Friday, July 29, 2005

Geoneutrinos


[...]
At night, they enter at Nepal
And pierce the lover and his lass
From underneath the bed – you call
It wonderful; I call it crass.

So opines John Updike, about neutrinos. See Sean Carroll's post for the full poem.

A news story in yesterday's NYTimes says, "Using a telescope made of 1,000 tons of baby oil and benzene in a stainless steel tank, scientists have measured the total radioactivity of Earth for the first time". How did they measure it? By recording "flashes caused by ghostly particles called neutrinos".

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