Message Encoded in Neutrino Beam Transmitted through Solid Rock

Scientific American ^ | 3/16/2012 | John Matson

[U-238]

Neutrinos are having a moment. They’re speeding across Europe (just how fast is under review), they’re changing flavors in China and, now, they’re carrying rudimentary messages through bedrock in Illinois.

A team of physicists encoded a short string of letters on a beam of neutrinos at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Batavia, Ill., and sent the message to a detector more than a kilometer away. On the journey the neutrinos passed through 240 meters of solid rock, mostly shale. What was the word they transmitted in the preliminary demonstration? “Neutrino.” The experiment is described in a paper posted to the physics preprint server arXiv.org.

Neutrinos have been proposed for a variety of communication scenarios in which radio waves or optical signals fall short. Neutrinos rarely interact with ordinary matter, and they easily pass through solids that would screen out most other particles. So neutrino beams could be used to send messages through the Earth, or to communicate with a planetary rover parked on the far side of Mars, out of radio contact.

[U-238]

Ping

[C210N]

Would be nice to send a message to underneath the massive dozens-of-meters-thick special reinforced concrete Iranian nuclear bunkers: “Peek a boo... I seeeeeee you!”

[21twelve]

“Achmed! Come here!”

[equaviator]

I’ve got an idea. “Neutrino’s Pizza”...delivered in 3 seconds or less or it’s free!

[Bender2]

Re: "A team of physicists encoded a short string of letters on a beam of neutrinos at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Batavia, Ill., and sent the message to a detector more than a kilometer away. On the journey the neutrinos passed through 240 meters of solid rock..."

Yet even able to travel through 240 meters of solid rock, if we sent out the truth that way... it could not penetrate the brain of The Obamanation or his follower's--

[Stirner]

Since neutrinos pass through matter so well, how do we detect them at the other end?

[Stirner]

Since neutrinos pass through matter so well, how do we detect them at the other end?

[E.Allen]

IIRC They use LARGE tanks of water and use cameras to watch for tracks the neutrinos leave behind.

[Cvengr]

Cell phone service providers have a neat little attachment to adapt your cell phone to this new technology. It comes with a new 2 yr service agreement. Here's picture of the new attachment. The fellow in red has it conveniently connected on his hip. The guy in green still hasn't gotten the message and is roaming about searching for service.

[Rummyfan]

We're approaching Buckaroo Bonzai territory here.

[backwoods-engineer]

You could never make one small enough to be portable, but as a radio engineer, neutrino modulation radio is the technology I've been waiting for all my life, ever since I read about neutrinos at age 12.

It could make planetwide communication possible without satellites or transoceanic submarine cables.

[LS]

The US Navy was examining this as a means of submarine communications back in the 1980s. See our book “Trident.”

[William Tell]

E.Allen said: "They use LARGE tanks of water ..."

Isn't there a further complication due to the fact that there are high energy particles from cosmic rays and other sources at the surface of the earth, making it necessary to locate the neutrino detector well below the surface of the earth?

[U-238]

A neutrino detector. Its a tank full of heavy water in a 12 meter sphere

[U-238]

Excellent Point. It also make interstellar communication easier

[U-238]

I guess the US Navy can take a second look at the technology.

[SunkenCiv]

If neutrinos can do this, imagine what oldtrinos can do! Thanks U-238.

---

---

· List topics · post a topic · subscribe · Google ·

---

[MHGinTN]

Eggs ackley Bender, eggs ackley.