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Physics Girl: Super-Kamiokande – Imaging the sun by detecting neutrinos [video]

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Re: Physics Girl: Super-Kamiokande – Imaging the sun by detecting neutrinos [video]

#71

Post by ars »

dylan604 wrote: post #51

I think Super-K is the place with water so pure that it will leach pretty much anything which was discovered when one of the tech's hair got wet while leaning over the water. The hair looked bleached after it went into the water. My googlfu is not finding anything to confirm though

You aren't finding anything because it is not true. Ultra pure water does not become some kind of solvent.

It's the reverse problem: because the water is so pure it easily gets contaminated by minor things. So all the equipment has to be carefully cleaned.

Re: Physics Girl: Super-Kamiokande – Imaging the sun by detecting neutrinos [video]

#72

Post by dylan604 »

ars wrote: post #71
dylan604 wrote: post #51

I think Super-K is the place with water so pure that it will leach pretty much anything which was discovered when one of the tech's hair got wet while leaning over the water. The hair looked bleached after it went into the water. My googlfu is not finding anything to confirm though

You aren't finding anything because it is not true. Ultra pure water does not become some kind of solvent. It's the reverse problem: because the water is so pure it easily gets contaminated by minor things. So all the equipment has to be carefully cleaned.

Water is a solvent. Not sure where you get that it's not.

From the closing of the first graph in the Wiki for water: Due to its presence in all organisms, its chemical stability, its worldwide abundance, and its strong polarity relative to its small molecular size, water is often referred to as the "universal solvent"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water

Edit: after enough searching I was finally able to find this article [0] that I was originally trying to find. The leaching part was right, but the bleaching part looks to have been as misremembered

[0] https://www.businessinsider.com/super-kamiokande-neutrino-de...

Re: Physics Girl: Super-Kamiokande – Imaging the sun by detecting neutrinos [video]

#74

Post by dylan604 »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #54
dylan604 wrote: post #51

I think Super-K is the place with water so pure that it will leach pretty much anything which was discovered when one of the tech's hair got wet while leaning over the water. The hair looked bleached after it went into the water. My googlfu is not finding anything to confirm though

Ha, I had never heard of this effect despite having studied Kamiokande (well neutrinos, at least) as part of a mini-dissertation for my B.Sc. However, looking for sources relating to leaching by ultra pure water (UPW) not much turned up. I did however find on Google Scholar a paper "Ultrapure Water: friend or foe?"... which lead me to https://www.balazs.com/sites/balazs/files/2023-03/pub0039-up... . Reading between t…

I found the article I was trying to remember:

https://www.businessinsider.com/super-kamiokande-neutrino-de...

Re: Physics Girl: Super-Kamiokande – Imaging the sun by detecting neutrinos [video]

#76

Post by hinkley »

magicalhippo wrote: post #65
hinkley wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn’t that also the one where a sensor imploded and caused a chain reaction that destroyed like a third of the other sensors?

Yes, except about half. This[1] article goes into how and why, without the fluff. The chain reaction escalated uncontrollably, and within ten seconds, approximately 6,800 of the 11,129 PMTs were destroyed. [1]: https://physicscommunication.ie/neutrino-detector-in-peril-t...

Cavitation is a bastard.

I wonder if the successor has any pressure buffering built into the design to absorb pressure waves or if they're just gonna make them 1) stronger or 2) fail more gracefully (it's okay if a sensor crumples as long as it doesn't implode)

Re: Physics Girl: Super-Kamiokande – Imaging the sun by detecting neutrinos [video]

#79

Post by ars »

dylan604 wrote: post #72
ars wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You aren't finding anything because it is not true. Ultra pure water does not become some kind of solvent. It's the reverse problem: because the water is so pure it easily gets contaminated by minor things. So all the equipment has to be carefully cleaned.

Water is a solvent. Not sure where you get that it's not. From the closing of the first graph in the Wiki for water: Due to its presence in all organisms, its chemical stability, its worldwide abundance, and its strong polarity relative to its small molecular size, water is often referred to as the "universal solvent" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water Edit: after enough searching I was finally able to find this art…

You misread what I wrote. Water is the same solvent as both regular water and ultrapure, I was replying to the ultrapure part.

Also: I appreciate you found a source, unfortunately it's not true what they said. It's not possible to "leech nutrients through the hair to the scalp", the wrench story is not true either - there is zero chance a lab with the standards they have would just leave a wrench at the bottom of the pool - it would contaminate the water. Not to mention the bottom is filled with more of those light tubes, so there is no place for a wrench to sit. (And if someone dropped one it would break a tube.)

I don't know why someone would tell businessinsider such stories, but they are not true.

And see: https://chemistry.stackexchange.com/questions/7467/is-pure-w...

It's hard when a supposedly reliable news place writes things that are not true, but that's the world we live in. I guess technically they are just quoting stories they were told.

(My personal pet peeve is a news source that made everyone think you can't leave eggs outside the fridge if they were washed, (as they are in the US). This is not true, but "there's a news source".)

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