Cool Your Jets
Latest bullshit article: Strange Particles May Travel Faster Than Light.
Physicists have found that tiny particles called neutrinos are making a 454-mile (730-kilometer) underground trip faster than they should -- more quickly, in fact, than light could do. If the results are confirmed, they could throw much of modern physics into upheaval...
After analyzing the results from 15,000 particles, it seems the neutrinos are crossing the distance at a velocity 20 parts per million faster than the speed of light.
It would be a significant finding if the error in question were, let's say, 50% -- or even 10%. 20ppm comes to an error of: 0.002%. That ain't much.
Suspect something's fucked up somewhere. This is definitely true in light of the results of a supernova explosion back in 1987. That time, the neutrinos arrived after the first light of the stellar blast was seen, not before. A difference of 0.002% across a span of nearly 200,000 years should have seen those neutrinos arriving some three years ahead of the supernova.
So there's an error somewhere, and I'm sure it will be found sooner or later. The worst case would be that this proves that the estimate for the speed of light is too low. Light is supposed to be at its fastest in a vacuum. However, a true vacuum doesn't exist. No, not even in interstellar space. There are always some atoms and molecules there, and that will slow down light.
As far as overthrowing Special Relativity, ain't gonna happen: it works too well, and many practical devices are designed with it in mind: from GPS to particle accelerators. If SR were in error, we'd've seen some evidence for that by now.