4 ms·

> they could produce enough neutrinos to be dangerous Dangerous in the sense of "ionizing radiation" or in the sense of "this will overturn careers"? Getting k

> they could produce enough neutrinos to be dangerous Dangerous in the sense of "ionizing radiation" or in the sense of "this will overturn careers"? Getting killed by neutrinos sounds like a freak accident from a sci-fi story.

PaulHoule 3y ago
Read the paper. You could get a dangerous dose if you were near the plane of the accelerator.
- LegitShady 3y ago
  "near" is a relative term that isn't specific enough to get an idea of how dangerous something is. It's dangerous to be near hydrogen sulfide. It's dangerous to be near a primed hand grenade. It's dangerous to be near an artillery shell impact. It's dangerous to be near a drunk driver. It's dangerous to be near an active battlefield or even near a war. But they are all different nears. When you say its dangerous to be near the plane of the collision, are we talking 1m, 10m, 100m, 1000m, etc? Are there dangerous byproducts created that might kill you even after the event itself? That's useful information. A general "don't be near" isn't really helpful.
  - daemonologist 3y ago
    My reading is that "in the plane" literally means in the plane, +- a couple or tens of meters, depending. The paper is concerned with effects on the earth's surface, in an aircraft or orbit the duration of exposure and lack of stuff for neutrinos to run into probably means it's less of a concern. To put a number on it, they give examples of accelerators buried at 300 meters which would create a radiation hazard at a radius of 62 kilometers where the plane exits the surface (assuming earth is spherical). As far as the danger, the paper estimates up to a few mSv/year if you hung out in the wrong place all the time. You definitely wouldn't want to have a town in the way of that, but it's not an immediate danger on an individual level. The danger would be greater/more concentrated if there were straight segments in the accelerator, or if it was closer to the surface (smaller circle of intersection).
    - hilbert42 3y ago
      "My reading is that "in the plane" literally means in the plane, +- a couple or tens of meters, depending." What wad said was so vague as to be practically useless. "...they give examples of accelerators buried at 300 meters which would create a radiation hazard at a radius of 62 kilometers" Again, this is overly vague and unhelpful. As I replied to LegitShady, no specific mention is made about the type of radiation dangers or how long radiation would be expected to linger in soils etc.
  - hilbert42 3y ago
    Well said. I was annoyed by the lack of specific information for exactly the reasons you mentioned More specific estimates of safe distances versus collider power would be helpful, same too about the nature and type of radioactive byproducts in soil (what elements would be expected to become radioactive along with their half-lifes, etc.). Sometimes I think it ought to compulsory for scientists to study philosophy—at least its parts that deal with logic, language and semantics. Philosophy defines near —like good— as a 'simple notion' that cannot be subdivided into simpler terms. The word needs qualifiers/quantifiers (figures, distances, amounts) for it to be useful—info that the paper was overly vague about or omitted to specify.
  - Red_Leaves_Flyy 3y ago
    Next time this argument is made include references to Betelgeuse, Yellowstone, and super massive black holes.
__MatrixMan__ 3y ago
From the paper: > Most of the ionization energy dose deposited in a person will come from interactions in the soil and other objects in the person’s vicinity rather than from the more direct process of neutrinos interacting inside a person. At TeV energy scales, much less than one percent of the energy flux from the daughters of such interactions will be absorbed in the relatively small amount of matter contained in a person, with the rest passing beyond the person. If you're looking to get bit by a radioactive spider, spiders living down range of such a collider might be a decent place to start.
- PaulHoule 3y ago
  With high-energy particles the showers made when the particles hit something can be more dangerous than the original particles. For instance if you are building a space colony there is an optimal thickness for the biological shield: most high energy particles blast right through you and if you have too much shielding there are too many opportunities for a particle to explode a nucleus in the shield and multiply the number of radioactive particles dramatically. Off the top of the head I'd say about six feet of soil is about right, but you don't do better with 60 feet or anything reasonable until you are talking multiple kilometers (maybe of vacuum or air space) that give shower muons time to decay. Speaking of muons, it is an easy experiment often used in physics education to measure the the lifetime of cosmic ray muons produced in showers. https://www.physlab.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Muon_cali.pdf https://www.physlab.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Muon_cali... If a muon gets slowed down by matter you see a pulse of radiation, then you see a pulse of radiation a few microseconds later when the particle decays. If you measure the time gap in two-pulse events you can get the half-life. It was a popular experiment in Cornell's 510 lab for grad students who weren't particularly interested in doing experiments because it was so easy.
Cthulhu_ 3y ago
Doctor Manhattan
Ygg2 3y ago
Dangerous enough to cause partial meltdown if they hit fissile material. In theory hitting nukes with energetic neutrino ray would be enough to disarm them. By melting fissile material under normal circumstances.

PaulHoule 3y ago

Read the paper. You could get a dangerous dose if you were near the plane of the accelerator.

LegitShady 3y ago
"near" is a relative term that isn't specific enough to get an idea of how dangerous something is. It's dangerous to be near hydrogen sulfide. It's dangerous to be near a primed hand grenade. It's dangerous to be near an artillery shell impact. It's dangerous to be near a drunk driver. It's dangerous to be near an active battlefield or even near a war. But they are all different nears. When you say its dangerous to be near the plane of the collision, are we talking 1m, 10m, 100m, 1000m, etc? Are there dangerous byproducts created that might kill you even after the event itself? That's useful information. A general "don't be near" isn't really helpful.
- daemonologist 3y ago
  My reading is that "in the plane" literally means in the plane, +- a couple or tens of meters, depending. The paper is concerned with effects on the earth's surface, in an aircraft or orbit the duration of exposure and lack of stuff for neutrinos to run into probably means it's less of a concern. To put a number on it, they give examples of accelerators buried at 300 meters which would create a radiation hazard at a radius of 62 kilometers where the plane exits the surface (assuming earth is spherical). As far as the danger, the paper estimates up to a few mSv/year if you hung out in the wrong place all the time. You definitely wouldn't want to have a town in the way of that, but it's not an immediate danger on an individual level. The danger would be greater/more concentrated if there were straight segments in the accelerator, or if it was closer to the surface (smaller circle of intersection).
  - hilbert42 3y ago
    "My reading is that "in the plane" literally means in the plane, +- a couple or tens of meters, depending." What wad said was so vague as to be practically useless. "...they give examples of accelerators buried at 300 meters which would create a radiation hazard at a radius of 62 kilometers" Again, this is overly vague and unhelpful. As I replied to LegitShady, no specific mention is made about the type of radiation dangers or how long radiation would be expected to linger in soils etc.
- hilbert42 3y ago
  Well said. I was annoyed by the lack of specific information for exactly the reasons you mentioned More specific estimates of safe distances versus collider power would be helpful, same too about the nature and type of radioactive byproducts in soil (what elements would be expected to become radioactive along with their half-lifes, etc.). Sometimes I think it ought to compulsory for scientists to study philosophy—at least its parts that deal with logic, language and semantics. Philosophy defines near —like good— as a 'simple notion' that cannot be subdivided into simpler terms. The word needs qualifiers/quantifiers (figures, distances, amounts) for it to be useful—info that the paper was overly vague about or omitted to specify.
- Red_Leaves_Flyy 3y ago
  Next time this argument is made include references to Betelgeuse, Yellowstone, and super massive black holes.

__MatrixMan__ 3y ago

From the paper: > Most of the ionization energy dose deposited in a person will come from interactions in the soil and other objects in the person’s vicinity rather than from the more direct process of neutrinos interacting inside a person. At TeV energy scales, much less than one percent of the energy flux from the daughters of such interactions will be absorbed in the relatively small amount of matter contained in a person, with the rest passing beyond the person. If you're looking to get bit by a radioactive spider, spiders living down range of such a collider might be a decent place to start.

PaulHoule 3y ago
With high-energy particles the showers made when the particles hit something can be more dangerous than the original particles. For instance if you are building a space colony there is an optimal thickness for the biological shield: most high energy particles blast right through you and if you have too much shielding there are too many opportunities for a particle to explode a nucleus in the shield and multiply the number of radioactive particles dramatically. Off the top of the head I'd say about six feet of soil is about right, but you don't do better with 60 feet or anything reasonable until you are talking multiple kilometers (maybe of vacuum or air space) that give shower muons time to decay. Speaking of muons, it is an easy experiment often used in physics education to measure the the lifetime of cosmic ray muons produced in showers. https://www.physlab.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Muon_cali.pdf https://www.physlab.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Muon_cali... If a muon gets slowed down by matter you see a pulse of radiation, then you see a pulse of radiation a few microseconds later when the particle decays. If you measure the time gap in two-pulse events you can get the half-life. It was a popular experiment in Cornell's 510 lab for grad students who weren't particularly interested in doing experiments because it was so easy.

Cthulhu_ 3y ago

Doctor Manhattan

Ygg2 3y ago

Dangerous enough to cause partial meltdown if they hit fissile material. In theory hitting nukes with energetic neutrino ray would be enough to disarm them. By melting fissile material under normal circumstances.