Neutrino that mystical particle in quantum physics?
- Travels at the speed of light, or very close to it. (https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2011/9/110923-neutrinos-speed-of-light-particles-cern-physics-einstein-science/)
- Passes through everything. The chances of it interacting with another particle are so minute that there’s only a 25% chance that one will ever interact with you throughout your life.
- Despite their elusiveness, about 100 trillion of them pass through you every second.
- They’re released by nuclear reactions, like stars. And because of their rather shy nature, neutrinos from all around the universe pass through you. (https://www.symmetrymagazine.org/2010/02/15/just-how-often-are-you-hit-by-a-neutrino)
How do we know they exist? Well, when they interact with a water molecule, they emit something called Cherenkov radiation, which appears as a ghostly blue flash of light. It looks something like this:
All that is cool, but there’s something which trumps all of that.
Because neutrinos do have mass (albeit very little), and they travel at such great speeds, there is a lot of energy stored in these little things.
This has many implications.
- If we could stop neutrinos and extract their energy, it would be a source of unlimited free energy. It could truly change the world.
- Neutrinos, if they could be stopped and accelerated at will, could revolutionize batteries. Once accelerated, these things would have absolutely phenomenal energy density. All we need are some particle accelerators in our cellphones.
I love neutrinos. They are one of the few subatomic particles that could actually have a practical use in the real world. To quote myself (in a video I made about them), the sky’s the limit.
