

Particles Larger Than Galaxies Fill The Universe? - quoderat
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/06/090602-particles-larger-than-galaxies.html?source=email_wn_20090605

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swombat
Now imagine you could collapse all (or at least a lot) of those neutrino
probability waves into one specific point (say inside a star), and assume they
have mass. Boom! Instant black hole.

I see a fantastic new field of military technology just waiting for us. Talk
about a deterrent. "If you attack us, we'll blow up the solar system".

~~~
jwvgoethe
Mr. President, we must not allow a mine-shaft gap!!

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tybris
Title reminds me of <http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=1174>

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DanielBMarkham
For some reason I found this article silly. I'm not sure why.

So these ancient neutrinos have such an extremely low energy and such a
disperse wave function? Sounds like saying that we can't see them, and even if
we could, they're not even in a "place" that can be seen. I mean, if your
probability wave reasonably covers the entire universe, I'm not sure the word
"location" works any more.

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sho
I don't see why it's silly. Anyway you're not thinking about it in the right
way. Sure, one or two of these ultra-dispersed neutrinos, assuming they exist,
might not be interesting or even detectable. But in quantity, and I suppose
one can assume the quantities are quite overwhelmingly large, they could
definitely add up to an effect worth studying.

Consider a 100W globe diffused to such a degree that the light is spread out
over the whole solar system. Nothing remarkable, right? Wouldn't even notice.
But imagine a few trillion trillion of them and suddenly you have some
interesting questions, such as "where is all this light coming from".

Personally I find regular neutrinos to be utterly fascinating. The idea that
there exists a particle so small that it can pass, utterly unhindered, through
the whole freaking _planet_ just blows my mind.

Anyway, questions have to be asked, theories have to be proposed, silly or
not!

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swombat
But... neutrino is such a silly name. It would be a cold day in hell before I
studied a particle with such a name!

</tease> ;-)

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mnemonicsloth
Call me crazy, but on this subject at least I'll take Enrico Fermi's aesthetic
judgment over yours.

If I have to manipulate a big equation I give nicknames to the different
pieces, like "the curvature leftovers" or "the linear stuff" or "that ugly
fucker from under the radical."

"The little neutral guy" seems like a perfectly natural name to me.

~~~
swombat
_sigh_

I was just teasing sho about <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=643051>

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sho
I think I was punished enough for that!

Hope there's no hard feelings anyway, I certainly didn't intend it as some
kind of attack. It can be hard to get honest feedback that hasn't been
softened by politeness, so I attempt to provide it, even at the risk of being
seen as a prick.

The rebuttals were instructive, by the way. One person chided me thus:

 _"You could try couching it in some politeness"_

And I suppose it is easy enough for me to do that. I am usually extremely
polite. But is that really what you want? "Polite feedback only?" If that's
what you want, ask your Mom.

Despite what you might think, I do try to be honest and, more importantly,
useful. My actual, real-life reaction to that company name was visceral - I
_really_ hated it. I tried to get that across; it was pretty late, and I was
somewhat drunk (hehe), maybe I dialed up the harshness a little too high but
reading it again I don't think I was that far off the mark. And certainly
better than misrepresenting myself for the sake of protecting feelings.

Obviously there is a balance to be found between worthless feelgood
encouragement and worthless destructive "that sucks" snark. Perhaps in this
instance I went too far to the latter. But at the same time, look at the whole
thread. No-one else even mentioned the name. Was it because they all love it?
Or because something so fundamental is off-limits?

It cost me 20 mod points or something to get that point across, not that I
care about that, but still - now you know that some people think the name
sucks and it might be a problem. I am satisfied with the outcome.

Do you really want everyone to be following the principle "if you don't have
anything nice to say, don't say anything at all"?

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swombat
Dude, I was just teasing you. You'll notice I didn't even reply to that
thread. I'm the last person to be bothered by harsh online feedback (which
would be hypocritical considering I dish out a fair bit of it myself).

You can imagine we didn't come up with this name without some thought, and we
did do some testing of it before releasing it. Yes, some people will have an
immediate adverse reaction to it, but they're a tiny minority, from what we
observed. Most are puzzled by the name, but they don't care that much. One
advantage we get from this name is that it sounds different from the
competition, and so people remember us.

It's all about trade-offs.

Anyway, the above point was just a tease, I'm fine with feedback in all its
forms.

~~~
sho
OK we cool then : )

I have to admit, the name is memorable. By that metric, you've succeeded
admirably. It might be seared into my brain as "worst name ever" but - it's
seared into my brain, lol ...

