GENEVA — Betting against Einstein and his theory of relativity is a way to go broke.

For more than a century, everyone from physicists to the Nazi Party – which encouraged the publication of the tract ‘One Hundred Authors Against Einstein’ – has tried to find cracks in his work. And all have failed.

On Thursday, the world’s biggest physics lab unveiled a shocking finding: that one type of subatomic particle was clocked going faster than the speed of light. If true – a big if, even the scientists there concede – it could undercut Einstein’s theories. Physicist Michio Kaku of City College of New York called it ‘the biggest challenge to relativity in 100 years.’

Antonio Ereditato, who participated in the European experiment as head of the Albert Einstein Center for Fundamental Physics in Bern, knows what is at stake. After his team fielded two hours of technical questions, some a bit sharp, from a skeptical audience Friday, Ereditato had a beer in hand and was asked about the idea that his work was challenging the secular saint of modern physics.

‘Yes, that’s why I’m concerned,’ he said with a laugh.

There’s a long history of experimental results that at first seem to contradict […]