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Physicists detect signs of neutrinos at Large Hadron Collider

phys.org

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Re: Physicists detect signs of neutrinos at Large Hadron Collider

#41

Post by hluska »

macintux wrote: post #24
canjobear wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> seems like a lame excuse for saying “we don’t know”. Dark matter/energy aren’t excuses, they’re labels for things that behave like matter and energy but whose nature is unknown.

Well, dark matter at least to this layperson’s eye a label for observations that are most easily explained by matter, which is not quite the same as a “thing that behaves like matter”.

Just for the record, I’m not trying to be a jerk - I’m a layperson too. However, in science, it’s important to understand that some of the “I don’t know”s are so incredibly precise they’re not intended for the layperson. Rather, many are precise models used to help experts communicate.

Re: Physicists detect signs of neutrinos at Large Hadron Collider

#42

Post by traeregan »

dmitrybrant wrote: post #28
idontwantthis wrote: post #25

Would there be any good reason or theoretically practical way to use neutrinos for communication? Asking because in 3 Body Problem it’s seen as a “civilized” way to communicate compared to radio waves.

While neutrinos are not very difficult to generate, they are extremely, astoundingly difficult to detect. Unless we discover a new type of matter that interacts more strongly with neutrinos, we're stuck with cavern-sized detectors that can detect single-digit numbers of neutrinos (out of many trillions), unreliably.

> Unless we discover a new type of matter that interacts more strongly with neutrinos

How about astrophage? :)

Re: Physicists detect signs of neutrinos at Large Hadron Collider

#43

Post by retrac »

YakBizzarro wrote: post #36
mrfusion wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess if we found a way to provide say a trillion times more neutrinos than normal we could detect that more easily.

your "opponent" is the sun that is bombarding us with tons of neutrinos. your SNR would be probably bad

The same problem is faced by optical communication during the day with the sensors exposed to sunlight. SNR can be increased a fair bit with even slight directionality. If sensitivity of detection is one day high enough, I think it would be theoretically possible to obtain directional information about neutrinos, by building a whole network of sensors and synthesizing an aperture.

Re: Physicists detect signs of neutrinos at Large Hadron Collider

#44

Post by themodelplumber »

idontwantthis wrote: post #25

Would there be any good reason or theoretically practical way to use neutrinos for communication? Asking because in 3 Body Problem it’s seen as a “civilized” way to communicate compared to radio waves.

I've wondered the same about gravitons. Notwithstanding the need for likely-huge sensing equipment for the first N years of development...

Re: Physicists detect signs of neutrinos at Large Hadron Collider

#45

Post by gus_massa »

JProthero wrote: post #39
jiggawatts wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look at it this way: Solar neutrinos carry away approximately 1% of the total fusion power output of the Sun. This works out to about 14 Watts per square meter at the distance of the Earth. The area of a human adult body front-on is about a square meter. It's pretty easy to detect 14 W of typical forms of radiation at those scales! If it were light, it would be equivalent to the light put out by something like a lapt…

This is a great analogy, I'd never seen it translated into tangible terms like that before. I remember reading that, at close enough range, the neutrino emissions from a supernova would be intense enough to be dangerous to structures made of ordinary matter, despite the weakness of their interactions, and that they would reach an observer earlier than other forms of radiation due to their ability to escape the collap…

Perhaps "Lethal Neutrinos" https://what-if.xkcd.com/73/

Re: Physicists detect signs of neutrinos at Large Hadron Collider

#46

Post by hungryforcodes »

WitCanStain wrote: post #29
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Neutrinos are produced by radioactive decay, and they interact very weakly with ordinary matter, making them extremely difficult to detect. Seems like the exact opposite qualities of something you'd want to use for communication.

If there were a way to reliably detect neutrinos in sufficient quantities they'd be ideal since you could send messages through the earth and at near light speed, I suppose.

As opposed to how we communicate now globally?

Re: Physicists detect signs of neutrinos at Large Hadron Collider

#47

Post by tehsauce »

retrac wrote: post #43
YakBizzarro wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

your "opponent" is the sun that is bombarding us with tons of neutrinos. your SNR would be probably bad

The same problem is faced by optical communication during the day with the sensors exposed to sunlight. SNR can be increased a fair bit with even slight directionality. If sensitivity of detection is one day high enough, I think it would be theoretically possible to obtain directional information about neutrinos, by building a whole network of sensors and synthesizing an aperture.

I think this would be impossible without truly alien materials.

Re: Physicists detect signs of neutrinos at Large Hadron Collider

#48

Post by LegitShady »

themodelplumber wrote: post #44
idontwantthis wrote: post #25

Would there be any good reason or theoretically practical way to use neutrinos for communication? Asking because in 3 Body Problem it’s seen as a “civilized” way to communicate compared to radio waves.

I've wondered the same about gravitons. Notwithstanding the need for likely-huge sensing equipment for the first N years of development...

It's not yet clear if gravitons exist at all.

Re: Physicists detect signs of neutrinos at Large Hadron Collider

#49

Post by postalrat »

YakBizzarro wrote: post #36
mrfusion wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess if we found a way to provide say a trillion times more neutrinos than normal we could detect that more easily.

your "opponent" is the sun that is bombarding us with tons of neutrinos. your SNR would be probably bad

Not so bad if your detector can detect the direction the neutrino came from.

Re: Physicists detect signs of neutrinos at Large Hadron Collider

#50

Post by LegitShady »

xwdv wrote: post #16
adrian_b wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Usually the neutrino will interact with a nucleus and what happens is the reverse of a beta decay, i.e. either a proton will be changed into a neutron or a neutron into a proton, with the emission of an electron or a positron. So one atom will be converted into an atom of another element, which is a neighbor to it in the periodic table. Because one neutral lepton goes in and one charged lepton goes out, you might say…

So if we could force neutrino interactions at scale we could make any element we want in large quantities?

I imagine like a lot of the nuclear alchemy the cost is much higher than just getting the existing material you want.
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