(Newser)
–
More evidence that last year's furor over the accuracy of Albert Einstein's work got blown way out of proportion: Physicists believed they'd seen particles traveling faster than light, a phenomenon that would disprove the theory of relativity. But the controversial observations may have been the result of nothing more than a loose wire, experts say. A GPS error may have caused the mistake, says a scientist at CERN, where the initial results were reported.
"A possible explanation has been found. But we won't know until we have tested it out with a new beam" sending neutrinos to the Gran Sassa underground lab, the CERN rep tells Reuters. While the initial observations caused an uproar, most scientists probably don't believe they're accurate, says a physics professor. "I don't think I met anyone who said I bet it's going to be true. I think the people on the experiment worked as carefully as they could and I think they ran out of ideas of what could be wrong and they decided to present it."
