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Neutrinos And Gamma Rays
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Neutrinos and Gamma Rays Emission of a beta particle produces an energy change in the nucleus of an atom. The energy change that is observed, however, does not add up to satisfy the Law of Conservation of energy. The conservation law can be balanced if another particle, called the neutrino is part of this process. In the time it takes to read just this sentence, more than a billion of them will have passed unnoticed through the reader's body. Neutrinos may account for an appreciable portion of the mass of the universe, even tending to slow it's rate of expansion. Originally proposed in 1931 by Wolfgang Pauli to account for mass that was mysteriously lost from certain nuclear reactions,and first observed in 1956 by Dr Frederick Reines and Dr. Clyde Cowan, neurtinos either were beleived to have no mass or to have a negligible amount of mass. Ever since their discovery scientists wondered if this elusive particle that has no electric charge and is able to pass through the entire earth without hitting anything might not have some negligible amount of mass. Because they exist in great numbers in the universe, even a small mass could provide the "dark matter" that cosmologists beleive makes up the substance of the cosmos. Having a mass, neutrinos might also be able to change into neutrinos of other types, by a process called oscillation. They have no electrical charge and are believed to travel at or near the speed of light. Neutrinos react very little with...
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