We may not be witnessing an overthrown of the basic understanding of the universe provided by physics. Maybe light travels fastest after all according to a report in this week’s news. The current research on neutrinos travelling faster than the speed of light – or not – provides a splendid example of the process of scientific discovery and the dynamic nature of science.
Three weeks ago a team from CERN reported, after experiments conducted in Italy, that they had measured neutrinos travelling faster than the speed of light. The report captured the attention of the scientific community and the news media because the speed of the neutrinos contradicted Einstein’s theory of special relativity. The head of the department studying particle physics at Oxford, for instance, is quoted as stressing the implications not just for one narrow specialization in physics but for huge underlying concepts:
“If this is proved to be true it would be a massive, massive event. It is something nobody was expecting.
“The constancy of the speed of light essentially underpins our understanding of space and time and causality, which is the fact that cause comes before effect.”
An article in Nature similarly explains:
“The idea that nothing can travel faster than light in a vacuum is the cornerstone of Albert Einstein’s special theory of relativity, which itself forms the foundation of modern physics. If neutrinos are travelling faster than light speed, then one of the most fundamental assumptions of science — that the rules of physics are the same for all observers — would be invalidated. ‘If it’s true, then it’s truly extraordinary,’ says John Ellis, a theoretical physicist at CERN.”
The “if” – one of the most central words in science – runs through the reactions of scientists described in the media. So does the combination of immense interest and cautious warning that more evidence is needed. An expert at Indiana University reacted that “”It’s such a dramatic result it would be difficult to accept without others replicating it.”
In this week’s Nature News, from MIT, however, a Dutch scientist provides a possible explanation of the neutrinos travelling faster than light, an explanation that points to features of the experiment. If – if – he is correct, then the challenge to the special theory of relativity may well become nothing but a temporary excitement and a footnote in the history of scientific research.
Whether he is right or wrong, though, the story provides an excellent contemporary example of science at work, one to take promptly into TOK class. It illustrates, for instance, the challenge of experiment to theory, the openness of science to having past conclusions revised or overturned by new evidence, and the public nature of science and its communication in having experiments and conclusions submitted to a worldwide scientific audience for scrutiny. In this particular case, it also illustrates the sophisticated experiments and often elaborate equipment involved in investigation of the physical world.
Eileen Dombrowski
INDEX to TOK meets global citizenship
References
Faster-than-Light Neutrino Puzzle Claimed Solved by Special Relativity, The Physics arXive Blog, technology review (published by MIT), October 14, 2011 http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/arxiv/27260/
“Faster than light particles found, claim scientists”, by Ian Sample. The Guardian, September 22, 2011. http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2011/sep/22/faster-than-light-particles-neutrinos
“Particles break light-speed limit”, by Geoff Brumfiel. Nature News, September 22, 2011. http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110922/full/news.2011.554.html
Tags: physics, Science, sciences, subatomic particles
This invention reminds Karl Popper’s Theory of Falsification. Scientific Theory tested repeatedly does not mean it is the valid theory, instead it had not been proved false.