“If it is true, then we truly haven’t understood anything about anything.” – Alvaro de Rujula, a theorist at CERN, the European Center for Nuclear Research

The global physics community awaits a seminar at CERN today where a group of European physicist will announce they have clocked subatomic particles known as neutrinos traveling faster than the speed of light.

According to Albert Einstein’s 1905 theory of special relativity, a pillar of modern physics known as the equation E=mc2, that feat is impossible. So are we truly hours away from one of the biggest upsets in the world of physics? Are we on the quantum edge of a grand rethink of the laws of nature?

With today’s shocking announcement, it’s anticipated all scientific eyes will turn to Fermilab near Chicago to replicate the results CERN found in collaboration with Italy’s Gran Sasso National Laboratory.

In the meantime, I can’t help but think Einstein would be excited by the news. For it was he, the most famous scientist of the century, who said, “The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing.”

Tags: Albert Einstein, physics

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