4 ms·

Start a power plant meltdown or detonate an enemy's weapon stockpiles...from anywhere?

• kadoban 4y ago
  Is there even a theoretical way that this could happen? Seems essentially impossible. The whole thing with neutrinos is they just _don't_ interact with anything except _extremely_ rarely.
  • lazide 4y ago
    They can’t be focused, so if it did succeed - it would cook everything anywhere near it just as much. So think ‘interplanetary death ray’, not ‘surgical strike’.
  • jjk166 4y ago
    No. There is some evidence that a large flux of neutrinos can very slightly alter the rate of some nuclear beta decay (basically the decay which would release a neutrino can't if there are too many neutrinos already around it), but that won't do anything to trigger a nuclear weapon or nuclear plant meltdown. Even producing enough neutrinos to have a detectable effect at all would require a tremendous amount of energy - attempts to even detect such an effect on earth have been inconclusive. The only place in the universe where the neutron flux gets high enough to actually delay decay for a meaningful amount of time is in the core of a supernova, which is one way heavy elements are produced.
    • kadoban 4y ago
      > The only place in the universe where the neutron flux gets high enough to actually delay decay for a meaningful amount of time is in the core of a supernova, which is one way heavy elements are produced. That's very cool.