Antonio Ereditato, an Italian professor who led an experiment to challenge one of the fundamentals of modern physics by showing particles moving faster than the speed of light, has resigned after the finding was overturned earlier this month.
The OPERA experiment (as it is known as) measuring the speed at which sub-atomic particles called neutrinos travelled from the European Organization for Nuclear Research (popularly known as CERN) research centre in Geneva to Gran Sasso in central Italy at first appeared to show they had flown the 730 km stretch 60 bilionths of a second faster than light placing the speed at 4.38 * 10^ 16 metres per second compared to that of light which is 3 * 10^ 8 metres per second. Had it been confirmed, the finding would have disproved Einstein's 1905 Special Theory of Relativity, one of the foundations of modern physics and cosmology, which holds that nothing in the universe can travel faster than light.
The result of the experiment was later called into question by separate experiments and CERN said the OPERA result appeared to be the result of a measurement error or malfunction.
Sorry Professor Antonio, but you can't disprove Baba Einstein that easily.
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