• Question: i heard about the particle that went faster than the speed of light. what was the name of the particle and around how fast did it go??

    Asked by isabellaholliday to Hywel on 18 Jun 2012.
    • Photo: Hywel Owen

      Hywel Owen answered on 18 Jun 2012:


      The particle was the neutrino, which already has some pretty unusual properties so I guess you could imagine they might travel faster than light. However, when the results were examined *very* carefully, it was found that the way the speed was measured was wrong because of a loose cable.

      Physicists often use electronic instruments to measure time differences between when something passes point A and point B, and from this you can measure the speed the particle had going between A and B. It is well known that bad cable connections can shift the timing signal later, which can make it look like the moving thing is going faster than it really is. The research group who did the neutrino measurements should have looked more closely at this possibility, in my opinion.

      The conclusion from all of this is that neutrinos *don’t* go faster than the speed of light, they go slower!

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