We've every reason to ask. Neutrinos ("little neutral one" in Italian) are notoriously the most elusive, and apparently the most numerous, particles in the known Universe, and they hold a certain fascination all their own. What is it about the neutrino that makes it so special? And why do so many people seem to gravitate towards that 'specialness'. Could it be we're in some kind of relationship?
Neutrinos come in three flavours, just like ice cream. The article behind Elementary Particles adds contextual flakes. Take a lick of time there - the rest is here.
So now that you know about ice cream and its relationship to neutrinos - when is an ice cream not an ice cream? When it's oscillating. Changing (morphing sounds better when you're talking about an unseen, unknown event) from one version of itself into another, without being observed.
Neutrinos come in three flavours, just like ice cream. The article behind Elementary Particles adds contextual flakes. Take a lick of time there - the rest is here.
So now that you know about ice cream and its relationship to neutrinos - when is an ice cream not an ice cream? When it's oscillating. Changing (morphing sounds better when you're talking about an unseen, unknown event) from one version of itself into another, without being observed.
You can't see it, and can only see what's produced when it reacts with something. You have to then measure it in terms of what it's reacting with (do you not?)? Which is why the neutrino was named after the particles it seems to relate to, being electron, muon, and tau. Back to Fermilab for the briefing.
Neutrinos share a feature with the material field in which we're based, the quark-gluon field, in that quarks are doing the same thing (in tandem with their gluons) as the neutrinos are - morphing from one version of themselves into another. So nature being what it is, it stands to reason that if the quark has a gluon to dance with, the neutrino might have the same thing, only because it's so invisibly elusive (unlike the quark, that tends to stay where it is) and zipping along at the speed of light (at least), we'd be hard pressed to see what that thing might be, and have to rely on some kind of equation to find out in advance of seeing it. As seems to happen with most particles these days. Incidentally, it's really useful too to know what sea quarks are.
Neutrinos share a feature with the material field in which we're based, the quark-gluon field, in that quarks are doing the same thing (in tandem with their gluons) as the neutrinos are - morphing from one version of themselves into another. So nature being what it is, it stands to reason that if the quark has a gluon to dance with, the neutrino might have the same thing, only because it's so invisibly elusive (unlike the quark, that tends to stay where it is) and zipping along at the speed of light (at least), we'd be hard pressed to see what that thing might be, and have to rely on some kind of equation to find out in advance of seeing it. As seems to happen with most particles these days. Incidentally, it's really useful too to know what sea quarks are.
We know that the anti-particle of the electron is the positron, but you won't find the positron up there in the Standard Model because it's an outsider, the electron wins every time because the electron belongs here in our familiar world. So he (the electron) annihilates the positron and produces - any manner of potential particle pairings. And anyway, the positron goes backwards in time, which makes for a potential infinity and sure as hell's a mousetrap we don't want any of those. Here you'll find the Feynman diagrams that put this into context - they tell lots of stories about particles relying on other particles to become what they are and do what they do. Then you get to realise that all particle relationships that involve these interactions take place forwards and backwards in time at the same time.
The three generations of matter are rated according to size rather than age. Symmetry Magazine terms it thus:
"Most of the generations differ in mass by a lot. For example, the tau lepton is roughly 3600 times more massive than the electron, and the top quark is nearly 100,000 times heavier than the up quark. That difference manifests itself in stability: The heavier generations decay into the lighter generations, until they reach the lightest, which are (as far as we can tell) stable forever."
Stable forever? Is anything forever? Electron neutrinos can - and do - become muons and taus and there's any permutation of the aforesaid you'd care to mention in the probability well. (Scroll down to "Flavour oscillations" here). Anyway, while the electron itself is "as far as we can tell, stable forever" and the electron neutrino carries on doing what it likes, can we ask - is this some kind of horrible game we're playing? It seems that electron-positron annihilation can produce almost anything - I've seen two photons, a quark and an antiquark (which then produces a gluon), And anyway, what happens to that gluon?
If these questions are of interest, and you want to explore the bridge between quantum physics and human experience, you might like to check out the group at https://www.facebook.com/groups/quantumol
The three generations of matter are rated according to size rather than age. Symmetry Magazine terms it thus:
"Most of the generations differ in mass by a lot. For example, the tau lepton is roughly 3600 times more massive than the electron, and the top quark is nearly 100,000 times heavier than the up quark. That difference manifests itself in stability: The heavier generations decay into the lighter generations, until they reach the lightest, which are (as far as we can tell) stable forever."
Stable forever? Is anything forever? Electron neutrinos can - and do - become muons and taus and there's any permutation of the aforesaid you'd care to mention in the probability well. (Scroll down to "Flavour oscillations" here). Anyway, while the electron itself is "as far as we can tell, stable forever" and the electron neutrino carries on doing what it likes, can we ask - is this some kind of horrible game we're playing? It seems that electron-positron annihilation can produce almost anything - I've seen two photons, a quark and an antiquark (which then produces a gluon), And anyway, what happens to that gluon?
If these questions are of interest, and you want to explore the bridge between quantum physics and human experience, you might like to check out the group at https://www.facebook.com/groups/quantumol
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