www.RogerWendell.com
Roger J. Wendell
Defending 3.8 Billion Years of Organic Evolution^SM

Science Stuff (See also my pages on Biology, Cosmology, Evolution, and Paleontology...)

Capon

The Scientific Method   "The second stage of the scientific methos is the formulation of a hypothesis, a provisional conjecture based solely on preliminary observations of how the phenomenon takes place. The hypothesis is then tested by a series of carefully planned experiments."   "Finally, when sufficient and convincing evidence has been collected for presentation to the scientific community, conclusions are drawn that may or may not support the original hypothesis. Regardless of the outcome, the gathered information is of use to other scientists only if it is reported factually and without bias on the part of the investigator. Nowhere in all human knowledge must truth be accounted for more rigorously than in the world of science."   - Brian Capon in his book, Botany For Gardeners (An Introduction to the Science of Plants) Fourth Edition, pp. 145-146

Krauss

Dr. Shane Huntington: "Laurence, you mentioned before there are a variety of projects in areas where Congress and others in the U.S. and I guess around the world, have concerns about funding this type of work. What is the justification for funding this sort of work, especially the stuff that's down at the very theoretical end?" Theoretical physicist Professor Lawrence M. Krauss: "You know, as far as I know, people don't ask the question, 'You know, what's the value of a Mozart symphony or a Picasso painting?' Science is a cultural activity, and it's produced some of the most amazing ideas that Humans have ever thought about. And, the cultural value of science, of understanding where we are and where we'come from, is the same as art, music and literature. Great art, music, and literature forces us to reassess our place in the cosmos. That's what science does at its best. And if we are so impoverished that we have to stop asking questions about where we came from and where we're going, it's indeed a sad time. These are the most interesting questions that humans have ever asked. And, by comparison to the money we spend on many other things, that isin my opinion much more useless, the investment is very small. And, so, if we are at the point where we have to say, look, we can't stop asking these esoteric questions, that change our picture of ourselves, then it's a sad time for humanity." University of Melbourne Up Close Episode 159, 2011 (transcribed by me)

Click Here for the Super Kamiokande Realtime Monitor!

"...I think I can safely say that nobody understands quantum mechanics." - Physicist Richard Feynman The Character of Physical Law 1965

Click Here for my page about Biology!

Click Here for my page about Paleontology!

Click Here for my page about Plants!

Click Here for my page on Life...

Click Here for my page on Evolution...

There is No Consensus in Science

"I want to pause here and talk about this notion of consensus, and the rise of what has been called consensus science. I regard consensus science as an extremely pernicious development that ought to be stopped cold in its tracks. Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels; it is a way to avoid debate by claiming that the matter is already settled. Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agrees on something or other, reach for your wallet, because you're being had. "Let's be clear: the work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus. Consensus is the business of politics. Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right, which means that he or she has results that are verifiable by reference to the real world. In science consensus is irrelevant. What is relevant is reproducible results. The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with the consensus. "There is no such thing as consensus science. If it's consensus, it isn't science. If it's science, it isn't consensus. Period." - Michael Crichton at a 2003 lecture he gave at the California Institute of Technology

Sagan

The Sagan standard is a neologism abbreviating the aphorism that "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence" (ECREE). It is named after Carl Sagan who used the exact phrase on his television program Cosmos. The standard illustrates a core principle of the scientific method and skepticism and can be used to assess the validity of a claim.

"In an era when new technologies are constantly emerging, scientific literacy should be fundamental. On the other hand, it isn't necessary that you have four extra years of college sciences to understand them. You don't need to have a detailed knowledge of exactly how the physics works to appreciate the revolutions in quantum computing or cosmology. It is important, rather, to understand why these developments are significant, and how they are poised to change technology and our lives."
 
- Dave Goldberg and Jeff Blomquist
in their book, A User's Guide to the Universe, p. 3

Heisenberg

"Not only is the Universe stranger than we think, it is stranger than we can think."   - Werner Heisenberg in his book, Across the Frontiers

Bondi

"First we are all struck with awe and wonder when we contemplate the universe around us, whether we think of the depths of space in astronomy, or of the incredible complexity of even the simplest forms of life, or of the structure of mountains, or of ecology, or of the intricate web of human relationships. Anyone not so impressed must be very insensitive." - Physicist Sir Hermann Bondi at the Spanish humanist congress in Madrid, April, 1995

In the early 2000s, Roger studied at LSU's CAMD facility and then at a test reactor in Maryland.

Do Not Feed the Scientists! CAMD Synchrotron Facility, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge

Roger visiting Roger at CAMD October, 2000

RVW's Nuclear foot at NIST Summer 2001

KamLAND:
(Kamioka Liquid scintillator Anti-Neutrino Detector)

In May, 2004, RVW took us on this fantastic tour of KamLAND, a Neutrino detector he'd been working on a kilometer or two inside a Japanese zinc mine. We took a jeep ride into the bowels of the mine and then hopped out to get a close-up view the detector and the experiment KamLAND is engaged in. (Super-Kamiokande was the first experiment to show that neutrinos have a non-zero mass. However, even today we don't know exactly what the mass is, just that its much smaller than than of other particles. KamLAND confirmed that an important theory of neutrino oscillations and thereby confirmed that we have a good understanding of nuclear processes happening in the sun.) Click Here for KamLAND's homepage...

1	2	3	4	5
6	7	8	9	10

Click Here for more on our visit to Japan...

Click Here for Roger A. Wendell's Neutrino Animation!

The Three Families of Fundamental Particles:

Family 1

Particle	Mass - in multiples of the proton mass	Electric charge	Weak charge	Strong charge*
Electron	.00054	-1	-1/2	0
Electron-Neutrino	<.00000001	0	1/2	0
Up Quark	.0047	2/3	1/2	red, green, blue
Down Quark	.0074	-1/3	-1/2	red, green, blue

Family 2

Particle	Mass - in multiples of the proton mass	Electric charge	Weak charge	Strong charge*
Muon	.11	-1	-1/2	0
Muon-Neutrino	<.0003	0	1/2	0
Charm Quark	1.6	2/3	1/2	red, green, blue
Strange Quark	.16	-1/3	-1/2	red, green, blue

Family 3

Particle	Mass - in multiples of the proton mass	Electric charge	Weak charge	Strong charge*
Tau	1.9	-1	-1/2	0
Tau-Neutrino	<.033	0	1/2	0
Top Quark	189	2/3	1/2	red, green, blue
Bottom Quark	5.2	-1/3	-1/2	red, green, blue

*Each type of quark can carry three possible strong-force charges that are labeled as colors that represent charge values.

Miscellaneous Definitions:

• Angular Velocity - "...is the correct measure of rotation."  "The higher the angular velocity, the faster the body is turning."

Relativity and Common Sense by Herman Bondi)  Mathematicians say it's the time a body takes to turn through an angle of just over 57 degrees [180°/Π to be precise (Your browser may not be displaying 180 Degrees divided by Mathematical Pi)].

• A slice of Phi - 1.61803398874989484820458683436563811772030917980... (The Divine Proportion)
• A slice of Pi - 3.14159265358979323846264...
• Avogadro’s number - is the number of molecules found in 2.016 grams of hydrogen gas (or an equal volume of any other gas). Its value is placed at 6.022140857x10²³ - That's an extremely large number equivalent to evenly stacked soft drink cans covering the Earth to a depth of 321 kilometres (200 miles).

• Birefringence - the separation of a ray of light into two unequally refracted, plane-polarized rays of orthogonal polarizations, occurring in crystals in which the velocity of light rays is not the same in all directions.
• Cerenkov Radiation - Highly radioactive objects, when observed under water, become bathed in an intest blue light. In the water used in nuclear reactors, including the storage of spent fuel pieces, this light is easily seen and photographed. This "Cerenkov Radiation," as it is called, is caused by particles entering the water at speeds greater than what light is capable of traveling through that same medium. As these particles slow down, to that of light through water, they produce a cone of light that's analogous to the bow wave of a boat. Such a bow wave, in the case of a boat, is caused when the boat is moving through the water at a speed greater than the wave speed on the water's surface. This bow wave effect of Cerenkov Radiation is also similar, in ways, to the sonice boom of high speed (greater than the speed of sound) aircraft.
• Jiffy - 1/100th of a second.
• Laccolith - a volcano that never erupted.
• Mole - a basic chemistry measurement using Avogadro's Number 6.023 X 10²³ (National Mole Day takes place every October 23rd...) [Also defined as the amount of pure substance containing the same number of chemical units as there are atoms in exactly 12 grams of carbon-12 (i.e., 6.02 x 10^23)].
• Planck Length: - a millionth of a billionth of a billionth of a billionth of a centimerter (Actually, it's 1.6 times 10 to the negative 35th centimeters, or about 10 to the negative 20th times the size of a proton).  For a sense of scale, imagine an atom being magnified to the size of the known universe, the Plank legnth would be the height of the average tree...
• Planck Time: - is the time it would take a photon, travelling at the speed of light, to cross a distance equal to the Planck length.  This is "Quantum Time," (Not to be confused with "Miller Time") the smallest measurement of time that has any meaning, and is equal to 10 to the negative 43rd seconds.
• Precautionary Principle - In order to protect the environment, the precautionary approach shall be widely applied by States according to their capabilities. Where there are threats of serious or irreversible damage, lack of full scientific certainty shall not be used as a reason for postponing cost-effective measures to prevent environmental degradation. [Article 15 of the Rio declaration of 1992]
• Precession of the perihelion of Mercury - A long-time problem between Newtonian physics and General Relativity concerning the orbit of Mercury. As Mercury, or any other planet, orbits the Sun the path it takes follows, approximately, an ellipse. The point of closest approach of Mercury, to the sun, does not always occur at the same place but that point of closest approach slowly moves around the sun. This rotation of the orbit is called a precession.
• Principle of Equivalence - "The important point is that the effect of gravity on an object and the effect of acceleration on an object are indistinguishable. Scientists call this the Principle of Equivalence: Gravity and the acceleration of objects through spacetime can be viewed as conceptually and mathematically equivalent."
  - Eric Chaisson from his book, Cosmic Dawn, p. 13
• Tyranny of the Rocket Equation, The - The working of rockets is governed by the Tsiolkovsky rocket equation, named after the rocket scientist Konstantin Tsiolkovsky. What engineers call the tyranny of the rocket equation is that the amount that you want to change your speed ("delta-v") goes up, the fuel required increases exponentially.
• Vacuum Energy - underlying background energy that exists in space even when devoid of matter.

Papers, Theses, Dissertations, and other Text:

• Recent progress and future prospects with atmospheric neutrinos - Roger A. Wendell and Kimihiro Okumura
• Atmospheric Neutrino Oscillation Analysis With Sub-leading Effects in Super-Kamiokande I, II and III Roger Wendell, et. al (Super-Kamiokande Collaboration)
• Three Flavor Oscillation Analysis of Atmospheric Neutrinos in Super-Kamiokande by Roger Alexandre Wendell (PDF file, 12 mb)
• Triple Phasor Paradox - The Polarization Puzzle explained by Roger A. Wendell (Click Here for the YouTube video)
• Unitary Integration (Embedding dissipation and decoherence in unitary evolution schemes) A. R. P. Rau and R. A. Wendell
• Detector Efficiencies and muon tracking at KamLAND - Roger A. Wendell (PDF file, 651 kb)
• Detector Efficiencies and muon tracking at KamLAND - Roger A. Wendell (PS file, 3.285 mb)
• Measurement of Neutrino Oscillation with KamLAND: Evidence of Spectral Distortion - T. Araki et al, The KamLAND Collaboration (including R. A. Wendell)

A warm cup of quarks and leptons courtesy Peter Higgs and CERN.
(first posted on my FaceBook page April 16, 2020)

"The Standard Model of particle physics is one of the most successful theories in physics and describes the fundamental interactions between elementary particles. It is encoded in a compact description, the so-called 'Lagrangian,' which even fits on t-shirts and coffee mugs.   "The Standard Model of particle physics is the most important achievement of high energy physics to date. This highly elegant theory sorts elementary particles according to their respective charges and describes how they interact through fundamental interactions. In this context, a charge is a property of an elementary particle that defines the fundamental interaction by which it is influenced. We then say that the corresponding interaction particle 'couples' to a certain charge. For example, gluons, the interaction particles of the strong interaction, couple to colour-charged particles. Of the four fundamental interactions in nature, all except gravity are described by the Standard Model of particle physics: particles with an electric charge are influenced by the electromagnetic interaction (quantum electrodynamics, or QED for short), particles with a weak charge are influenced by the weak interaction (quantum flavour dynamics or QFD), and those with a colour charge are influenced by the strong interaction (quantum chromodynamics or QCD). Contrary to the fundamental interactions, the Brout-Englert-Higgs (BEH) field acts in a special way. Because it is a scalar field, it induces spontaneous symmetry-breaking, which in turn gives mass to all particles with which it interacts (this is commonly called the Higgs mechanism). In addition, the Higgs particle (H) couples to any other particle which has mass (including itself).   "Interactions are mediated by their respective interaction particles: photons (γ) for the electromagnetic interaction, the weak bosons (W-, W+ , and Z0) for the weak interaction, and gluons (g) for the strong interaction. Furthermore, an elementary particle can be influenced by more than one fundamental interaction, in which case it has several charges. For example, due to its electric and weak charges, a muon is influenced both by the electromagnetic interaction and the weak interaction."   "The development of the Standard Model of particle physics started in the early 1970s and has so far withstood every experimental test. The latest success was the verification of the Brout-Englert- Higgs field by ATLAS and CMS at CERN's Large Hadron Collider in 2012. Both experiments successfully detected the quantised excitation of the BEH field-the so-called Higgs boson. This confirmed the Higgs mechanism, which associates elementary particles with their respective mass."

Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license;
Julia Woithe et al 2017 Phys. Educ. 52 034001
Let's have a coffee with the Standard Model of particle physics!

Neutrinos, Mass, and the Higgs Field

I've asked how a Neutrino achieves mass. In April 2023, I cobbled together this answer from a couple of sources:
 
The "slowing down" is exactly the analogy often used to describe how particles acquire mass from the Higgs field. The more a particle interacts the heavier (and slower) it becomes. If it were not for those interactions all particles would travel at the speed of light. Neutrinos don't interact much, so they are very light and travel close to the speed limit. Photons don't interact at all.
 
Essentially all fundamental particles are thought to be just excitations in their respective fields - a bit like waves in the ocean. Interestingly scientists don't know if this is the mechanism neutrinos get mass. It's a possibility, but there are others. However, all the other elementary particles get their mass from interactions with the Higgs Field.

Links, Pix, Games and Graphs:

Back to Roger J. Wendell's Home Page...

Abbey | About | Blog | Contacting Me | Copyright | Disclaimer | Donate | Guest Book | Home | Links | Site Index | Solutions | Terms, Conditions and Fair Use | What's Changed or New?
Copyright © 1955 -