There is a furore in the physics community following an announcement by the Gran Sasso National Laboratory that they have observed neutrinos travelling faster than light. This could open possibilities to send information back in time, time travel and much
E=mc2, we owe it to Einstein for having unravelled the mysteries of space, light, speed, time and many of the other concepts we take for granted today.
However, an unexpected event has now cast a slight shade of doubt upon Einstein’s theories. It is too early to dispute the father of modern physics yet but here is all the information you need to understand this affair as it unfolds in newspapers and journals in the coming months.
One fine day, in the heart of a large mountain…
The Gran Sasso National Laboratory (LNGS) is situated in a national park in Northern Italy, deep within a large mountain. It has a 1400-metre rock cover above it making the lab almost free of cosmic ray flux. The neutron flux is also thousand times less than on the surface, thanks to the very little uranium and thorium content of the dolomite rocks of the mountain. LNGS is the largest underground laboratory in the world for experiments in particle physics, particle astrophysics and nuclear astrophysics with over 750 scientists working on various experiments.
The team that grabbed our attention with its findings is working on the Oscillation Project with Emulsiontracking Apparatus (OPERA). The OPERA experiment involves the study of neutrino oscillations. A highintensity and high-energy beam of muon-neutrinos is produced 730 km away at CERN in Geneva and directed towards the Gran Sasso laboratory. A wall comprising 150,000 bricks of photographic emulsion films interleaved