Neutrino Mass Confirmed

biohack writes "BBC News reports that results from the MINOS experiment have confirmed that neutrinos have mass. To look for neutrino oscillations, scientists created muon neutrinos in a particle accelerator at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab). After passing through a particle detector at Fermilab, a high intensity beam of neutrinos travelled to another particle detector 724km (450 miles) away in a disused mine in Soudan, US. The set up established that fewer particles were being detected at the Soudan site than had been sent from Fermilab, which confirmed that some neutrinos changed their flavor on the way - an effect called neutrino flavor oscillation, which requires them to have mass. 'To put it simply, if they are heavy, it means that there is a lot more mass in the Universe than we thought there was,' said Professor Jenny Thomas from University College London."

Already Known

[physicsphairy]

Neutrino mass has been an established fact since 1998 (courtesy work at the Super-Kamiokande).

Would slashdot also be interested in posting my own confirmations that light has a finite speed?

Re:Soudan, US

[Anonymous Coward]

That's because the US is many times the size of Germany, and has many more cities. In this case the article mentioned a small obscure town in the US, and yes, people would like to know where it is. I'm *from* Minnesota, and I didn't know that the town mentioned in the story existed...

Re:Already Known

[n0mad6]

Perhaps simply reading the title would give a hint as to why this is important (i.e., note the word "confirmed"). Experimental results aren't really useful unless its a result that can be reproduced. The MINOS result is simply the first confirmation of the earlier Super-K result.

Re:Already Known

[Firehed]

Actually, I think it's been an established fact since the beginning of universal existance (quite possibly predating the Big Bang, if possible, and assuming that it did actually occur). It's been a known fact since 1998.

Re:Soudan, US

[nmb3000]

When you read news from Germany, they usually don't tell you whether it is Saxony or Bavaria or whatnot.

Come on. If you're discussing a specific event in a specific location they are going to list the location. Location-based new reporting is hardly uniquely American. Besides, if nobody cares why even list the location at all? Just say "some guys figured out some physics thing in this test someplace".

State names can be important when there is a good chance that there may be 3-5 (or more) states containing cities of the same name. Unless it's obvious ("the" New York, or "the" London) it's dumb not to include the state/province.

Re:Soudan, US

[node 3]

Thats is sloppy on the BBC's part, they should have put the State in there.

Why? They don't care anymore than we (Americans) care that Tijuana, Mexico is more appropriately, "Tijuana, BC, Mexico".

To us, the state is important, but to the British, it's really not that pertinent. The point is that the detector is in the US, not what particular state it's in.

Given how awful most Americans are at geography, your complaint comes off trite and arrogant, sort of like you require people to call you by your full name and title, yet you don't really care whether you get anyone else's name right at all.

Re:explanation about oscillation/mass relationship

[insignificant1]

My understanding: The oscillation talked about with neutrinos is a back-and-forth changing of a neutrino's state. The state of a photon, on the other hand, is -represented by- its frequency of oscillation (and polarization, I believe... anything else?). There is no way to change the photon's state, however, and the oscillation of a photon does NOT represent a periodic changing of the photon's state. In other words, if you give me a vertically-polarized photon at 500 kHz, I have no physical means to make that same photon horizontally polarized or oscillate at 2.4 GHz.

Dark Matter

[Anonymous Coward]

Does this mean that the long hunted for "Dark Matter" could be accounted for with the extra mass from nutrinos?

Re:Soudan, US

[JahToasted]

... it is still a federation. Each state is indeed its own nation.

And Canada is a confederation and our Head of State is Queen Elizabeth II. There's also no such thing as a Prime Minister according to our constitution.

There's a big difference between official status and what's reality. If states can't secede from a "Union" then they aren't soveriegn nations then are they? You may say they technically are, but the day tot da reality is that right now they aren't.

If France just up and said it wanted out of the EU it would be out of the EU. No problem, France is a nation and the EU is a union of nations. They want out, they're out. France has an army and the EU doesn't. If Oregon said it wanted out of the US, too bad, you can't leave. The US is the Nation and Oregon is a province of that nation. You can call it a state (wink wink, nudge, nudge) but we all know its a province.

Also Germany has "states" too, don't they? I don't think anyone considers them to be nations even though they are called states.

Re:Soudan, US

[smallpaul]

Everything in your post makes sense until the last sentence. You say that every state is a nation without giving any definition for nation. If you look at dictionary.com, you'll see that none of the definitions applies. You won't convince me that Minnesota "independent" or "sovereign" or that its people share "common customers and origin". In addition, the United States has a single representative at the United Nations.

Re:Already Known

[Goldsmith]

Which is why Slashdot for once had the right headline:

Neutrino Mass Confirmed

I know plenty of people who work on Super-K and I'm sure they're as glad as anyone their work has been found accurate. The fact that it took almost a decade to confirm this shows how amazing that first measurement is.