Faster-than-light neutrinos could be down to bad wiring What
might have been the biggest physics story of the past century
may instead be down to a faulty connection. In September 2011,
the Opera experiment reported it had seen particles called
neutrinos evidently travelling faster than the speed of light.
The team has now found two problems that may have affected their
test in opposing ways: one in its timing gear and one in an
optical fibre connection. More tests from May will determine
just how they affect measured speeds. The Opera collaboration
(an acronym for Oscillation Project with Emulsion-Racking
Apparatus) was initially started to study the tiny particles as
they travelled through 730km of rock between a particle
accelerator at the European Organization for Nuclear Research
(Cern) in Switzerland and the Gran Sasso underground laboratory
in Italy. Its goal was to quantify how often the neutrinos
change from one type to another on the journey. But during the
course of the experiments the team found t