The Super Kamiokande had a terrible engineering event where the delicate sensor bulbs shattered, and the pressure delta from one shattering caused neighbors to shatter, in a chain reaction that destroyed large amounts of sensors.
>Neutrinos come in three different “flavors” (electron, muon, and tau) and can oscillate, or switch, between them. To do so, neutrinos must have mass
Why? What actually is "Neutrino oscillation" and why does it require the neutrino have mass? My already feeble understanding of particle and quantum physics always breaks down at these sorts of points.
How are we sure that the neutrino is in fact a single particle that should use the same sort of mathematical machinery as all others? Am I even asking a question that means something?
That would be a wild thing to accomplish, given that neutrinos are created at relativistic speeds, have virtually zero mass, and don’t react with anything but gravity and the weak force.
HN automangled the title, should have a “how” at the beginning. The change makes the headline sound like this is news, but it’s just a description of neutrino detectors.
There is a good exhibit on this at the Miraikan in Odaiba, Tokyo. Detecting things and proving we detected what we detected we previously couldn't is always a fascinating exercise, especially whilst so much matter is still unrecognised.
The Super Kamiokande had a terrible engineering event where the delicate sensor bulbs shattered, and the pressure delta from one shattering caused neighbors to shatter, in a chain reaction that destroyed large amounts of sensors.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YoBFjD5tn_E
Unrelated:
>Neutrinos come in three different “flavors” (electron, muon, and tau) and can oscillate, or switch, between them. To do so, neutrinos must have mass
Why? What actually is "Neutrino oscillation" and why does it require the neutrino have mass? My already feeble understanding of particle and quantum physics always breaks down at these sorts of points.
How are we sure that the neutrino is in fact a single particle that should use the same sort of mathematical machinery as all others? Am I even asking a question that means something?