Faster than light, ha!

Here is the latest on the Opera experiment, the one which claimed to have found neutrinos which moved faster than light, and reached Gran Sasso 60 nanoseconds faster than photons would have. `Sources' claim the discrepancy comes from a bad connection between a fibre optics connection with a GPS receiver which was used for the time of flight measurements. There's also a glitch in the oscillator which times the intervals between which the system is synchronised. Although the two glitches are claimed to work in opposite directions in estimating the apparent speed, it is clear that further work and independent measurements are needed to finally close this issue.

Tailpiece: The neutrino and the photon came face to face.
Photon: So, that Bolt was a false start.
Neutrino: It wasn't my fault, it was the cable's!

This blog post is by Neelima Gupte and Sumathi Rao.