7 Times The Media Spectacularly Failed To Understand Science
2. Faster Than Light Neutrinos That Never Were
They say that rules are made to be broken, but there is one rule that everything in the universe must abide by: No FTL travel.
Which is why it was weird when the front of every paper in mid-2011 started shouting about neutrinos that could break the speed of light.
The New York Times went with Tiny Neutrinos May Have Broken Cosmic Speed Limit,, the Guardian plumped for Faster Than Light Particles Found, Claim Scientists and even Scientific American got in on the act with Particles Found to Travel Faster Than Speed of Light. Everybody suddenly went bonkers for neutrinos.
This was all based off some leaked data from OPERA, an experiment designed to detect tau neutrinos, and a follow-up statement describing the measurement as an "anomaly". Now, I know they've gotta sell papers, but it's a pretty big leap from "we have one anomalous reading" to "WE HAVE LITERALLY BROKEN PHYSICS".
As it turns out, the reading was probably due to a dodgy clock skewing the readings. Annoyingly, when this was announced, the newspapers then had a field day, shouting things like "Einstein Vindicated!" and "Scientists Failed To Prove Einstein Wrong!" as though they weren't the ones who kicked up the fuss in the first place.