# Some particle physics news **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [July 22, 2013, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-particle-physics-news/664261 "2013-07-22T23:18:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 2\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2013, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-particle-physics-news/664261/41 "2013-12-06T16:16:36Z")
> [@](#): > > Quoth **Count Blucher** : > > I’m no where near well versed enough to reply to this, but I have some ideas for some fun Sci-Fi thoughts based on this which I’ll propose for entertainment value only: > > Assuming they morph: > > 1. What if by controlling an external factor you could control which ball they become? Granted its Trinary and not binary, but technically could you not use this as the basis for calculations faster than any other calculations previously recorded? > Or as a way to control/sustain an energy source? Or even (its the Sci-fi fan in me) as a method of propulsion? The problem with this is mostly that since neutrinos interact so weakly with everything else, it’s really hard to do anything interesting with them. Even if you got them to interact in such a way as to do calculations, at some point you have to convert that to non-neutrinos to get the output, and you’ll miss the vast, vast majority of them when that happens. Also, since neutrinos have such a low mass, even the tiniest of energies are enough to send them zooming off at nearly the speed of light, so it’s really hard to keep them contained in a reasonable-sized computer. And their oscillations have no bearing on their suitability, or lack thereof, as a propulsion system. For some purposes, there are advantages to your rocket spew consisting of very light particles, and if we could cause them to be preferentially emitted in the right direction they might be suitable for that, but we wouldn’t have to worry one way or the other about oscillation. ---
**Author:** ![deltasigma](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e5b9ba/32.png) [@deltasigma](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/deltasigma)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2013, 5:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-particle-physics-news/664261/42 "2013-12-12T05:11:45Z")
Have we discovered the source of cold dark matter and just didn’t realize it? [Axions may be the answer to 2 different questions](http://arstechnica.com/science/2013/12/could-dark-matter-be-hiding-in-plain-sight-in-existing-experiments/). > [@](#): > > However, if Beck’s hypothesis is correct, there could be a much simpler way to hunt axions. This method would use devices called Josephson junctions, which involve two superconductors with some sort of separation between them, in this case a thin insulating layer. The two superconductors exchange electron pairs across the division in an oscillatory way at a rate called the Josephson frequency. Josephson junctions are used in a wide variety of applications, from sensitive quantum experiments to detectors in telescopes. > > In the proposed scheme, axions entering the insulating layer of the Josephson junction create a spike in the current when the Josephson frequency matches the energy that corresponds to the mass of the particles. This process is the inverse of the standard axion-hunting scheme: axions transform into photons inside the junction, these enhance the superconducting signal, and they then decay back into axions on the other side. > > Beck proposed that effect is the reason for an anomalous result described in a [2004 paper](http://dx.doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.70.180503) by C. Hoffmann and colleagues. This article examined the sources of various forms of noise in Josephson junctions, most of which the authors could explain with existing models. However, at a particular energy, the noise increased dramatically, which they proposed was due to multiple simultaneous transfers of electron pairs for an unknown reason. [Other researchers](http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-ref_query?bibcode=2004PhRvB..70r0503H&refs=CITATIONS&db_key=PHY) followed up on this phenomenon without providing a full explanation for it, though they generally felt that it could be understood within the context of superconducting theory. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-particle-physics-news/664261.md?page=2)