In 2011, researchers at the Oscillation Project with Emulsion-tRacking Apparatus (OPERA) experiment in Italy caused a worldwide sensation by announcing that they had detected neutrinos traveling faster than the speed of light - a supposedly impossible enterprise. While scientists still don't know the exact masses of all three neutrinos, experiments have determined that the heaviest of them must be at least 0.0000059 times smaller than the mass of the electron. As they pass through the distance between the sun and our planet, neutrinos are oscillating between these three types, which is why those early experiments - which had only been designed to search for one flavor - kept missing two-thirds of their total number.īut only particles that have mass can undergo this oscillation, contradicting earlier ideas that neutrinos were massless. The ordinary neutrino is called the electron neutrino, but two other flavors also exist: a muon neutrino and a tau neutrino. Physicists eventually realized that neutrinos likely come in three different flavors, or types. Either something was wrong with astronomers' models of the sun, or something strange was going on. In the mid-20th century, researchers built detectors to search for these neutrinos, but their experiments kept showing a discrepancy, detecting only about one-third of the neutrinos that had been predicted. The sun produces colossal numbers of neutrinos that bombard the Earth. Reines would go on to win the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1995 - by which time, Cowan had died.īut since then, neutrinos have continually defied scientists' expectations. Their experiment managed to snag a few of the hundreds of trillions of neutrinos that were flying from the reactor, and Cowan and Reines proudly sent Pauli a telegra m to inform him of their confirmation. This series of webinars is focused on helping the physics community to communicate science and physics-based issues with the public.More than a quarter century later, physicists Clyde Cowan and Frederick Reines built a neutrino detector and placed it outside the nuclear reactor at the atomic Savannah River power plant in South Carolina. Webinar Series: Engaging the Public through Science.The Science Trust Project aims to empower APS members to contend with misinformation about science in their professional and personal lives and to help them understand the impact of their participation in addressing misinformation. The Wiki Scientist Program helps physicists improve the public’s access to physics knowledge, raise awareness of the accomplishments of marginalized groups within physics, and grow as science communicators by editing and adding to Wikipedia. Physicists To-Go brings real physicists to classrooms across the country with the goals of increasing science literacy and inspiring young minds to develop a passion for science. STEP UP designs high school physics lessons to empower teachers, create cultural change, and inspire young women to pursue physics in college. STEP UP is a national community of physics teachers, researchers, and professional societies. PhysicsQuest aims to introduce students to the basic concepts of physics through fun experiments that will sustain their interest in math and science.ĭownload materials and plan classroom experiments We encourage you to learn more and get involved with our current initiatives, and we hope you will join us as we introduce new ones in the coming months. While this site is now retired, The American Physical Society maintains its commitment to public outreach and engagement in physics. For over 20 years, PhysicsCentral has communicated the excitement and importance of physics to the public.
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