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Rating: Does anyone know how to build a neutrino detector? No, right? Neither do I! But, after reading this essay, I found out.
The Davis neutrino detector was placed 1,500 meters underground in a gold mine in South Dakota. It consists of a tank containing 380,000 liters of perchloroethylene. About ¼ of the Cl atoms are composed of the isotope with atomic weight 37. When it collides with a neutrino, it emits an electron, transforming into the element with the same atomic weight, but with a nucleus charged 18, the unstable isotope of Argon. By measuring the radioactivity, one can trace the number of neutrinos, one every few days. The study of neutrinos helps to understand the birth of the Universe. There is also one in Italy, under Mont Blanc.
Aside from the unusual introduction, reading the essay turned out to be more challenging than expected, becoming directly proportional to the fascination of the topic.
The study of the Universe is perhaps what has stimulated scientists the most. In particular, the physicist Hack stands out, who needs no introduction. Traveling in space with thought, supported by her passionate research and revelations, is memorable. It is rare to catch her in any emotional hints that are not of a scientific order. She will reveal that, despite the scientist's nature having to adhere to experimental or observational evidence, it is human nature that prevails. Often, there are fierce controversies, of long-standing friendships turned into intense enmities among supporters of different and opposing interpretations of facts.
The essay is an accurate scientific treatise where the peculiarities of interstellar space are explained with great detail.
Cosmology is the knowledge of the Universe as a whole: origins and evolution.
Hack points out that thanks to continuous technical progress, and overcoming mechanical problems and instrumental possibilities of telescopes, new revelations and objects will emerge, but more and more powerful tools will be needed, in an endless race. Thanks to electromagnetic radiation, it is possible to study bodies such as stars, galaxies, and families of galaxies.
There are also complex formulas, graphs, stellar spectra, photographs, and much more. The mysteries are vast and fascinating, as are the apparent expansion speeds greater than the speed of light. The four fundamental forces will be discussed. One will discover what Lemaître's primeval atom is, the "Alpha, Beta, Gamma" hypothesis, who B² FH and the "seven samurai" are, and what the "black widow" and the "fata Morgana" are.
There will be talk of the Hubble, other stellar systems, intelligent beings, and extraterrestrial signals, and even Star Wars! G. Bruno will be mentioned, burned at the stake by the Church on February 17, 1600, for his belief in the plurality of worlds, because it was believed that man occupied a unique place in the Universe. Of strange astronomers, if not completely mad, like Zwicky, ridiculed and ignored for his bizarre hypotheses, but later confirmed thanks to instrumental progress. Of black holes and "event horizons".
Of the Big Bang, matter and antimatter. Of life and death of stars, cosmic rays, white, red, black and brown dwarfs: but do they really exist? Of pulsars, neutron stars, pairs of stars and pairs of pulsars, double pulsars and galaxy encounters. Concepts of emptiness and nothing, and supersymmetry (SUSY) will be hinted at.
Of necessary conditions for life and its limits, and how all living beings are nothing but "supernova dust". Up until that point, when perhaps time didn't exist, and there was metaphysics. A non-place, without duration and number, defined by mathematicians as "empty set".
So many questions crowd my mind, but one in particular rises above the others: "where do we come from, and where are we going?". If Hack were here, she would probably answer: "time will tell".
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