Re: Fun physics writeup

On 13/06/2024 1:31 am, john larkin wrote:

On Wed, 12 Jun 2024 05:07:20 GMT, Jan Panteltje <alien@comet.invalid>
wrote:
 

Neutrinos: The inscrutable “ghost particles� driving scientists crazy
They hold the keys to new physics. If only we could understand them.
https://arstechnica.com/science/2024/06/neutrinos-are-infuriating-but-we-still-have-to-study-them/

 Remember this?
 On 12 November 2001, about 6,600 of the photomultiplier tubes (costing
about $3000 each[13]) in the Super-Kamiokande detector imploded,
apparently in a chain reaction or cascading failure, as the shock wave
from the concussion of each imploding tube cracked its neighbours.

It seems improbable than any individual tube imploding could have cracked any of it neighbours. The tubes are quite a way apart. It sounds more like an external shock going through and persuading a number of individual tubes to implode close enough together to amplify the initial external shock into a more intense plane wave that could collapse even more of those along its path.
http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/Particles/kamio.html
In reality, it happened during a maintenance operation while the tank was partly empty to allow some burnt-out tubes to be replaced.
Some 5200 tubes survived the incident, so John's description is inaccurate and somewhat misleading.
--
Bill Sloman, Sydney
--
This email has been checked for viruses by Norton antivirus software.
www.norton.com