Neutrino Quotes (11 quotes)
A cosmic mystery of immense proportions, once seemingly on the verge of solution, has deepened and left astronomers and astrophysicists more baffled than ever. The crux ... is that the vast majority of the mass of the universe seems to be missing.
[Reporting a Nature article discrediting explanation of invisible mass being due to neutrinos]
[Reporting a Nature article discrediting explanation of invisible mass being due to neutrinos]
I have done a terrible thing: I have postulated a particle that cannot be detected.
I know all about neutrinos, and my friend here knows about everything else in astrophysics.
His standard phrase when introducing himself and a colleague to a new acquaintance.
His standard phrase when introducing himself and a colleague to a new acquaintance.
In recent years several new particles have been discovered which are currently assumed to be “elementary,” that is, essentially structureless. The probability that all such particles should be really elementary becomes less and less as their number increases. It is by no means certain that nucleons, mesons, electrons, neutrinos are all elementary particles.
Just now nuclear physicists are writing a great deal about hypothetical particles called neutrinos supposed to account for certain peculiar facts observed in β-ray disintegration. We can perhaps best describe the neutrinos as little bits of spin-energy that have got detached. I am not much impressed by the neutrino theory. In an ordinary way I might say that I do not believe in neutrinos… But I have to reflect that a physicist may be an artist, and you never know where you are with artists. My old-fashioned kind of disbelief in neutrinos is scarcely enough. Dare I say that experimental physicists will not have sufficient ingenuity to make neutrinos? Whatever I may think, I am not going to be lured into a wager against the skill of experimenters under the impression that it is a wager against the truth of a theory. If they succeed in making neutrinos, perhaps even in developing industrial applications of them, I suppose I shall have to believe—though I may feel that they have not been playing quite fair.
Neutrinos ... win the minimalist contest: zero charge, zero radius, and very possibly zero mass.
Neutrinos, they are very small
They have no charge and have no mass
And do not interact at all.
The earth is just a silly ball
To them, through which they simply pass,Like dustmaids down a drafty hall
Or photons through a sheet of glass.
They snub the most exquisite gas,
Ignore the most substantial wall,
Cold-shoulder steel and sounding brass,
Insult the stallion in his stall,
And, scorning barriers of class,
Infiltrate you and me! Like tall
And painless guillotines, they fall
Down through our heads into the grass.
At night, they enter at Nepal
And pierce the lover and his lass
From underneath the bed—you call
It wonderful; I call it crass.
They have no charge and have no mass
And do not interact at all.
The earth is just a silly ball
To them, through which they simply pass,Like dustmaids down a drafty hall
Or photons through a sheet of glass.
They snub the most exquisite gas,
Ignore the most substantial wall,
Cold-shoulder steel and sounding brass,
Insult the stallion in his stall,
And, scorning barriers of class,
Infiltrate you and me! Like tall
And painless guillotines, they fall
Down through our heads into the grass.
At night, they enter at Nepal
And pierce the lover and his lass
From underneath the bed—you call
It wonderful; I call it crass.
Now it must be asked if we can comprehend why comets signify the death of magnates and coming wars, for writers of philosophy say so. The reason is not apparent, since vapor no more rises in a land where a pauper lives than where a rich man resides, whether he be king or someone else. Furthermore, it is evident that a comet has a natural cause not dependent on anything else; so it seems that it has no relation to someone’s death or to war. For if it be said that it does relate to war or someone’s death, either it does so as a cause or effect or sign.
The discrepancy between what was expected and what has been observed has grown over the years, and we're straining harder and harder to fill the gap.
[Commenting on the 1984 article in Nature discrediting neutrinos as the explanation for the missing mass of the universe, leaving astrophysicists more baffled for a solution.]
[Commenting on the 1984 article in Nature discrediting neutrinos as the explanation for the missing mass of the universe, leaving astrophysicists more baffled for a solution.]
These neutrino observations are so exciting and significant that I think we're about to see the birth of an entirely new branch of astronomy: neutrino astronomy. Supernova explosions that are invisible to us because of dust clouds may occur in our galaxy as often as once every 10 years, and neutrino bursts could give us a way to study them.
We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
This was a favorite quotation of John Bahcall, who used it in his presentation at the Neutrino 2000 conference.
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
This was a favorite quotation of John Bahcall, who used it in his presentation at the Neutrino 2000 conference.