The mystery of the vanishing neutrinos

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The mystery of the vanishing neutrinos
Massive...but tiny
By Chris Williams
Published Friday 31st March 2006 15:40 GMT
Physicists have confirmed enigmatic sub-atomic neutrino particles do indeed have mass. Seemingly paradoxially, the MINOS experiment at the huge underground Fermilab accelerator in Illinois corroborated the fact by showing that they disappear.

The multinational team sent a high-intensity beam of neutrinos from Fermilab through 450 miles of solid rock to the Soudan detector in a former Minnesota iron mine. Neutrinos are so small and weakly interacting they can pass through the entire planet uninterfered with.

The scientists say that if their neutrinos had no mass, long thought to be a strong possibility, they would have detected around 180 interactions. Instead, just 92 were observed. UK-based Keith Mason, CEO of PPARC, said: "The MINOS experiment is a hugely important step in our quest to understand neutrinos."

The MINOS finding is consistent with neutrino oscillation explanation of the particle's odd properties.

Under this hypothesis, muon neutrinos, the type beamed out by the Fermilab emitter switch into one of the other two flavours; electron neutrinos and tao neutrinos. It's called oscillation because the changes can work back and forth.

Things get pretty weird in the quantum world.

Once emitted as a muon, a neutrino will become a mixture of two, or all three, flavours as it sails along. For the maths of this explanation to work the different forms must have different, and therefore non-zero, masses.

So the MINOS team's vanishing muon neutrinos fit in nicely with this and indicate neutrinos do have a mass. Et voila! Easy-peasy.

The study puts lots of...ahem...weight behind neutrino oscillation by repeating work done in Japan at a similar Big Science operation.

Neutrinos are a hot ticket in particle physics research. Boffins are currently constructing the Rik Waller of detectors at the South Pole from a cubic kilometre of ice to investigate neutrinos from outside the Solar Sytem. ®
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Well, gee, if nutrinos have mass, how does that play into your dark matter fantasies, Mr. Scientist? How much of your phantom mass does that add up to?
 
I don't quite get this whole thing...how could something not have mass, yet exist? Is it faith?
 
Oceans have waves & particles shouldn't dangle ;)

sorry, that's a participle
 
Gonz said:
Oceans have waves & particles shouldn't dangle ;)

sorry, that's a participle
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Then ... I could explain it to you, but it'd be like discribing fiscal responsability to a liberal. You wouldn't understand.

But, what the hell.


OK, E=mc2 states that there's a relationship between matter and energy. More .... that matter is energy. Static energy. No?
 
Don't you have to have a source (one that has mass) to produce energy? So energy would be a byproduct of a mass & it needs a body with mass in order to work...wow...this is like liberal fiscal responsibility.

gotta go pay the bills.
 
Gonz said:
Don't you have to have a source (one that has mass) to produce energy? So energy would be a byproduct of a mass & it needs a body with mass in order to work...wow...this is like liberal fiscal responsibility.

gotta go pay the bills.
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Nope. Other way around Mass is a product of energy.
 
I'm not sure why this is any big news really. Ever since the data from Super-Kamiokande back in the late 90's suggested neutrino oscillation it was obvious that the neutrino must have a non-zero mass.

Next they will prove calculations for gravity work for the most part (not counting quantum level physics) :p
 
ekahs retsam said:
I'm not sure why this is any big news really. Ever since the data from Super-Kamiokande back in the late 90's suggested neutrino oscillation it was obvious that the neutrino must have a non-zero mass.

Next they will prove calculations for gravity work for the most part (not counting quantum level physics) :p
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Yup. Seen anything new on how gravity works?
 
chcr said:
Yup. Seen anything new on how gravity works?
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Not to much, with the exception of quantum gravity as it is related to M theory and the idea of morphogenetic field particles. But I think there is only "weak force" behind this theory. :swing:
 
ekahs retsam said:
Not to much, with the exception of quantum gravity as it is related to M theory and the idea of morphogenetic field particles. But I think there is only "weak force" behind this theory. :swing:
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You ever wonder if they're classifying it incorrectly? Maybe it doesn't belong with the other "forces" at all.
 
Cheeky's post is scary don't ya think?

methinks the pedantic man act is a facade
 
Winky said:
Cheeky's post is scary don't ya think?

methinks the pedantic man act is a facade
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Well, if it does belong with the other forces, why is it so much weaker. M theory kind of posits an explanation, but I don't find it very satisfying.

Gonz's theory taken to it's ultimate conclusion: Everything that has mass sucks. Some things harder than others.:beardbng:
 
chcr said:
Well, if it does belong with the other forces, why is it so much weaker. M theory kind of posits an explanation, but I don't find it very satisfying.

Gonz's theory taken to it's ultimate conclusion: Everything that has mass sucks. Some things harder than others.:beardbng:
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:laugh:

btw Winky nice use of the word "pedantic"
 
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