• Question: how do we know neutrinos exist?

    Asked by dumhead456 to Hermine, Katy, Laura, Nathalie, Paula on 22 Jun 2010 in Categories: .
    • Photo: Paula Salgado

      Paula Salgado answered on 21 Jun 2010:

      Well, not exactly my area of expertise, but I’ll have a go at explaining this… 😉

      Neutrinos were first proposed by Pauli as a way to explain the conservation of momentum, energy and angular momentum during the beta-decay a nucleus.

      Neutrinos were fist detected experimentally in 1942, in a work that won the Noble Prize in Physics in 1955, by creating neutrinos in a nuclear reactor by beta decay. They were shot into protons producing neutrons and positrons both of which could be detected.

      For more details on neutrinos and the different “flavours” they can have, have a look here

      Hope that helps! 😉

    • Photo: Nathalie Pettorelli

      Nathalie Pettorelli answered on 21 Jun 2010:

      Hi there,

      You can not see neutrinos, but you can make experiments to demonstrate that they exist. The demonstration comes from studying the decay of an atomic nucleus – which produces neutrinos. In 1956 a famous experience was carried out to demonstrate experimentally their existence – neutrinos were created in a nuclear reactor and were then shot into protons producing neutrons and positrons both of which could be detected. Hope that answers your question 😉

    • Photo: Laura Dixon

      Laura Dixon answered on 21 Jun 2010:

      Apparently we don’t for sure! There are 2 large scale projects dedicated to detecting neutrinos currently being run. The ‘Super-K’ program (http://www-sk.icrr.u-tokyo.ac.jp/sk/index-e.html) and the SNO program (http://www.sno.phy.queensu.ca/)

      Good question!

    • Photo: Katy Mee

      Katy Mee answered on 21 Jun 2010:

      Ok. I’m going to be completely honest here – i don’t have a clue. If I’m not even entirely sure i know what a neutrino is! I could just copy and paste seomthing from Wikipedia (e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutrino) and make it look like i know the answer, but i think it’s just as important to understand that we can’t possibly know the answer to everything, and that’s why we specialise in certain subjects.

      And besides, I’m sure one of the other scientists from Aluminium has a physics background (i stopped studying physics after GCSE) and is able to give you a good answer to this!

      Out of interest, what made you ask this question?

    • Photo: Hermine Schnetler

      Hermine Schnetler answered on 22 Jun 2010:

      An experiment was conducted at a nuclear reactor at Savannah River in 1953 that proved the then theorised neutrinos exist. This experiment actually recieved a nobel prize in 1995.

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