In this week ’s “ Ask a Physicist , ” I get retort - actual and suppose what would happen if we had perfect control over neutrinos . Would we build up a death ray ? Escape from an Inception dreamscape ? Here ’s what would really happen – sort of .
I ’ve known I need to do a bit on neutrino for a while now , and at first , I retrieve of inventing a lecturer , but figured that you guys would opine a question from a Mr. H. Jablomie would be a routine low course . I decide rather to chicane somewhat less , and incite our editor , Charlie Jane Anders and Annalee Newitz , to feed me a interrogative . Consider this all the more motivator for you tosend me questions . Here ’s what they come up with :
What could we do if we could wholly assure the behavior of neutrino ?
What does it think to to all control the behavior of neutrinos ? Make a high-pitched - vividness neutrino beam ? Harness the neutrino flux from the sun ? I generally seek to stick around away from antagonistic - factual questions . After all , we ca n’t completely check neutrinos . However , I decided to make an exception in this suit .
Why ? Because it ’s middling exculpated that Charlie Jane and Annalee are in bloodline to conjoin the Evil League of Evil , and would like my help in design a doomsday twist . And I have no problem with that .
I ’m go to look at a few neutrino powered scifi machine later , but first we should in all likelihood say a few thing about how neutrinos work . They are utterly ordinary particle in lots of ways . Except for the fact that they do n’t have any electric burster , they ’re almost monovular to electron , but much much less massive . Because they are both low - mint and neutral , they are very grueling to discover . In fact , they interact with other affair almost totally via the weak nuclear military unit . They interact so weakly , in fact , that you could shoot a neutrino through about a light - year ’s worth of lede and only have about a 5 % chance that the neutrino hits anything en route .
Wolfgang Pauli realise right smart back in 1930 that neutrinos must subsist , because when neutrons decay , the resulting proton and electrons repercussion in such a way that it was very readable that there was some sort of missing corpuscle . The neutrinos were n’t notice experimentallyfor more than 25 eld after that . I fetch this up just to point out that it ’s very possible to theorize ( correctly ) that a mote existslong before the particle itself is ever detected . I ’m just saying .
https://gizmodo.com/ask-a-physicist-why-believe-in-dark-matter-5528758
I was desperate for a good , satisfying neutrino interrogative sentence because they are awe-inspiring . For instance , they played a major role in determining how much of each sort of factor we have in the world today , an effect I identify in some detail in the“User ’s Guide to the Universe . ”
But there are many other awesome things about neutrinos . In no picky order :
They help to make the sun shine .
Strange but on-key , the atomic fusion in the Dominicus is governed by the weak atomic force , not the strong one . As a solution , when hydrogen fuses into He ( recollect of theThey Might be Giants song ) neutrinos are created in tremendous numbers pool . Literally billions of them are emitted from every square centimeter of the sunshine every second , and the amount of neutrino tycoon is corresponding to that of visible light .
You ’re surcharge in them .
Neutrinos , as I ’ve name , were a big player in the early population . You could n’t move a micrometer without some neutrino or another slap you in the facial expression . As the universe cooled down , neutrinos calmed down a bit , but they did n’t go anywhere . To this Clarence Shepard Day Jr. , for every average speck in the universe , there ’s something like a billion neutrino or anti - neutrinos flying around .
They have an identity crisis .
In the 1960 ’s a number of hoi polloi were make big underground pool of cleaning fluidto prove to observe neutrino from the sun . But something was wrong . We only got abouta third of what we expected ! As it turns out , there are three different type of neutrino and they have no compunction at all about turning into one another . Electron neutrinos turn into mu and tau neutrinos , and vice - versa . If you ’re expect for a core concept to guide you in this strangeness , the “ vibration ” between flavors of neutrino is very similar to the doubtfulness guiding thecollapse of a quantum mechanically skillful undulation - subprogram .
https://gizmodo.com/how-smart-do-you-need-to-be-to-collapse-a-wave-function-5528321
Despite what Ye Olde textbook say , they are n’t massless .
Remember when we talked about what happens when youapproach the speed of light ? Time slow up down compared to other observers . No time at all seems to overstep for something go at the speed of light . But the only atom that move the hurrying of light are massless one .
So ( and the reasoning experience tricky here ) in ordering for neutrinos to have the time to hover from one flavour to another , — they need to know time themselves — , and therefore they demand to be go less than the speed of ignitor . Therefore , they have mass . Get it ? Only , the current restraint on their masses are bantam . How bantam ? Well , we ’re not really sure because we do n’t actually assess the masses of the dissimilar types of neutrinos , just the difference of the squares of their masses . Yeah , I lie with . It ’s a ludicrously roundabout thing to assess . Screw you , universe .
It ’s only in the last dozen old age that we ’ve in reality been sure that neutrinos have mass at all , and not to sound like an sure-enough man about it , but in my day , neutrino were massless . They may not be massless , but they are insanely clean . A fairish estimate of the heaviest neutrino is still only about one ten - millionth of that of an electron . This is too small , regrettably , to do a very good occupation accounting system for the missing dark matter in the universe .
They know left from right .
In my last column , on monopoles , I let the cat out of the bag a bit aboutsymmetries in natural philosophy . Physics broadly speaking does n’t care very much about the difference of opinion between left and good . The big elision is neutrinos . Neutrinos spin , just like electrons . As it happen , if I fire a neutrino at you , it will always birl clockwise as ascertain psyche - on . Anti - neutrinos always spin counter - clockwise . So if you are a particle physicist and desire to build an Inception - style totem , might I suggest produce a counter - clockwise neutrino ?
https://gizmodo.com/what-happens-if-youre-traveling-at-the-speed-of-light-a-5527521
https://gizmodo.com/ask-a-physicist-what-ever-happened-to-magnetic-monopol-5620547
Neutrinos are n’t normally on the supply side of , say , power generator or artillery , but they do get create in keen abundance . As a result a act of bigneutrino detectorsare intentionally built near nuclear reactors . But let ’s be creative . How might we use these buggers to take over the existence ? I ’m not as evil a scientist as I ’d like to be , but fortunately , others have thought this out for me .
1 . In2012 , solar neutrinos are seemingly designate to melt the worldly concern ’s core . I say , “ apparently ” because I ’m free-base this onwikipedia . I ’m devoted to you as my readers , but nothing could induce me to actually see the movie .
Could it work ? In the genuine world , dead not , since neutrinos can ( and do ) overtake right through the earth with virtually no impact . But okay io9 , I ’ll play your secret plan . say you could make the core suck up the full energy of the solar neutrinos , perchance with some gargantuan parabolic neutrino mirror ( which , I remind you , does not exist ) . These neutrino are essentially at temperature of a hundred million degree . It might take a while , but since we ’d essentially double the amount of energy being occupy by the dry land , it would ultimately be bad news for us .
2.Twitter followerDan Tannenbaum(whose example you should totally follow , by the way ) suggested the Metalunan ’s neutrino ray — a demise shaft of light made of neutrinos — fromThis Island Earth . I ’m pretty sure this is just the sort of matter Charlie Jane and Annalee were thinking of in the first place .
Would it work ? This one does slightly better , but it would require a crapload of neutrino state of flux . In rule if you could pile up enough high - energy neutrino ( far more than could be created by any sort of normal arm ) then they could be used to turn your innards into all the wrong elements . This is , by the room , one of the shipway that neutrino detectors work . In some of them , chlorine gets work into argon . That kind of affair will belt down you pretty darn quick . Even a few of your genes being mutated by such a process might do you in , but that could take a act longer .
I ’d point out that theinterocitoris also supposed to be used as some sort of communication gimmick . But it seems to me a pretty bad one . Even under the best of circumstances , neutrinos only move at the f number of ignitor . It seems soft to me to just use light , but I guess I ’m just lazy .
3 . I know I was specifically commission to build weapon here , but we can also find potentially passive use for sci - fi neutrino . In the Stargate Universe , the Asgard use aneutrino - ion generatorto power their ships .
Would it work ? Nah . In fact , I ’d be glad if anyone could just explain how this is supposed to work .
But I ’m sure I ’ve missed a bunch . So key your favorite neutrino - based sci - fi arm , vim source , communication equipment or propulsion system below , and the io9 community and I will calculate out how to ramp up them . And nothing fromDimension go , please .
Dave Goldbergis the generator , with Jeff Blomquist , of“A User ’s Guide to the Universe : Surviving the Perils of Black Holes , Time Paradoxes , and Quantum Uncertainty . ”(follow us onfacebookortwitter . ) He is an Associate Professor of Physics at Drexel University . Feel free to send email to[email protected]with any questions about the universe .
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