After 3 years of testing and research and months of second-guessing, re-research, re-testing, and time-biding the spokesman for CERN (the European Organization for Nuclear Research), Antonio Eriditato announced on Thursday that light may have just been dethroned as “the fastest shit¹ in the universe”².  Neutrinos, which are elementary subatomic particles, were fired from the CERN laboratory (in Geneva, Switzerland) and arrived at the INFN Gran Sasso Laboratory in Italy approximately 60 nanoseconds faster than if they had been traveling light speed.  “Big whoop, Poindexter.”  Big whoop is right, Spicoli.  Here’s why.

While CERN’s capacity for producing acronyms may be questionable, its researchers are top-notch and thus the announcement is not to be taken lightly (plenty more where that came from).  Adoption of these results as truth would upend Einstein’s theory of special relativity, which is a lot like the principle of relativity except it’s more special.   (P.S. if you make it more than 3 paragraphs into either of those hyperlinks without your brain melting and oozing out your butt, congratulations, you’re a total dweeb.)

For those of you who don’t have time for hyperlinks and/or are not wearing diapers, the bottom line is that E would no longer equal mc².  E ? mc² —-> Einstein =  :o(

Not to mention shattering a child’s perception of light.  No longer will light be placed on a pedestal, crowned the almighty ruler of speed.  Instead kids will have posters of neutrinos, or Ferraris and neutrinos, or neutrinos driving Ferraris, or the all new Ferrari Neutrino.  “Light…hmmmph…it’s kinda fast.  It’s not as fast as a neutrino though.  I wanna be a neutrino when I grow up!”

For those of you who skipped over the childhood phase that encompassed dinosaurs, rocket ships, and the speed at which electromagnetic radiation propagates, the speed of light (commonly denoted as “c”) is 186,282 miles per second.  To put this into perspective, an object travelling the speed of light would travel from the surface of the earth to the surface of the moon in 1.255 seconds.  This is also roughly the same speed people drive in California.

But what does this mean for you and me, adults who can’t afford Ferrari Neutrinos or vacations to the moon.  Well, if all this IS true, then it would be possible to (drumroll) travel back in time.

Mathematically, I have no idea how these “scientists” can make this claim, but I’m sure when all the equations are worked out the bottom line reads 1.21 Gigawatts.

Really?! TIME TRAVEL!?! Yeah, I know….crazy.  Think of the possibilities…

1. You could go back a few days and get mustard when it was on sale.
2. That time you farted in Algebra…  This time do it LOUDER and then break out your iPhone and begin playing Angry Birds while your classmates struggle to overcome the gaseous cloud in order to witness your wizard’s gadget.
3. Write a screenplay about traveling back in time in a supped-up Delorean and sell it to Universal Pictures…in 1983.
4. Abort Sarah Palin (OH, the irony!)
5. Steer the Titanic around the iceberg, thus saving us from ever Hearing “My Heart Will Go On”.

I’m sure there are a couple other outcomes that you’d want to alter, but those are probably the most important.

There remains a lot of skepticism overshadowing the CERN findings, and many prominent researchers are already dismissing the results, but it’s hard not to marvel at the enormity of such claims.  Physics is wrong?! What next?  Spelling is important?!  HAH!

It’s certain the scientific community will continue to shed light on the subject until an overarching decision can be made regarding the validity of the research and the theories that hang in the balance.  Even if my dreams of cheaper mustard are dashed, at the end of it all we’ll all be that much more enlightened.

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FOOTNOTES:

1. I don’t know how to properly classify light, so I chose “shit” because “thing” is a terrible word according to Ms. Makalak (one of my 5^th grade educators).
2. This is obviously not a direct quote.  But let’s be honest, you don’t really care for the scientific version, do you?

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TALKING POINTS

Trivia:  What did Doctor Emmett Brown name his two sons?  (First person to answer correctly gets LDD bonus points that can be used in the Lightning Round.)

Wanna add to my Time Traveling list of Action Items?  Do your worst!

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