The Neutrino. And Equilibrium.

by Louis B. Shalako

c2010

All Rights Reserved

Editor's Note: The following is science parody and should not be used as a cheat-sheet for college or university exams.


The neutrino is a particle with no mass or charge. It must occupy time and space, or one wonders how it was detectable with anything other than purely theoretical, or mathematical means.

First postulated in theoretical terms, the existence of the neutrino was later demonstrated in the lab. Certain characteristics, predicted mathematically, held true under experimental conditions.

A neutrino may be a kind of spherical force field, one which demonstrates the characteristics of both a wave and a particle. Considering other aspects of quantum physics, this requires a minimal stretch of the imagination.

Think of it as a bubble of force, analogous to one layer of an onion, but also exhibiting some aspects of a soap-bubble as well.

If you prick a soap bubble, the skin is punctured. Surface tension is held in equilibrium at a given size, by temperature, the amount of soap, and the amount of air blown in, and other similar physical factors, 'mathematical factors.'

When you puncture a bubble, it is no longer in equilibrium. All of the skin retracts due the the phenomenon of surface tension. It withdraws in a spherical fashion, and all the air rushes out through the hole. This is because of the light compression of the gas inside, (air,) due to the effects of elasticity, and surface tension.

The air pressure is what held the bubble at a given size, after all. Otherwise it would have shrunk in size until it was again in equilibrium.

What happens next is that the drop of soap jets off in the opposite direction from the jet of air. (Then gravity pulls it to the ground. That's why it falls in an arc, and not straight down.)

For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. Isaac Newton's First law of Motion, as I recall.

So when a neutrino is bombarded, another 'particle' may be dislodged, or loses coherence, and goes flying off someplace else. At some point the soap bubble analogy runs dry, but it might be best not to think of the neutrino as a particle so much as a force field.

The fact that a neutrino is 'uncharged,' may easily be accounted for by the notion of equilibrium. The neutrino has both a negative and positive charge of equal strength. In mathematical terms, these will simply cancel each other out.

One of the interesting things which I would like to know, is what is the temperature of an atom or particle at the core, or nanoscopic level, when all around, at my own level of 'reality,' it is 20 degrees Celsius?

Because that would affect my theoretical visualizations profoundly. Also, I just read something about ionizing radiation, and I need to go back and check that out again.

To report a typo, please e-mail louisbshalako@cogeco.ca