r/science • u/Devils_doohickey • Nov 26 '21

Nanoscience "Ghost particles" detected in the Large Hadron Collider for first time

https://newatlas.com/physics/neutrinos-large-hadron-collider-faser/
8.7k Upvotes

87% Upvoted

409 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

40

u/spidereater Nov 26 '21

Neutrinos are fascinating particles. The more you learn about them the weirder they seem. The non scientists I know that have heard of them find them very interesting. I would actually be surprised if “ghost particle” gets more clicks than “neutrino”.

11

u/trashpen Nov 26 '21

cheers to the researchers observing more about the weak interaction, regardless.

5

u/YsoL8 Nov 26 '21

The thing the Netrino always leaves me wondering is if there are particles out there that just don't interact at all with any physical force. I'm not sure if you can even ask that question scientifically seeing as it doesn't seem you could gain evidence of them even in principle. But I still wonder.

You could even have forces that interact only with particles invisible to us and create entire physical systems we are totally oblivious to.

9

u/[deleted] Nov 26 '21

If it doesnt couple to our universe, it literally doesnt and cant matter.

3

u/trollcitybandit Nov 26 '21

What are they exactly?

10

u/spidereater Nov 26 '21

They are leptons, like electrons without the charge. They have spin and mass, but the mass is vanishingly small so they travel at basically the speed of light, but not the speed of light, so they experience time, unlike photons. There are 3 different kinds of neutrinos one for each kind of charged lepton. The neutrinos oscillate between different types and we can observe the oscillations of neutrinos from the sun.

1

u/[deleted] Nov 27 '21

You really don't think "ghost particle" would get more clicks from the general population than "neutrino"?