For about a decade,
astrophysicists have been selling
the idea (to what they hope is an
accepting public) that: “neutrinos
have mass and therefore can change
flavor.” This, they claim, explains
the so-called “neutrino deficit.” It
doesn’t. Things are not quite that
simple.
A steady-state thermonuclear
reaction of the type they claim
powers the Sun must emit a flood of
electron-neutrinos and so
far, nowhere near the requisite
number of these neutrinos have been
observed.
Solar fusion advocates are in a
near-panic because a series of
grandly expensive experiments have
failed to find the necessary
electron-neutrino flux. Briefly,
the problem is as follows:
According to accepted particle
physics, there are three different
kinds of neutrinos:
·
electron neutrinos
(which are the ones supposedly
produced in the Sun)
· muon neutrinos, and
· tau neutrinos.
The fusion reaction in question
is:
4 1H + 2 e --> 4He
+ 2 electron-neutrinos + 6 photons
“Some solar neutrinos have indeed
been observed - but only
one-third the number required if
this fusion reaction really is the
main source of the Sun's energy
production. These negative results
from the neutrino experiments have
resulted not in any re-examination
of solar models. Rather, an intense
theoretical effort to discover new
properties that solar neutrinos
'must have' has occurred. As a
result of this effort, it was
announced (June 2001) by the Sudbury
Neutrino Observatory (SNO) in Canada
that neutrinos have mass and can
change ‘flavor’. This supposedly
accounts for why they have not been
fully observed previously.”
I wrote those lines several years
ago on my web site:
http://www.electric-cosmos.org/sudbury.htm
and went on to analyze inaccuracies
in the SNO report. Since that time,
I have been roundly taken to task by
pseudo-skeptics claiming that I am
ignorant of the latest experimental
results that have now put this
question to rest.
Really? Let’s see. We must
remember that it is the observed
flow of electron-neutrinos
that is too low. For example we read1
in Wikipedia:
"For many years the number of
solar electron-neutrinos
detected on Earth was 1/3
to 1/2 of the
number predicted by the
standard solar model.
This anomalous result was termed the
solar neutrino problem. Theories
proposed to resolve the problem…posited
that electron
neutrinos could oscillate—that is,
change into undetectable
tau and
muon neutrinos as they
traveled between the Sun and the
Earth."
This statement makes sense
logically. If the type that seems to
be missing (when the neutrino stream
reaches Earth) can change into
either of the other two types
somewhere along the journey, that
might explain the deficit. So the
crucial question is: Do
electron-type neutrinos change into
either of the other two types?
Reading further in the Wiki article
we see:
"Several neutrino observatories
were built in the 1980s to measure
the solar neutrino flux as
accurately as possible, including
the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory and
Kamiokande. Results from these
observatories eventually led to the
discovery that neutrinos have a very
small rest mass and do indeed
oscillate [change type]. Moreover,
in 2001 the Sudbury Neutrino
Observatory was able to detect all
three types of neutrinos directly,
and found that the Sun's total
neutrino emission rate agreed with
the Standard Solar Model, although
depending on the neutrino energy as
few as one-third of the neutrinos
seen at Earth are of the electron
type. This proportion agrees with
that predicted by the
Mikheyev-Smirnov-Wolfenstein effect
(also known as the matter effect),
which describes neutrino oscillation
in matter, and it is now
considered a solved problem."
Fine. But they still did not
observe electron-neutrinos changing
into either of the other two types.
They said they observed a sufficient
total number of neutrinos, such that
if they all had been electron-type,
the accepted solar fusion model
would have been verified. But they
weren’t all that type. The last
phrase in the above paragraph, “it
is now considered a solved problem,”
is analogous to Napoleon declaring
victory at Waterloo and going home
to Paris. What would have to happen
on the journey to Earth is for
electron-neutrinos to change into
one or both of the other types. This
was not observed in any of these
experiments and may indeed be
impossible.
The search went on, but the
reverse of what they want to see
keeps being observed. Just last
month we read that muon-neutrinos
have now been observed changing into
electron-neutrinos:
ScienceDaily2 (June
15, 2011)
"The international T2K
collaboration has announced that it
has observed an indication of a new
type of neutrino transformation or
oscillation from a muon-neutrino
to an electron-neutrino. In the
T2K experiment in Japan, a muon-neutrino
beam was produced in the Japan
Proton Accelerator Research Complex,
called J-PARC, located in Tokai
village, Ibaraki prefecture, on the
east coast of Japan, and was aimed
at the gigantic Super-Kamiokande
underground detector in Kamioka,
near the west coast of Japan, 295 km
(185 miles) away from Tokai. An
analysis of the detected
neutrino-induced events in the
Super-Kamiokande detector indicates
that a very small number of muon-neutrinos
traveling from Tokai to Kamioka
(T2K) transformed themselves into
electron-neutrinos."
But, again, this is the reverse
of what they want to see. If this
kind of type-change occurs on the
neutrinos’ journey from the Sun to
Earth, we should measure too many
electron-neutrinos, not too few.
The magazine The Economist3,
June 25th – July 1st
also announced this latest
experimental result:
…T2K had seen six
electron-neutrinos. If
no spot-changing
oscillations were happening
it should have seen only one
or two.
So again – too many
electron-neutrinos were measured in
this experiment. But that does not
seem to bother them. They certainly
hope it doesn’t bother you. They
hope you will accept their
package-deal – that because muon-neutrinos
may morph into electron-neutrinos,
we must assume the reverse
transformation occurs too, even when
that has never been observed.
Be careful when you read what
these traveling neutrino-salesmen
are selling. Don’t get bilked by
their road-show sleight of hand. The
fusion Sun model is in big trouble.
Donald Scott author of
The Electric Sky
The author earned his Bachelor
and Master degrees in Electrical
Engineering at the University of
Connecticut in Storrs, Connecticut.
Following graduation he worked for
General Electric in Schenectady, New
York, and Pittsfield,
Massachusetts. He earned a Doctorate
in Electrical Engineering at the
Worcester Polytechnic Institute,
Worcester, Massachusetts, and was a
member of the faculty of the
Department of Electrical & Computer
Engineering at the University of
Massachusetts/Amherst from 1959
until his retirement in 1998.
1
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_neutrino_problem
2
sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/06/110615161804.htm
3 The Economist, June 25th – July
1st 2011, p. 93, Delta Force
New
DVD
The Lightning-Scarred
Planet Mars
A video documentary that could
change everything you thought you
knew about ancient times and
symbols. In this second episode of
Symbols of an Alien Sky, David
Talbott takes the viewer on an
odyssey across the surface of Mars.
Exploring feature after feature of
the planet, he finds that only
electric arcs could produce the
observed patterns. The high
resolution images reveal massive
channels and gouges, great mounds,
and crater chains, none finding an
explanation in traditional geology,
but all matching the scars from
electric discharge experiments in
the laboratory. (Approximately 85
minutes)
Video Selections
Order Link