If true, it can turn our ideas about the universe and its working, based mainly on Einstein’s Special Theory of Relativity, upside down. The great scientist’s proposition that nothing can move faster than light has stood the test of time for over a century.
An Indian scientist, ECG Sudarshan, had proposed that there are particles that can beat the speed of light but his proposition had lacked empirical verification. The CERN scientists have now observed their neutrinos attaining a speed 60 billionth of a second faster than light over a distance of 730 km from Geneva to Gran Sasso in Italy. And it is not just one rogue or particularly super athletic particle that defied Einstein but as many as 15,000 of them broke the cosmic record of speed measured by his century-old clock.
A consequence of the ability of matter to travel faster than light would be the possibility of time travel. Science has often followed fiction in actualising many ideas which we now consider ordinary but were once considered impossible.
Time travel does not make sense now, because sending a telegram or post card to the past or going generations back to change events which have already taken place appeals as only absurdities of imagination. But the quantum idea of being in two places at the same time, which is accepted by modern physics, is equally absurd for us. Our view of the world and universe is limited by our perceptions and our experience. Science upsets this view, as Newton’s and Einstein’s theories did, and there is always room for reviewing and rewriting established canons.
CERN’s claim is backed by its status and credibility and many months of experimentation. But it has yet to be accepted by the wider scientific community which seeks its confirmation through repetition elsewhere.
The measurement of the distance and time may have been wrong, an unknown energy field may have distorted the results or the neutrinos may have travelled through an extra dimension creating the illusion of faster movement. But if the neutrinos did really manage to break the speed limit, the implications would be unimaginable and might go well beyond the dream of time travel.