Nothing rallies scientists together more than the possibility that their carefully ordered universe will be shaken up. Physicists from around the world are now presenting theories that debunk the claimed discovery of faster-than-light neutrinos.

Three weeks ago, physicists at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) shocked the scientific community when they said they had discovered neutrino particles that travel faster than the speed of light. The particles they had been shooting from the CERN particle accelerator near Geneva toward the OPERA facility in San Grasso, Italy, had allegedly surpassed the speed of light. The discovery had the potential to completely overhaul Einstein's Theory of Relativity, which states that no particle can travel faster than the speed of light.

Since then, scientists have been presenting alternative theories to prove the CERN report was a huge mistake. Andrew G. Cohen and Sheldon L. Glashow, both from Boston University and highly regarded physicists, challenged the claim on the grounds that the neutrinos should have been spitting off electron/positron pairs if they were going faster than light and this should have resulted in low-energy neutrinos. The CERN team recorded only high-energy neutrinos, and other experiments have also shown high-energy neutrinos. Therefore, the CERN neutrinos were not going faster than light.

Another paper from Gian Giudice, who works at CERN, Sergie Sibrayakov and Alessandro Strumia claims the CERN neutrinos could not have travelled faster than light because of weak nuclear force. Neutrinos and charged electrons are tied together with nuclear force. Superluminal neutrinos should also mean superluminal electron neutrinos. But experiments performed two decades ago showed that electrons cannot exceed the speed of light. Since there were no superluminal electrons observed, the superluminal neutrinos are not possible.

"In summary, the existing limits on [the electron's excess speed above that of light] present a formidable obstacle for a consistent interpretation of the OPERA result," according to Giudice, Sibiryakov and Strumia.

Dutch researcher Ronald A.J. van Elburg suggested the CERN team was off in their time-keeping. The GPS satellite the team used to measure the neutrino's movements was also moving relative to the CERN and OPERA facilities and there should have been corrections to the perceived time of travel. Applying the double corrections will shave off 64 nanoseconds from the neutrinos' travel time and bring them back under the speed of light, according to van Elburg.

There is still too much debate to determine which side is right. For now faster-than-light travel enthusiasts can place their dreams of a warp-speed FTL spaceship back on the drawing board.