Faster Than Light

The speed of light is a cosmic constant. One of the tiny number of absolute rules of the universe that helps us sleep soundly at night. Nothing can move faster than light. We know that. That we know.

Until scientists at CERN went and done broke it.

A spokesman for CERN, the great particle research center located in Geneva, said that over the course of three years 15,000 beams of neutrinos were fired from CERN base towards the lucky jerkwards working at the Gran Sasso Laboratory in central Italy.

The distance between the labs is roughly 500 miles. Light would have travelled that distance in about 2.4 thousandths of a second. The neutrinos took 60 nanoseconds less (or about 60 billionths of a second) to make the trip.

Neutrinos ain’t got no time for yo’ science bulllllllshit. Let’s get this thing done!

CERN waited a long time to release this finding, waiting to verify, verify again, triple verify, then double-triple verify their super-weird measurements. And then, when they finally did raise their hand and speak up, they asked other particle labs around the world to help proof-read the findings.

Why so cautious? Because what they found isn’t supposed to be possible. If true, matter moving faster than the speed of light is a foundational change to how we understand the way everything works. It’s such a mind-blowing change that scientists don’t even want to speculate on what it would mean for the future of particle physics.

But it’s a big-assed deal whenever Einstein is proven wrong. It happens from time to time (and ever more frequently), but it’s still a big deal.

Now, it should be noted that it wasn’t LIGHT itself that went faster than light. It was neutrinos. Neutrinos are weird. They are sub-atomic particles created in radioactive decay, such as the sun. And they do oddball things. They can pass through most types of matter without detection or affect, including water, air, and rock. Millions pass through us every darn day, and we are none the wiser.