Speed-of-light experiments give baffling result at Cern
September 23rd, 2011 - 8:16 pm ICT by Aishwarya BhattGeneva, Sept 23 (THAINDIAN NEWS) Scientists are scratching their heads after an experiment apparently disproved Einstein’s theory of special relativity. The theory which is one of the fundamental in the world of physics states that energy is equal to mass multiplied by the square of speed of light.
In the new experiment which was conducted at the European Organization (CERN) for Nuclear Research lab in Geneva, the scientists say they accelerated a particle that traveled a distance of 454 miles in just 60 nanoseconds. That is faster than the speed of light so applying that to Einstein’s E=mc2 will give an infinite amount of energy. That has presented a headache to scientists all over the world because the Einstein theory has been applied to so many technologies including space technology.
A spokesperson for CERN, James Gillies, says some scientists are questioning the results. He said that, “The feeling that most people have is this can’t be right, this can’t be real,’ he said. ‘They are inviting the broader physics community to look at what they’ve done and really scrutinize it in great detail, and ideally for someone elsewhere in the world to repeat the measurements.”
The speed of light is 186,282 mps.
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