Mankind is amazing...gadolinium-doped liquid scintillators?

Hi all,

I was just reading this article on the Daya Bay Neutrino experiment on Symmetry Magazine's website

www.symmetrymagazine.org...

And i got to the part where they mentioned using Gd doped scintillators and it got me thinking that its so incredible that a: every element has such different and precise properties and that b: man has figured out these different properties and how to use them.

In fact ANY major neutrino experiment is mind boggling in its complexity and scale.

I remember reading once that Hafnium has the unusual property of focusing magnetic fields (or something along those lines) and was used in MRI machines for that very reason. Its amazing to me that Hf would have that property but the elements next to it would not which got me thinking about how mankind has figured this out.

Everyone knows what the LHC is of course but most people dont know the intricate way it works, which evident by many posts on ATS that assume they built it not knowing about what would happen when they switched it "on". But i wish the general public was interested, even marginaly in these incredible experiments going on, like this or the Liquid Xenon underground (LUX) experiment in S.Dakota. Its stunning that we have reached the point where we understand enough about how things work to create such beautiful machines to probe even further.

GO SCIENCE!

Its all fine and dandy until someone gets sloppy and opens a portal to another dimension. Then you won't be so goo goo gah, gah, over you gadolinium dope liquid scintillators will yah smarty pants!

WAIT UNTIL THE FOURTH DIMENSIONAL LIZARD PEOPLE ARE FRYING YOUR ASS WITH LAZER BEAMS!

FYI, liquid scintillators are used for neutrino detection and confirmation/conflict with the standard model .

LUX is a search for WIMPS (weakly interactive massive particles) Wikipedia link: Wikipedia for a description on what the experiment is trying to accomplish.

There was a new tetraquark discovered the other day. From Physics.org
Scientist discover new type of particle
That should help in understanding on how particles interact.

Saw something on ScienceDaily or Physics.Org about nano-platinum pins being used with light to get 100% separation in step one of a two-step process to split water into hydrogen and oxygen. They said they were going to focus on step-2 now.

Each one of these steps seems to be in specialized theoretical areas so even sometimes I go, “Cool. Not sure what that means but cool!” The hard thing is to relate all this (waves hands: particle physics) back to the “real” world. That is where one has to start reading on material sciences and what is happening over there in that area.

I say start simple. I have been following graphene because that is one people can kind of understand. I sometimes get blown away that you can hold a 2-D sheet of atoms. Yeah, those same atoms that make up everything we see or touch but can’t physically see (that is what I was taught back in high school). You just need to take it on faith that they are there. Until now. We can photograph one atom. We can hold a sheet of 2-D carbon (yeah, it is a “form” of carbon, a quasi-crystalline salt, but basically pencil lead). And look at the things you can do with that (points at graphene). If that does not get you at least a little curious about the wonderful world of particle physics not much will.

OP, I agree, not everybody get excited about a highly technical experiment. But some of us don’t need Neal Degrasse Tyson to dumb it down to a level that the “wow” factor is not there. Once others get involved and these technologies cross then the world is going to change rather drastically (for the good, I hope).

And I did have to look up LUX because I forgot about it (hence the link ) and I agree:

Yeah science!

S+F

All very awesome technology, i have the fortune to work as a research fellow on a Dark Matter experiment very soon to be taking data

This is where I work each day

www.snolab.ca...



If you want to look at the big fancy neutrino experiment, go to point 19 on the map

a reply to: ErosA433

That is super cool my friend. I think i saw a picture of that chamber on Symmetry magazine website.

I've always been deeply fascinated with science, but became seriously into particle physics when our teacher showed us and explained the double slit experiment. I then went on to study physics at university with the goal being to go work at CERN, this was in 1994. Unfortunately, i only lasted 2.5 years, i just wasn't smart enough or regimented enough to go any further. I decided to be an observer rather than a player, but i take my hat off to you and anyone who does all this. I just wish more people understood how important all this is rather than moan about a few billion dollars...peanuts.


Im sure i have something smarter to say or ask, but it is 3am and i need to go to bed...got some animating to do tomorrow....not quite the same as neutrino experiments.

Take care mate. Thanks for the reply.

originally posted by: TEOTWAWKIAIFF
FYI, liquid scintillators are used for neutrino detection and confirmation/conflict with the standard model .

LUX is a search for WIMPS (weakly interactive massive particles) Wikipedia link: Wikipedia for a description on what the experiment is trying to accomplish.

There was a new tetraquark discovered the other day. From Physics.org
Scientist discover new type of particle
That should help in understanding on how particles interact.

Saw something on ScienceDaily or Physics.Org about nano-platinum pins being used with light to get 100% separation in step one of a two-step process to split water into hydrogen and oxygen. They said they were going to focus on step-2 now.

Each one of these steps seems to be in specialized theoretical areas so even sometimes I go, “Cool. Not sure what that means but cool!” The hard thing is to relate all this (waves hands: particle physics) back to the “real” world. That is where one has to start reading on material sciences and what is happening over there in that area.

I say start simple. I have been following graphene because that is one people can kind of understand. I sometimes get blown away that you can hold a 2-D sheet of atoms. Yeah, those same atoms that make up everything we see or touch but can’t physically see (that is what I was taught back in high school). You just need to take it on faith that they are there. Until now. We can photograph one atom. We can hold a sheet of 2-D carbon (yeah, it is a “form” of carbon, a quasi-crystalline salt, but basically pencil lead). And look at the things you can do with that (points at graphene). If that does not get you at least a little curious about the wonderful world of particle physics not much will.

OP, I agree, not everybody get excited about a highly technical experiment. But some of us don’t need Neal Degrasse Tyson to dumb it down to a level that the “wow” factor is not there. Once others get involved and these technologies cross then the world is going to change rather drastically (for the good, I hope).

And I did have to look up LUX because I forgot about it (hence the link

) and I agree:

Yeah science!

S+F

I get the need to make things easy for everyday people to get when doing documentaries, but ive always wanted to be able to watch really in depth documentaries that really delve into the physics and maths, even if that means I only get part of what they are saying. That's kind of possible now with youtube which is cool, but they are still hard to come by.

Regarding g LUX...im so blown away by the thought of a bug vat of liquid xenon that I'm buying my own little acrylic cube of liquid xe. It's an ampoule under pressure encased in an acrylic cube. Very cool and rather pricey. Still..im know I will look at it every day.

I've always found documentaries on math and/or mathematicians to be more thought provoking. I read a book on prime numbers and the author quipped that putting any math in a book was a way to ensure low book sales! But he did not have a choice as there was just no way to explain the ensuing math so we got a detour to calculus and infinite sums.

Did you see the LHC data "bump" announcement? It is a shame that it will be another few years of more data collecting and higher power collisions but the implications reinforce your OP title!

Let us know when the Xe ampule shows up (hopefully with a pic!). It sounds really cool!

originally posted by: TEOTWAWKIAIFF
I've always found documentaries on math and/or mathematicians to be more thought provoking. I read a book on prime numbers and the author quipped that putting any math in a book was a way to ensure low book sales! But he did not have a choice as there was just no way to explain the ensuing math so we got a detour to calculus and infinite sums.

Did you see the LHC data "bump" announcement? It is a shame that it will be another few years of more data collecting and higher power collisions but the implications reinforce your OP title!

Let us know when the Xe ampule shows up (hopefully with a pic!). It sounds really cool!

Yeah. It's funny you say that because whenever I recommend a science book to people the first thing I say i say to people is "there is no maths or equations in it"

The CERN news was cool, but the scientists involved seem to be playing it down. Either because it's probably nothing or they don't want to get burned again by the press by prematurely releasing news.

I told my wife I want the ampoule for my birthday in may. I will def be posting it up here when I get it. 200 euros does seem a lot for it..but i grew up staring at the periodic table and soaking in any info about the elements.

This was pre Internet....and I lived in Saudi Arabia. So information was low. I never dreamt I would own a big lump of sodium or an ampoule of cesium. I tried to explain this to my friends and they all think I'm weird