World's Most Sensitive Neutrino Experiment Launches, To Seek Answers About Matter's Origins
The questions that plague particle physicists and cosmology buffs seem fundamental, but it's startling how little we really know about some of them; for instance, why does matter exist? Researchers in Japan are undertaking the most sensitive subatomic particle experiment ever ventured in attempt to get to the bottom of that question, shooting neutrinos nearly 300 miles under the mountains, straight through the bedrock under Japan to a detector on the opposite coast, in an attempt to hash out exactly why neutrinos appear to spontaneously change from one kind to another. Why? According to what we "know" about the universe, there should be roughly the same amount of matter and antimatter in the universe, but since the two destroy each other that would mean the universe should be a massive radioactive mess. Instead, the universe is obviously populated with an abundance of matter; we're not sure why, but physicists speculate...