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 ...
In my parallel universe, we are asymmetric but equal.
“sterile neutrinos” cannot reproduce.
Ergo they will eventually become extinct.
” sterile neutrinos cannot reproduce.
Ergo they will eventually become extinct. “
Nope - they’ll organize ‘Neutrino Pride Parades’ and demand that ‘Neutrino Appreciation’ be taught in the schools, so they can recruit more Neutrinos.....
Takes one to know one, bud!
May the Schwartz be with you.
Well, no.... the simplest explanations involve hardware, software, or measurement errors.
Just saying....
This “travel at the speed of light” thing. The red shift is used to measure distances right? That means infrared must travel at a different speed than ultraviolet, and that is not getting into the other parts of the electromagnetic spectrum like x-ray or gamma rays. So what does speed of light mean since all the frequencies travel at different speeds? Maybe we could travel at the speed of red light and still not have infinite mass?
"Six by nine. Forty two."
"That's it. That's all there is."
"I always thought something was fundamentally wrong with the universe."
I'm glad I read through the thread before I went and scrounged around for that quote.
I wish they’d just bring back “ether” and be done with it.
They really don’t have a clue.
” infinite mass? “
Is that a Michelle Obama reference???
The phenomena as explained in your posted article does not address, account for the seemingly natural forces having created the six-sided geometric shape positioned on Saturn's north pole as seen in the images I recently posted.
Probably a good idea to attempt no landings there.
No.
For any wave, speed of propagation is equal to the wavelength times the frequency of the oscillation.
For light, it's
c = f * lambda
Where c = speed of light (constant), f = frequency, and lambda = wavelength.
The frequency for IR is lower than it is for UV. The wavelengths are correspondingly higher. The waves travel at the same speed.
Haven’t heard of the zero popint field I see ... the ‘ether’ is so yesterday when you have zero point to refer to. Just dip your consciousness in the quantum foam and become enlightened don’tchaknow.
Haven’t heard of the zero point field I see ... the ‘ether’ is so yesterday when you have zero point to refer to. Just dip your consciousness in the quantum foam and become enlightened don’tchaknow.
Couldn’t have wave packets otherwise ...
As long as they keep buying our bonds, I don't care.
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