I thought that they were waiting for independent scientists to confirm their findings? Their findings could possibly turn out to be an error or something.
What I understand is that they are being prudent since it is such an extraordinary finding. I understand that all scientific findings can turn out to be errors, findings are accepted until proven otherwise. Until someone comes up with a verifiable reason why the finding is incorrect it will stand.
“Antonio Ereditato, spokesman for the
international group of researchers, said that measurements taken over three years showed neutrinos pumped from CERN near Geneva to Gran Sasso in Italy had arrived 60 nanoseconds quicker than light would have done.
“
We have high confidence in our results.** We have checked and rechecked for anything that could have distorted our measurements but we found nothing**,” he said. “We now want colleagues to check them independently.”
If confirmed, the discovery would undermine Albert Einstein’s 1905 theory of special relativity, which says that the speed of light is a “cosmic constant” and that nothing in the universe can travel faster.
That assertion, which has withstood over a century of testing, is one of the key elements of the so-called Standard Model of physics, which attempts to describe the way the universe and everything in it works.
The totally unexpected finding emerged from research by a physicists working on an experiment dubbed OPERA run jointly by the CERN particle research centre near Geneva and the Gran Sasso Laboratory in central Italy.”
Does anyone understand how this finding could possibly make time travel probable?