Then There Were Neutrinos... And God Said, "Let There Be Light!"

So yesterday CERN revealed that for the past few months they have been testing the speed of neutrinos, and their findings show that neutrinos apparently go faster than the speed of light.

Now before this goes any further, it must be absolutely understood that all the kinks of these experiments have not been worked out. This could just as easily turn into the situation CERN had with the Higgs boson particle a couple of months ago, in which they thought they found it, but it turned out to be little more than an error in their data. There are several areas for error in the data with neutrinos that need to be investigated and crosschecked. No one at CERN is saying with absolute certainty that neutrinos travel fast than light. That said, I digress.

Last night, when the news about this came on CNN, I about cried at how little some of us care to understand about modern science. I don't know everything, nor do I care to be a physicist, but I do like to keep up with science. What floored me was the host on CNN said that E=MC² is wrong, and that all of Einstein's theories on Relativity are wrong. *Facepalm*

First of all, E=MC² may be wrong, but only slightly and some new equations are going to be needed to make it correct. Second, this does not mean Relativity is wrong (for the most part, since E=MC² was developed from Relativity). And even if Relativity ends up being wrong, many principles from it can still be used for application. Much of Newton's works were proved wrong, but it's applicable, even today. The only thing about Relativity that would have to be reworked is what makes it happen, not the mechanics of it (which is was the case with Newton). If a particle could go faster than light in the first place and it affected Relativity, then we would have known Relativity was really wrong many years ago. If that was a factor, then your GPS would be much farther off than it is now. And it's not that GPS systems are inaccurate, it's that the GPS you have in your car or phone is not the best we have, otherwise you would be paying about $1000 for a GPS. In fact, the GPS system they use at CERN is so accurate that they used it to test the speed of neutrinos. Fathom that.

E=MC² being incorrect (or needs slight altering) means we have to reconsider the difference between mass (M) and energy (E) and how it is effected by a constant cosmic speed (C, which is currently the speed of light).

My biggest concern about this matter at CERN is the reactions from people like CNN and the general public, in that they think science is some sort of religion. That scientists believe in their theories as much as Christians or Muslims believe in their holy books. Some people are thinking this means science is debunk, and Einstein, the prophet of science, was wrong. (By the way, there is already a book that has been in circulation for a few years called What Einstein Got Wrong, so it's not even that big of a deal he got some stuff wrong. In fact, he had to have known it was coming).

On Reddit someone posted : "They're scientists, not Creationists." And this is exactly the point. Science holds the theories that best explains data we currently have, and if a better theory comes along, then it is generally adopted. Global warming may not be the best theory, but it is the best we have now, and if something better comes along, then we will adopt it. It doesn't matter if Einstein was incorrect. He would be thrilled to find out something goes faster than light, and that we have data to prove it. That's how science works.

The problem isn't science or religion. The problem is the general public. There are a lot of interesting things going on in modern science on brain research, physics, biology, chemistry, geology, cosmology, parapsychology, and so forth, all of which will make your entire high school science education become a total lie. If only some of us would pick up Discover magazine or Scientific America, or just read the Science section of your newspaper. We don't even have to read it, just skim it and many of us will be updated on a good chunk of current knowledge.

Wired Science Link

It doesn't disprove science, it disproves Genesis 1 : 3. It need to be rewritten as : "Then there were neutrinos, and God said, 'Let there be light!'"