Name: Richard
Status: other
Grade: other
Location: CA
Country: N/A
Date: 9/5/2005
Question:
I have been doing research on Neutrinos for a children's
story.
Can neutrinos be captured? In my reading, one site said, 'they travel
below c': "the neutrinos could be accelerated to .999999c and we might not
notice that it was moving a bit less than c." So ... they travel through
space at the speed of light?
Replies:
According to the latest information available to me neutrinos have a
mass (but a
very tiny mass). But things are not so simple because neutrinos hardly
interact with "regular" matter at all, so it is very difficult to observe
them directly, which means that their mass is inferred indirectly. It is
reasonably well established that there are several types of neutrinos that
can change into the other varieties. In fact this interconversion is the
best evidence that they have mass. For reasons beyond the scope of this
format, particles without mass cannot interconvert. Their small mass and
the fact that they do not interact with other types of matter means that
they travel "almost" at the speed of light, c. This also means that with
the best available technology now available (2005), they cannot be
rapped or
captured. Their fleeting existence is detected with enormous detectors deep
underground (to minimize "noise" from other types of particles and
radiation). You may find the site interesting, or confusing:
http://cupp.oulu.fi/neutrino/nd-mass.html but it shows just how difficult
it is to measure "almost nothing" very accurately!!
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