Posted on 11/04/2010 12:31:54 PM PDT by lbryce
Today physicists announced that they may have found the key to explaining dark matter in the universe. It all has to do with the potential discovery of a "sterile neutrino."
According to a release about the new study:
Neutrinos are neutral elementary particles born in the radioactive decay of other particles. The known "flavors" of neutrinos are the neutral counterparts of electrons and their heavier cousins, muons and taus. Regardless of a neutrino's original flavor, the particles constantly flip from one type to another in a phenomenon called "neutrino flavor oscillation."
An electron neutrino might become a muon neutrino, and then later an electron neutrino again. Scientists previously believed three flavors of neutrino exist. In this Mini Booster Neutrino Experiment, dubbed MiniBooNE, researchers detected more oscillations than would be possible if there were only three flavors.
"These results imply that there are either new particles or forces we had not previously imagined," said Byron Roe, professor emeritus in the Department of Physics, and an author of a paper on the results newly published online in Physical Review Letters.
"The simplest explanation involves adding new neutrino-like particles, or sterile neutrinos, which do not have the normal weak interactions."
The three known types of neutrino interact with matter primarily through the weak nuclear force, which makes them difficult to detect. It is hypothesized that this fourth flavor would not interact through the weak force, making it even harder to find.
The existence of sterile neutrinos could help explain the composition of the universe, said William Louis, a scientist at Los Alamos National Laboratory who was a doctoral student of Roe's at U-M and is involved in the MiniBooNE experiment.
(Excerpt) Read more at io9.com ...
The full scientific article via Physical Review Letters as linked to in the article is available to subscribers only
I Knew that! 8)
This discovery is unto something as it would account for the whole damn Obama phenomena.
Just some wild thoughts from my wild mind.
Boy, you can say what you want about “Geeks”, but they must be smoking some wierd stuff. And to think I started out as a Physics major in the late 50s. Things were so simple then.
Neutrino’s have been made “Nacho Cheesier”?
I’m waiting for the article that says that all matter has a shelf life and we have reached it.
This would be better understood by the general populace if they referred to it as the "John F. Kerry oscillation".
So they they are saying either there is something they do not understand, or God does sloppy work.
I pick the former.
Will it someday be discovered that we never really existed?
What will we do on that day?
It must be time for the scientists to request more federal grant money. “We can’t allow this question to remain unresolved!”
That Nobel prize is supposed to me mine!!!!
Mine!!! Mine!!! Mine!!!
***and have therefore labeled “dark.” ****
Jessie and Al is gonna get you sucka!
If they don't figure this out, the universe could collapse on itself in twenty billion years. This crisis calls out for a new stimulus program in 2011.
Please note they have “discovered” no such assymetry, nor have they discovered the “sterile neutrino” which they hypothesize might exist. This is a possible explanation, they know practically zip.
That’s quite a bit much to ponder, contemplate that we don’t really even exist. :-)
The Law of Mass Conservation states that”
“mass can neither be created nor destroyed”
(All matter exists... somewhere.)
New discovery: The Universe will come to an end in 5-4-3-2...
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.