Particles Larger Than Galaxies Fill The Universe?

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/06/090602-particles-larger-than-galaxies.html?source=email_wn_20090605

by quoderat • 17 years ago

17 21 17 years ago

news.nationalgeographic.com

swombat4• 17 years ago

Now 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".

jwvgoethe• 17 years ago

Mr. President, we must not allow a mine-shaft gap!!

ewiethoff• 17 years ago

If you attack us, we'll use the red matter.

DanielBMarkham4• 17 years ago

For 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.

sho8• 17 years ago

I 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!

swombat4• 17 years ago

But... neutrino is such a silly name. It would be a cold day in hell before I studied a particle with such a name!

</tease> ;-)

DanielBMarkham4• 17 years ago

By all means, continue the questioning. Quantum stuff got silly a long time before I was born, and no doubt it will continue to get sillier, ie, non-intuitive.

I'm just saying that the math runs way ahead of our intuitive grasp of reality, hence the mind-blowing capabilities. Saying something is too small to measure, and could be anywhere? That's very close to saying it isn't there, at least in a classical sense.

wglb• 17 years ago

Yes, fascinating.

Any clue to the number of nutrinos in existence? Or say the distribution of them, from the very old to the ones spitting out of the sun?

tybris• 17 years ago

Title reminds me of http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=1174

Particles Larger Than Galaxies Fill The Universe?

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