[mrb]

My SWAG: the relativist effect of time being slowed down in Earth's gravity was not taken into account. (Time is slowed down, therefore neutrinos appear to arrive 60ns "early".)

They spent a lot of time triple checking the accuracy of their instruments without seemingly thinking about higher level factors such as the Theory of relativity... http://static.arxiv.org/pdf/1109.4897.pdf Of course there are 99% chances I am wrong, but just throwing this out there :)

[lutorm]

You didn't look at the webcast, did you? Someone asked this question and they said "no we took it into account in the sense that the clocks at CERN and Gran Sasso run at different speeds because they are at different elevations. However, that's only a 1e-18 effect and the signal is 1e-5.

[mrb]

I am talking about the presence of the gravitational field, not its difference between the 2 sites. Anyway, I calculated gravitational time dilation on Earth out of curiosity. It has an effect of only about 1e-9.

[Confusion]

There is a 100% chance that you are wrong. Do you honestly believe that they wouldn't think of taking that into account, if it could be relevant? That you can immediately think of it, but not an entire group of physicists; let alone a group trained and experienced in performing time-critical experiments? How far removed from reality do you believe physicists to be?

Anyway, relativity cannot possibly be relevant in explaining the time difference. I will not explain why: please actually read what they published. It will be crystal clear why it isn't relevant.

[mrb]

I meant to say they may have made a mistake on just this one relativist effect... even though I am sure they did think of it.

BTW, relativity is relevant in the OPERA experiment. Theoretical physicist Luboš Motl explains why: http://motls.blogspot.com/2011/09/potential-mistakes-in-oper...