Strange particles challenge giant of science

IF ANYTHING is going to topple Albert Einstein’s 1905 special theory of relativity – made famous by the equation E = mc2 – it is not surprising that it is the strange particles known as neutrinos.

These are odd slivers of an atom that have confounded physicists for about 80 years.

The neutrino has almost no mass, it comes in three different “flavours”, may have its own antiparticle and even has been seen shifting from one flavour to another while shooting out from the sun, said physicist Phillip Schewe, communications director at the Joint Quantum Institute in Maryland.

The CERN team pumped neutrinos – often called ghost particles because they pass through matter, and human bodies, unnoticed – from CERN 730 kilometres (454 miles) to Gran Sasso south of Rome.

Over three years, and from 15,000 neutrino “events”, a huge detector at the Italian centre deep under mountain rock recorded what spokesman Antonio Ereditato described as the “startling” findings.

Only two labs elsewhere in the world can try to replicate CERN’s results.

One is Fermilab outside Chicago and the other is a Japanese lab put on hold by the tsunami and earthquake.

Stephen Parke, head theoretician at the Fermilab, said there could be a cosmic shortcut through another dimension – physics theory is full of unseen dimensions – that allows the neutrinos to beat the speed of light.

Fermilab officials said their particle beam is up and running.

However, Rob Plunkett, spokesman for the Fermilab team’s experiments, said that the measuring systems are not nearly as precise as the Europeans’ and would not be upgraded for a while.

“This thing is so important many of the normal scientific rivalries fall by the wayside.

“Everybody is going to be looking at every piece of information. ”

He added: “It’s dangerous to lay odds against Einstein. Einstein has been tested repeatedly over and over again.”