Round 2: Einstein's light-speed limit put to the test once more as CERN repeats its neutrino experiment

By Ted Thornhill
Updated:

According to Einstein, the cosmic speed limit is 186,282 miles per second - the speed of light.

But last month scientists at the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN) claimed that they'd measured neutrino particles zooming along even quicker.

Critics argued that the organisation’s measurements were simply wrong, so the experiment is being run again.

Collector's item: Behind every great man is a great woman, and here's the proof - a rare signed photograph of Albert Einstein and his wife Elsa

Collector's item: Behind every great man is a great woman, and here's the proof - a rare signed photograph of Albert Einstein and his wife Elsa


Stavros Kasavenas, deputy head of France's National Institute for Nuclear Physics and Particle Physics told news agency AFP: ‘The new test began two or three days ago. The criticism is that the results we had were a statistical quirk. The test should help (us) address this.’

In the original experiment CERN fired the neutrino particles from an accelerator in Switzerland to a detector in the Gran Sasso cavern in Italy, 434 miles to the south - and amazingly they arrived 60 nanoseconds earlier than light would have done.

The results of the experiment, which were re-checked many times over a period of six months, left the scientific community in a state of disbelief.

Celebrity scientist Brain Cox said that if the results are confirmed it would be 'one of the greatest scientific discoveries of all time'.

However, others were more dismissive.

Jim Al-Khalili, Professor of Physics at the University of Surrey, said: ‘Let me put my money where my mouth is: if the CERN experiment proves to be correct and neutrinos have broken the speed of light, I will eat my boxer shorts on live TV.’

CERN physicist Pauline Gagnon, meanwhile, quoted one of her university lecturers, who would tell his students that nothing travelled faster than light - except gossip.

News of the repeat experiment comes as a rare photo of Einstein goes up for auction.

The picture from 1931 shows the famed brainbox standing next to his wife - who was also his cousin - somewhere in Europe, probably Germany.

A theory up in smoke? Einstein said that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light - but CERN begged to differ

A theory up in smoke? Einstein said that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light - but CERN begged to differ


It was taken two years before Hitler took power, which prompted Einstein to move to the US. He never returned to his homeland.

The small, 4x3 inch snap is being sold by a descendent of Manfred Hohenemser to whom Einstein gave it.

Elsa was born with the surname Einstein because she belonged to the same family, changed it when she married then got it back when she wed her clever cousin.

She spent most of her marriage with Einstein acting as gatekeeper and protecting him from unwelcome visitors and charlatans.

She died in 1936, aged 60. She had three children from her first marriage which Einstein raised as his own.

The photograph is expected to make several thousand pounds when it goes under the hammer at the Swann Auction Galleries in New York on November 3.


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