Remember that neutrinos have mass, while photons don't. The speed of light, while not a misnomer, is often confusing. To be more accurate, c can be considered t

Remember that neutrinos have mass, while photons don't. The speed of light, while not a misnomer, is often confusing. To be more accurate, c can be considered the fastest a massless particle/wave can travel through space-time in a vacuum without the influence of mass or gravity. So to answer your question, the thing without mass will always move as close to c as possible in a given environment. In the instance of photons vs neutrinos in the OPERA experiment, they both operate under the same environment. #Edit (thanks @cperciva below) The thing without mass doesn't always move faster than particles with mass. See Cherenkov radiation, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherenkov_radiation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherenkov_radiation.