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Instant Messaging With Neutrinos
An anonymous reader writes "A group of scientists has for the first time sent a message using a beam of neutrinos – nearly massless particles that travel at almost the speed of light. The message was sent through 240 meters of stone and said simply, 'Neutrino.' From the article: 'Many have theorized about the possible uses of neutrinos in communication because of one particularly valuable property: they can penetrate almost anything they encounter. If this technology could be applied to submarines, for instance, then they could conceivably communicate over long distances through water, which is difficult, if not impossible, with present technology. And if we wanted to communicate with something in outer space that was on the far side of a moon or a planet, our message could travel straight through without impediment.'"
Pretty early on in the piece to be slashdotted. Pulled for some reason?
Using the holy grail of OSes...
The link doesn't seem to work but the article is here
Once we get cheap narrow-beam neutrino transmitters and receivers that can do gigabit/terabit speeds, I'll buy several thousand and set up true point-to-point peer-to-peer networking with my neutrino-enabled peers all over the planet! Fiber optics required? Hah! Just point and shoot!
Since the link in the summary gives a 404, here's what appears to be the same article direct from the school's website:
http://www.rochester.edu/news/show.php?id=4022
The title of the article is a verbatim match to the URL in the summary, so I'm pretty sure it's the same article.
I, for one, think that anything with the potential for better internet access X feet below the water is an excellent idea.
Should SETI switch to monitoring neutrino transmissions now?
If you can do that, well, that just means you can now detect a sub's nuclear reactor super-easy. Don't they give off neutrinos?
SETI should look for Alien messages in Neutrinos. Not radio waves.
Heroes die once, cowards live longer.
Think of the possibilities!
The first person who figures out how to do this reliably will make a huge profit. There are already undersea cables which exist for the sole purpose of reducing latency between NY and UK stock exchanges. Neutrinos going _through_ the earth (arriving at the Nikkei for instance) would have a significantly shorter time of flight and would give traders a massive advantage.
Unfortunately, it would be in one ear and out the other.
they sent word "neutrino" but on the other end, they recieved message "Thanks fucking god you _finally_ figured this out. Lets just say that Milky Way contains four intelligent civilizations, and yours is not among three smartest".
839*929
I am not that good in Physics, so I'll post my questions here:
I heard that photons don't collide with other photons, that's why two beams can cross path and still behave as though they were travelling without any hindrance
Will Neutrinos behave like photons? Or will Neutrinos collide with other Neutrinos?
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
http://arxiv.org/abs/1203.2847
The stupid press release left off the most important number which was the communication bit rate: 0.1 bits per second.
Paper abstract: "Beams of neutrinos have been proposed as a vehicle for communications under unusual circumstances, such as direct point-to-point global communication, communication with submarines, secure communications and interstellar communication. We report on the performance of a low-rate communications link established using the NuMI beam line and the MINERvA detector at Fermilab. The link achieved a decoded data rate of 0.1 bits/sec with a bit error rate of 1% over a distance of 1.035 km, including 240 m of earth. "
If neutrinos can pass through thousands of miles of solid rock without apparently being affected by it, how are you going to make a receiving antenna of any practical size?
Well we know from the FTL neutrino saga that it can be done. The idea I believe is that if the beam can be focused enough you make up for it by sending a massive quantity of neutrinos and hoping that just one of them hits... A bit like a telescope taking a picture with exposure times on order of minutes to hours.
For the neutrino sources on earth I forget exactly how it works but the signature you get in the detector registers a double hit that allows you to separate it from noise of other sources so these things don't need to be burried under thousands of feet of rock either as they are normally.
Some crucial details were left out.
The "transmitter" uses the Fermilab accelerator ring to generate neutrinos. 6km of particle accelerator.
The "receiver" is a neutrino detector the size of a large house.
The data rate is so low that it took 20 minutes to transmit one word.
Neutrinos still interact with other particles very infrequently. These researchers have no way around that. They just used a very powerful beam and a huge detector to pick up the very rare events. It's a stunt, not an advance.
Stop and think about how our current Internet is cabled. Now, imagine an increase in competition in at the ISP level. Pairing agreements could be created by simply directing your networked neutrino transmitter to an agreed up location.
Can't! At most one can hope: transmit along a pre-agreed direction - everyone on this direction will be able to intercept the transmission (no more warrants for wiretapping necessary).
Questions raise, answers kill. Raise questions to stay alive.
Cherenkov radiation is only given off by charged particles. But a quick google gives http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Askaryan_effect which is what I think you're referring to.
Tim.
God said, "div D = rho, div B = 0, curl E = -@B/@t, curl H = J + @D/@t," and there was light.
Yes it is safe. neutrinos pass through you all the time. They pass through you because they do not interact with anything, if they dont interact with anything they cant harm anything inside you. This is why they can 'go though the earth', it is also why the the idea is completely impractical, 99.9% of the neturinos will pass straight through your reciever.
It is not the neutrinos in themselves that give of Cherenkov radiation: as pointed out, Cherenkov radiation occurs when _electrically charged_ particles moves faster than light in a medium. Instead, in the large neutrinodetectors, it is the electrically charged by-products of the neutrinos reactions with particles in the detector medium that will get a velocity >c_m and will emit Cherenkov radiation.
If neutrinos by themselves would have given out Cherenkov radiation, they would have been easy-peasy to detect (also, it would imply that they were electrically charged, and thus even more easily detected, and not neutrinos at all :-) ).
But because it's mightily difficult to detect them they'll need to send a shiload of them(say, 10^12 times the background radiation?). This increases the neutrino density to unknown heights. Since neutrinos are ionising (if they smash into an atom they can easily knock an proton or electron out of the atom. Now it's an ion, and far more reactive). The current density isn't a problem, but a density of 10^12 of this may pose some troubles.
If the detectors aren't improved by a great factor with detection principles as yet unheard of this will not have my vote.
Well, I might have a way, but it only works on a semi spherical planet in a vacuum.
You just cannot block it.
My exception safety is -fno-exceptions.
No, that was Transatlantic Trip IV: Laying the Cable
Well it's a great thing that technology never improves then. We'll almost certainly never develop better neutrino detection technology.....especially considering we just plain don't have time, what, in between skinning bears, chopping up bones with primitive stone axes, and stacking up big rocks to form a crude fire pit at our latest migratory camp.
Gotta run now, tribe needs a hand. A hunter found a field of skunky smelling trees with big flowery arms, totally covered in some weird looking crystals. Looks like great kindling for the bonfire. Ugh is stacking em up and getting ready to light. Back later...
Sending neutrino messages is old hat. Receiving them is a bit more difficult, because neutrinos are so damned difficult to detect. They basically don't interact with anything, which is why Fermilab can shoot a neutrino beam an a 735 km underground trip to Minnesota. So to receive your IM, you need a detector the mass of the USS Iowa. I sent out "Dinner is served" back in the 80s, by the way.
All I have to do to send the message from my handset is be walking around with an unlicensed particle accelerator strapped to my back. The receiver component, OTOH will need to be carried by my personal valet, The Incredible Hulk.
And bearing in mind the probable cost of such unlicensed particle accelerators, you'll be the only one to have one, so who you gonna call?
Just my $0.03 (At current exchange rates, my £0.02 is worth more than your $0.02)