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The Elementary Enigma

The cosmos is filled with unimaginable Phenomena!
The day an apple fell on a man's head, was the day when humans took a massive step into the world outside of our planet. Our curiosity helped us in finding the answers to the question, that made it possible for our technology to improve. Through the basic principles discovered by the great men of our time, physicists are trying to find answers to questions like, is time travel possible? Or Whether there exists another life in the universe?
For most of these questions, the answers are hard to find, but recent discoveries of some elementary elements of the space have ignited our interest in the cosmos.

Tachyons

The idea of a tachyon is an idea that a tachyon can travel at a speed faster than light! But hey! Didn't Einstein prove it otherwise? Well, according to the theory of special relativity, as the speed of the object increases the mass of the object also increases. It gets multiplied by the Lorentz transformation factor, so in order to propel an object whose mass is continuously increasing, we will be needing an infinite amount of acceleration.
                  All of this does not apply to a tachyon, according to the hypothesis, an object starting from rest cannot attain the speed of light. But, as far as tachyons are considered, it is assumed that they never travel slower than that of light, so it’s initial speed is faster than light itself. Therefore, we can say that these particles travel faster than light.

       If we accept the fact that these particles travel faster than the speed of light, then we need to look into some of the causality issues that rise with this Phenomenon. As an object approaches the speed of light, the relative time for that object will get slower. And if by some means an object is traveling at the speed of light, then according to the theory "time will stop" for that object. But, if there is an object which can travel faster than the speed of light, for it time will start running backward! This kind of an event is impossible as it will disrupt the space-time continuum and will raise questions about the string theory. In simple words, if you were shot by a gun in which the bullets are made up of tachyons, then you will be dead even before the bullet is fired. Which is Non-sensical!

Neutrinos

Neutrinos are sub-atomic particles having no charge and are considered massless. They hardly interact with anything, which means that they can travel through space without any obstruction. This can be important as it can give information about the unknown parts of the universe. Neutrinos are produced mostly from a nuclear reaction, like nuclear fusion and fission. One other way in which neutrinos are produced are from Supernovas, Supernova is an event when a star ends its life by collapsing into a neutron star. When this happens, the star radiates almost all of its binding energy in the form of neutrinos.
Neutrinos do not react with electromagnetic radiation, so one cannot see the particles in the light. Detection of a neutrino is difficult. One of the ways in which one can detect neutrinos is by passing the neutrino through clear water. When a neutrino will pass through water it will hit a nucleus of an atom and will emit energy in the form of blue light called a photonic-boom. On earth, the largest neutrino detector is in Antarctica called "IceCube Neutrino Observatory".
In September 2011, Scientists detected neutrinos moving faster than the speed of light as they traveled from CERN to the Gran Sasso lab. They smashed the universal speed limit by 60 nanoseconds—a result that was constant, even after 1500 repetitions. But, in 2012 Scientists at CERN disproved the idea of a neutrino traveling faster than light. They repeated the same experiment, but their result was different and they blamed faulty equipment that was used in 2011. Therefore, confirming that neutrinos cannot travel faster than the speed of light.
Conclusion
Curiosity has driven human beings to do look for unimaginable things. Tachyons and neutrinos are products of that inquisitiveness, ending the enigma of these particles is something that we aspire to do.


                     

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