Neutrinos

“We are completely compatible with the speed of light that we learn at school”

Pete Baker on March 16, 2012, 8:58 pm | Readers 621

Jim “I will eat my boxer shorts on live TV” Al-Khalili can probably put the ketchup down now. The somewhat excitable BBC science report notes that the Icarus group at the Gran Sasso underground laboratory in Italy have published the results of a new experiment testing the speed of neutrinos. And guess what? They’re not faster-than-light. [They never were! – Ed] Indeed. From the BBC science report The Icarus experiment uses 600 tonnes – 430,000 litres – of liquid argon to detect the …

Faster-than-light neutrinos? Not so fast…

Pete Baker on February 23, 2012, 6:25 pm | Readers 41

The Telegraph’s Tom Chivers might be a little premature with his “I told you so“, but the reality is that theoretical physicist Jim “I will eat my boxer shorts on live TV” Al-Khalili can probably put the ketchup down. As the historically “somewhat excited” BBC report, “Faster-than-light neutrinos could be down to bad wiring“. Needless to say, the situation is a little bit more complicated than the BBC headline suggests… As the Guardian report notes Late on Wednesday night, scientists at the Opera …

Faster-than-light neutrinos? “Hold on to that ketchup for now”

Pete Baker on November 24, 2011, 4:49 pm | Readers 13

If you’ve been confused by recent reports of the on again/off again ‘faster-than-light’ neutrinos Professor Matt Strassler explains, in relatively straight-forward terms, why neither the updated OPERA experiment, nor the findings from ICARUS, really changes the situation. For now. And as theoretical physicist Jim “I will eat my boxer shorts on live TV” Al-Khalili says at Comment is Free The point is that Icarus no more proves Einstein right than Opera proves him wrong. Both results are experimental measurements, not discoveries. A proper test …