European researchers: Einstein's theory holds up in repeat neutrino testing

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Monday, 19 March 2012 11:48

March 19, 2012

Researchers in Europe said recently that the results of ongoing testing contradicted the findings of an Italian team that had upended the physics world when they were revealed last September.

Scientists working in Italy said last September that they had observed neutrinos seemingly outpace the speed of light during a series of trials they conducted between their testing center and CERN, which is located in Switzerland. Their findings sparked a fiery debate among physicists, the majority of whom said decades of engineering research and development had supported Albert Einstein's special theory of relativity.

Einstein posited that nothing in the universe is faster than the speed of light in a vacuum, making the Italian scientists' results all the more incendiary. Still, European researchers said late last week that in their own work, Einstein's theory held true. The team, led by Carlo Rubbia, said that after accounting for factors that could have potentially caused the miscalculation, they did not observe neutrinos outpacing light.

"The results are very convincing," Rubbia said. "And they tell us essentially that there was something not quite right with the results of Opera."

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