In September 2011 the OPERA experiment announced that they had seen neutrinos covering the 730 kilometers between Geneva and Gran Sasso at superluminal speed. While the result was, to put it mildly, a surprise, the torrent of papers with purported theoretical explanations of the data was highly predictable. The real explanation turned out to be
depressingly mundane: A loose fibre optic cable. According to Sherlock Holmes it is “a capital mistake to theorize before one has data” (“A Scandal in Bohemia”), but as this story goes to show it is also a mistake to theorize before the data have been double-checked.
In my talk I will describe the OPERA experiment and some of the drama that followed the announcement, but mostly I will use it as an excuse to talk about tachyons and how the intellectual superheroes collectively known as astrophysicists knew all along that the OPERA result had to be wrong.