• niktemadur@lemmy.world
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    22 hours ago

    That’s just the half of it.
    Watch the weight on the scale fluctuate, as the kitty neutrino keeps adorably creepily gazing at you.

      • FiskFisk33@startrek.website
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        8 hours ago

        as far as I understand, the only way we know is that we have observed that they move slower than light, and therefore must have mass

        • macarthur_park@lemmy.world
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          5 hours ago

          Actually we haven’t observed a difference between the speed of neutrinos and light, which sets an upper limit on their mass based on the precision of those measurements. The evidence of mass is much weirder, in the observation of neutrino flavor oscillation.

          Neutrinos come in 3 flavors: electron, tau, and muon. We’ve observed that the flavor oscillates as a function of time, or equivalently as a function of distance from the neutrino source. The data is quite precise, and is perfectly explained by there being 3 neutrino mass states that are distinct from the flavor state. So a neutrino with a well defined flavor will have a superposition of the 3 mass states, with each flavor corresponding to a different admixture of mass states.

          The flavor oscillations allow us to measure the difference in the mass values, but not the absolute masses. Technically it’s possible that the “lightest” neutrino is massless, and the other 2 mass states are nonzero. Without an absolute value for the masses we can’t rule this out.

      • niktemadur@lemmy.world
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        22 hours ago

        As close to nothing as something can be and still exist… as far as we know.
        That mass is so small, and behaves so strangely (it fluctuates), that the theories say the neutrino does NOT get its’ tiny fluctuating mass from the Higgs Field.

        And if that ain’t a mind-blower of what is at the very edge of human knowledge and understanding of reality, I don’t know what is.

      • Science must make some scientists go insane when they can see something, know some of its properties and such, but you can’t empirically measure it or really prove it exists.

        “The neutrinos are just in your head, Wolfgang.”

        • reinei@lemmy.world
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          1 day ago

          Well the thing is: it’s even worse! We HAVE measured ‘the’ neutrino mass, sort of (not really). We have an absolutely fricking tiny upper bound! For all three masses added together… And yes, there are three separate neutrino masses just like there are sorta three ‘types’ of Neutrinos. But the real kicker is: it is literally impossible to assign any specific mass to any specific type!!

          You can either talk about the type of a neutrino OR it’s mass but not both at the same time because apparently we looked too close and quantum mechanics decided it needed to fuck with us some more to discourage further probing.

        • TeraByteMarx@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          1 day ago

          I feel like this trope should be applied to jobs outside of science. Like retail. Retail workers are just as prone to insanity and it’s up to us to make that romantic and cool in similar ways. Also science outside of physics, like geology.

          • vaultdweller013
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            7 hours ago

            I was gonna say something about people into the humanities being insane, but im pretty sure that once ya get passed a certain level ya just get insanity regardless. Seriously I have been in actual discussions with actual degree holding historians and listened back to it via recording and it sounds like conspiracy theorist shit. We were talking about the Chalcolithic era, I just like history I hold no degree I have only taken a college level class on American history how am I able to keep up with paper writers?

        • porl@lemmy.world
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          2 days ago

          You’re thinking of a neutron. They are from memory a tiny bit heavier than a proton. Neutrinos are tiny.