BEIJING - A Nobel laureate on Monday doubted the results of a European experiment that demonstrated the ability of neutrinos to move faster than the speed of light during an interview in preparation for the 2011 Nobel Laureates Beijing Forum.

"I'm willing to bet money that it's not correct," said Professor George Smoot III, winner of the 2006 Nobel Prize in Physics and a professor at the University of California.

Prof. Smoot was referring to the OPERA (Oscillation Project with Emulsion-tRacking Apparatus) experiment conducted last year at the CERN Super Proton Synchrotron in Geneva and the Nazionali del Gran Sasso (LNGS) underground laboratory in central Italy, located about 730 km away from Geneva.

In an article published on September 22 in the scientific journal "Nature," European researchers stated that neutrinos, or electrically neutral subatomic particles, traveling between the CERN Super Proton Synchrotron and the LNGS lab reached speeds greater than the speed of light.

Smoot said that their claims "did not make sense" and should be verified by other scientists first.

"There are many distortions in physics. You have to have a very high standard to see if something is truly correct," he said.

If proven true, the researchers' claims would contradict Einstein's theory of special relativity, a theoretical foundation of modern physics which states that nothing can travel faster than light. Other scientists, as well as the OPERA team themselves, have voiced doubts regarding the experiment's results.

The 2011 Nobel Laureates Beijing Forum will be held from September 28 to 30 under the theme of "innovation and development."