Those scientists claim that their neutrinos raced from Geneva’s CERN physics lab to the Gran Sasso National Laboratory in Italy, 457 miles away, outrunning a “metaphorical” light beam by 60 nanoseconds, according to the N.Y. The observations that set off the debate come from a research group with an equally highbrow acronym, OPERA (Oscillation Project with Emulsion-tRacking Apparatus). Among their acknowledgements, the authors credit “impromptu conversations” with students in the Kilachand Honors College.Īnother research collaboration, called ICARUS (Imaging Cosmic and Rare Underground Signals), based at the same Italian lab as the Einstein challengers, fueled the BU prediction by reporting that the neutrinos did not show the energy loss suggested by the BU pair, although those researchers did not measure the neutrinos’ actual speed. He and Glashow published their paper on arXiv, an electronic print service for scientific articles owned by Cornell. “Given these assumptions, it is a straightforward exercise to calculate the rate of electron-positron emission that we describe in our paper.” Their predicted loss of energy by neutrinos is based on “the known properties of neutrinos…as measured in prior experiments, plus a few assumptions, such as conventional conservation of energy and momentum,” says Cohen. Metcalf Professor of Mathematics and Science and winner of a 1979 Nobel Prize in Physics.
In their coverage of the highly charged issue, the Times and the journal Nature both cited the BU physicists’ paper.Ĭohen is a College of Arts & Sciences physics professor Glashow is the Arthur G. In response to the Italians’ claim, the pair published a paper arguing that if neutrinos had traveled faster than light, they would have shed other particles, and thereby energy, to the point that it would have distorted their beam in ways that were not observed by the Italians. (For one thing, the New York Times reports, it would mean neutrinos could time-travel to the past.)Įinstein can rest in peace, however, if BU physicists Andrew Cohen and Sheldon Glashow are right. In September, Italian physicists reported that they had evidence that neutrinos-electrically neutral, subatomic particles-have the ability to travel faster than light, a feat deemed impossible by Einstein’s theory of relativity.
speedy neutrinos debate has captured the world of particle physics like a presidential debate rivets New Hampshire.
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