3 ms·
wow, i would not have imagined you could possibly produce a dangerous dose of neutrinos! the numbers involved must be extremely high.
by zem 3y ago
wow, i would not have imagined you could possibly produce a dangerous dose of neutrinos! the numbers involved must be extremely high.
- gattr 3y agoRelated XKCD: "How close would you have to be to a supernova to get a lethal dose of neutrino radiation?" https://what-if.xkcd.com/73/ https://what-if.xkcd.com/73/
- pfdietz 3y agoNote that these neutrinos (from the collider) have much higher energy than those from a supernova.
- viciousvoxel 3y agoInterestingly, that may actually make the collider-produced neutrinos less dangerous than those from a supernova. I'm not sure how it translates to other types of radiation, but at least for neutron radiation (e.g. cosmic rays) the amount of energy one would absorb peaks and then falls off at higher energies. Not harmless though, just slightly less dangerous.
- pfdietz 3y agoNeutrino cross sections increase with energy, so these are much more dangerous than from a supernova. Note that when they do interact, much or all of the energy of the neutrino manifests in a form that can then interact further, so the more energetic neutrino also creates more secondary radiation when it does interact.
- viciousvoxel 3y agoThat's really interesting, thanks for the clarification
- pfdietz 3y agoIt's not their number so much as their energy. The cross section for energetic neutrinos interacting with matter scales as energy squared, if I recall correctly. These neutrinos have cross sections too low to shield, but too high to ignore.
- amelius 3y agoYes, but I'm guessing you still can't blast someone on the opposite side of Earth with a stream of neutrinos going right through the core.