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trendal
J♠



Registered: 04/17/01
Posts: 20,815
Loc: Ontario, Canada
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Neutrinos
#14544474 - 06/01/11 06:07 AM (12 years, 7 months ago) |
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Neutrinos are everywhere. I read somewhere, though it eludes me where, that the flux of neutrinos coming from the sun is in the same range as the flux of photons coming from the sun. I also ready that the number of neutrinos that still exist from the big bang actually dwarfs the number of solar neutrinos.
Do you think we will ever find a way to use the vast number of neutrinos flying around as an energy source?
I envision something like a solar panel...but one which works regardless of where it is placed, what direction it faces, or whether it was in light or none.
We know that neutrinos have mass, so they do carry some energy. We also know that neutrinos do interact with matter, or else our detectors wouldn't work.
Maybe something incredibly dense? Metallic hydrogen?
What about the (quite small) magnetic moment of a neutrino? Could something with a very intense magnetic field have an effect on the neutrino?
Thoughts?
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Once, men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free. But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them.
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Doc_T
Random Dude




Registered: 03/06/09
Posts: 42,395
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Re: Neutrinos [Re: trendal]
#14544485 - 06/01/11 06:11 AM (12 years, 7 months ago) |
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Doesn't seem like a usable power source, though neutrinos are useful for other things.
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koraks
Registered: 06/02/03
Posts: 26,667
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Re: Neutrinos [Re: Doc_T]
#14544505 - 06/01/11 06:18 AM (12 years, 7 months ago) |
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I guess it's once a more a cost-benefit consideration. I'm far from an expert in the field of particle physics, but based on the basic information I have, it seems to me that neutrinos are rather difficult to capture, and hence their energy is hard to transfer to medium that allows us to use it. Taking your examples of the incredibly strong magnets or metallic hydrogen (requiring cooling below 14K), it seems to me that such arrangements would require such humongous investments in terms of energy that it is debatable if we'll ever be able to harvest enough energy from the process in order to tip the balance to a positive outcome. I mean, if it's true that the neutrino flux from the sun is about as large as the photon flux, then it's just so much easier to capture the energy of photons, right? So why bother with those iffy neutrinos in the first place? So I regard it (i.e. neutrino energy) as a theoretically interesting topic, with extremely limited anticipated practical relevance.
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Seuss
Error: divide byzero



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Re: Neutrinos [Re: trendal] 1
#14544588 - 06/01/11 06:53 AM (12 years, 7 months ago) |
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> We also know that neutrinos do interact with matter, or else our detectors wouldn't work.
The problem is that the neutrino's reaction cross section is so incredibly small. It would take an exotic form of matter to interact with them in any appreciable manner.
-------------------- Just another spore in the wind.
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trendal
J♠



Registered: 04/17/01
Posts: 20,815
Loc: Ontario, Canada
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Re: Neutrinos [Re: koraks]
#14544591 - 06/01/11 06:55 AM (12 years, 7 months ago) |
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I am talking completely theoretical...
Such a device would be helpful for extremely long space flight, for example. The photon flux falls off pretty rapidly, but the flux of primordial neutrinos stays the same. Cooling also isn't much of a problem, as space is only like 3 degrees K.
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Once, men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free. But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them.
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Doc_T
Random Dude




Registered: 03/06/09
Posts: 42,395
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Re: Neutrinos [Re: trendal]
#14544597 - 06/01/11 07:00 AM (12 years, 7 months ago) |
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Quote:
trendal said: the flux of primordial neutrinos stays the same.
So that's not a power source, you need a differential. More neutrinos here than there.
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trendal
J♠



Registered: 04/17/01
Posts: 20,815
Loc: Ontario, Canada
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Re: Neutrinos [Re: Seuss]
#14545794 - 06/01/11 01:40 PM (12 years, 7 months ago) |
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Quote:
Seuss said: The problem is that the neutrino's reaction cross section is so incredibly small. It would take an exotic form of matter to interact with them in any appreciable manner.
What if you increased the cross section of the particles in your detector? The weak force is supposed to combine with EM at energies above 100 GeV. Wouldn't that mean the cross section is larger?
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Once, men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free. But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them.
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