Speed of light exceeded (astounding!)? Or was it measurement error?


This morning I read this NY Times news that European physicists measured neutrinos at 0.0025 percent above the speed of light.  If so, it may be only a matter of time before you can send yourself a telegram to not do whatever you did that you’ve always regretted and, by the way, to please invest a thousand dollars  in Microsoft, Facebook or the like (depending on the timing).

Years ago I visited Mount Wilson Observatory in California with my son Hank.  See me pictured by their two domes that house 60 and 100 inch telescopes; respectively.  This was the center for landmark experiments on the speed of light as detailed in this Wikipedia article.  Obviously measurement error made this a very difficult.

Being a skeptic, and seeing that a similar experiment* found neutrinos whizzing about at the speed of light, but not beyond that, I was going to advise caution.  However, Hank gave me the heads up to today’s xkcd cartoon (click the image to make it bigger and more readable).  I think this guy has got a better idea.

*Done with a group at the Soudan Underground Laboratory here in Minnesota.  They first did physics experiments there, in an abandoned iron mine, in 1980.  I featured this in a retro young-adult techno/adventure/mystery/thriller called The Secret of the Wolf Ring (Amazon, Kindle Edition).

  1. #1 by Brooks Henderson on December 13, 2011 - 6:45 pm

    Nice picture by the observatory. We saw buildings like this on Mauna Kea in Hawaii. They are impressive. I like to hedge my bets like the guy in the cartoon sometimes, too, by playing fantasy footballl players that are playing against my favorite team (the Bears).

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