5 ms·
Particles Larger Than Galaxies Fill The Universe?
- swombat 17y agoNow imagine you could collapse all (or at least a lot) of those neutrino probability waves into one specific point (say inside a star), and assume they have mass. Boom! Instant black hole. I see a fantastic new field of military technology just waiting for us. Talk about a deterrent. "If you attack us, we'll blow up the solar system".
- DanielBMarkham 17y agoFor some reason I found this article silly. I'm not sure why. So these ancient neutrinos have such an extremely low energy and such a disperse wave function? Sounds like saying that we can't see them, and even if we could, they're not even in a "place" that can be seen. I mean, if your probability wave reasonably covers the entire universe, I'm not sure the word "location" works any more.
- sho 17y agoI don't see why it's silly. Anyway you're not thinking about it in the right way. Sure, one or two of these ultra-dispersed neutrinos, assuming they exist, might not be interesting or even detectable. But in quantity, and I suppose one can assume the quantities are quite overwhelmingly large, they could definitely add up to an effect worth studying. Consider a 100W globe diffused to such a degree that the light is spread out over the whole solar system. Nothing remarkable, right? Wouldn't even notice. But imagine a few trillion trillion of them and suddenly you have some interesting questions, such as "where is all this light coming from". Personally I find regular neutrinos to be utterly fascinating. The idea that there exists a particle so small that it can pass, utterly unhindered, through the whole freaking planet just blows my mind. Anyway, questions have to be asked, theories have to be proposed, silly or not!
- swombat 17y agoBut... neutrino is such a silly name. It would be a cold day in hell before I studied a particle with such a name! </tease> ;-)
- DanielBMarkham 17y agoOk. It's time I asked the question: is the plural neutrinni? Because I'm not about to tell my friends we're surrounded by tiny, ancient neutrinni that nobody can see but exist everywhere at the same time. Call it dark matter. That was an awesome-sounding name.
- sho 17y agoThe plural is simply "neutrinos".
- sho 17y agoActually, I have always liked the word neutrino! Cool name for a ridiculously cool, and mysterious, particle. Good thing I like them too, apparently I have 50 trillion of them passing through my body every second.
- mnemonicsloth 17y agoCall me crazy, but on this subject at least I'll take Enrico Fermi's aesthetic judgment over yours. If I have to manipulate a big equation I give nicknames to the different pieces, like "the curvature leftovers" or "the linear stuff" or "that ugly fucker from under the radical." "The little neutral guy" seems like a perfectly natural name to me.
- tybris 17y agoTitle reminds me of http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=1174 http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=1174