I think offering to resign was the right thing to do. But I think it was wrong for the collaboration to accept his offer. It appeared that he was honest and forthcoming about the problem the whole time. I seem to recall the initial announcement said the result was anomalous; that they got an unexpected result they weren't sure they believed. He didn't try to hide the result nor did he seem to blame anyone for the error. His honesty and integrity have remained intact, imho. (Unless there is more to the story than we've heard publicly.)

I seem to recall the initial announcement said the result was anomalous; that they got an unexpected result they weren't sure they believed. He didn't try to hide the result nor did he seem to blame anyone for the error.

then it should not have been news in the first place, and no annoucement put forth, until sure.

Action was took, he did the right thing to offer to resign, it was still up to the powers to be to decide and weight in his exuberant behavior. Because it was not a blog (CR4) the annoucement was made on, it was on rather official podium.

.

Hi Jorrie,

You raise an important issue here. My understanding of his actions is the same as yours. I also remember reading that CERN was helping cross-check the results and would repeat the tests.

Perhaps his internal political problem is that he embarrassed the organisation by announcing that they were baffled. Many organisations want to hide their small "failures" but this is of itself dishonest and bad practice. Best scientific practice is to publish your results after reasonable scrutiny but pretty soon so that others can test or replicate your results. He may be criticised on publishing too soon or on not gaining agreement from his colleagues (agreement should not to be unreasonably withheld) before making the announcement, but he cannot be criticised on following best scientific practice (as far as I can see). However the scientists that did not understand their instrumentation can be rightly criticised (as far as I can see) and they may be shovelling blame. Perhaps some other resignations should be offered?

There seem to be more resignations, e.g. http://physicsworld.com/blog/2012/04/xxxxx.html

The latest New Scientist magazine contains the following editorial: "The personal cost to those at OPERA's helm has been high. But with public interest piqued - witness Higgs hysteria - and big physics becoming ever bigger, the days of carefully stage-managed announcements of rock-solid results are drawing to a close. More such flaps will follow."

The article said the anomolous results had existed for 3 years before they were announced and that they were leaking out beforehand. That was what prompted the announcement alegedly. So it seems even less blame falls on any spokesperson.

To me, the question is about neutrinos. Research, by definition, will have failures. All announcements I read had qualifying remarks stating the issue was in question.

If there was in essence a vote of no confidence and he felt unable to lead them further, I would not blame him for resigning.

ga

Based on what I know, he shouldn't have had to resign. But look here, he contradicted Einstein, so maybe that counted? I wonder is they shot neutrinos through his brain in the glass jar to his opinion.

Hi S, interesting; but where in that link did you read about him contradicting Einstein? Could not find it.

-J

The link just shows that he worked for the Albert Einstein center of Fundamental Physics. The point being that Einstein said nothing can exceed c, but the spokesperson said neutrinos do. That might have made Einstein roll over in his grave. With all the media attention, a scapegoat seems to have been wanted. Whoever said their result was a 4 sigma result would be first on my list.