I've worked with what's called "fast electronics" in the past. The equipment these guys are using must be very carefully calibrated. The *length of the cables* connecting components comes into play. I think it's more likely that these guys just had a short cable somewhere. I'd wait until it's been independently verified a few times before rewriting all the physics books in the world....

What Hort Said... I prefer my Science from Dr Professor Michio Kaku.. hes great and has a PC..Imagine if Einsteins Massively great brain ad a wing man.

As exciting as the possibility is. This is the proper way of looking at it.

Hmmm well, my cable idea wouldn't account for 60ns unless it was 20 meters of cable. Oh well.

Another fun thing to look at is the neutrino emissions from a supernova. SN1987A is a distance of 168,000 LY away. If you take the difference in speed the article from cern suggests and multiply, you get that you should receive a burst 4 years before the light arrives. BUT! The neutrinos ended up arriving the same day.

(The neutrinos did beat the light by 3 hours, but that's another story....)

The scary thing is - if this is correct, ALL light year measurements (ie how far stars are from Sol) wouldn't be accurate as the speed of light has been considered an absolute constant. That's a fairly significant "Doh!" if the findings hold up.

Hey, let's not get excited. Even the scientists who released the results don't believe it and released the results specifically so other scientists can find the screw up. This could be a "short cable" thing or it could be the real deal. Peer review is still needed.

Ceases to amaze me that people are that arrogant to not want to prove them wrong. Science is usually about observation and what we observe so if that is alas true how can we know for certain. I for one am glad they proved that wrong. Small numbers or not it was still proven wrong.

Actually, science isn't based on fact; it's based on repetition. Can I repeat your experiment and get the same results? It is scientific "fact" that water boils at 100 degrees C because no matter how many times you do the experiment, you get the same result (assuming all variables are equal).

Theoretical science is just that, theoretical. Until there is a repeatable experiment to "prove" the theory, theoretical science will remain a theory. The Big Bang Theory and the Theory of Evolution remain theories because science has been unable to create a repeatable experiment to show those theories are true.

To be honest, I don't think it'll fundamentally change popular science. I don't really care if neutrino's reach me a fraction of a millisecond faster than photons do. Neutrinos are getting into heavy science. Einstein's theories stood for 100 years because almost all experiments that took place backed up his assertions. Now we have an experiment that says he may be wrong. That is the nature of science.

Gravity is also a theory.