Science on the Brink of Shattering News.

It could be possible that the speed of light isn't the absolute limit defined by Einstein.

Scientists at CERN have detected neutrinos apparently moving faster than the speed of light. If their observations are correct, it would shatter current scientific theory.

Of course the observations could be incorrect, but if they are, it would open up a whole new line of theoretical science. For instance, how do the neutrinos travel so fast? Do they travel in a different dimension?

My pet theory is that there's a level of this universe that has yet to be discovered. The universe we know about currently is still full of stuff. Its possible the neutrinos pass through a layer of space (lets call it sub-space) where they can travel unhindered by other matter and therefore can travel faster than light.

However other research in Japan shows that neutrinos travelling between two points change between three types (electron, muon and tau) which could be a result of their travelling between our space and the space they travel faster than light in. Or could be an indicator of their travelling/switching between universes. Who knows, but if the observations are proven, we are set to see an interesting new area of research open up.

What does this mean? Well firstly, this shattering of one of the biggest theories in science shows science is not absolute or "settled": we are continuing to learn and discover new and wonderful things.

Second and more importantly are the practical applications. Forget the fantasists and their time machine rants. If neutrinos could be generated in a way that modulates their production from an electronic signal and a detector could be made to receive that modulated neutrino stream, then we would have a new electronic transmission medium. One that would be able to travel through the earth unimpeded as well as space and would be virtually instantaneous over very long distances. The applications for instantaneous long distance comms are immense. For instance controlling unmanned planetary probes in real-time from Earth without the need for a crew thanks to instantaneous transmission and receipt of signals.

Anyway, it could just be an observational error.