Neutrinos faster than the speed of light - who cares?

The scientific community is at odds with itself over the question of whether neutrinos are in fact faster than the speed of light. Some annoyed scientists are even suggesting that the recent experiment between a particle accelerator at the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (Cern) in Switzerland and the Gran Sasso underground laboratory in Italy, which seemed to promote this theory, could be down to bad wiring.

The speed of light is of course 186,282 miles per second or 1080 million kilometres per hour which is faster than most Lamborghinis.

A neutrino, on the other hand, is an electrically neutral, weakly interacting elementary subatomic particle with a half-integer spin, chirality. All evidence suggests that neutrinos have mass and that their mass is tiny even by the standards of subatomic particles, but the amount of mass has never been measured accurately, but you knew all that. (Wiki)

According to some however, they are in fact faster than the speed of light and as a result all sorts of testing is taking place.

Of course while the scientific fraternity is frothing at the mouth – supporting one side of the argument or the other – I would suggest that the outcome is in fact irrelevant. Yes, as they will point out, there is merit in finding out all about the scientific properties that these objects possess but if you are a Top Gear fan like me the only thing that you really want to know about is which car is fastest and who do I have to shoot to get one for myself?

The same principle surely applies to the fastest thing in the universe – if it’s not the quickest spare me the details.

Of course this begs the question: what is faster than both neutrinos and the speed of light?

(If you don’t understand science I wouldn’t bother with the rest of the article.)

Scientists in South Africa – in this case bored diners at the Butcher’s Grill in Sandton – have worked out that the speed of a tenderpreneur, which is calculated from the time that the budget is first approved by federal government, handed down to the provinces, submitted for tender, approved without a formal tender or procedure, accounts submitted + job botched, payment and overpayment received, the kickbacks finding their way into the pockets of corrupt officials and spent, to the time that the balance is half-inched for being the middle man, is approximately 586,282 miles per second, give or take a second.

In scientific terms :

Pie – bits of pie to the right parties
_____________________________________ = EW – SM
Total tender allocation

Where EW = enormous wealth and SM = seething masses.

Of course this is easy to prove.

All we have to do is put a lucrative tender inside a bank vault surrounded by armed guards. The geniuses from OPERA, who conducted the neutrino experiment, are then required to demonstrate the speed of their “horse” in the same vault.

As every South African knows, by the time the bank manager switches on the light of the vault not only will the tender be gone but corrupt officials will be turning up to the unique experiment wearing the R10 000 suits they bought out of kickbacks from that tender.

Tenderpreneurs are easily and demonstrably faster than the speed of light.

Neutrinos?

Don’t scientists tell us not to believe anything that we can’t see with our own eyes or work out in a scientific formula?

Unless they have some way of showing us these neutrinos beating the speed of light after the manager hits the switch or any of you lot are capable of working out the formulas for the speed of a neutrino then their claim is a non-starter.

NEXT WEEK: South Africa’s Home Affairs Staff The Slowest Moving Objects On Earth?