by Dr. Hugh Ross
Exotic Dark Matter may not be so Exotic
When neutrinos were first identified as subatomic particles (way back in the dark ages when I was an undergraduate). researchers described them as "massless." In the years since then, however, cosmologists, solar physicists, and grand unified theorists have determined that if neutrinos do have even a tiny mass, many mysteries of their respective fields would be solved: 1) cosmologists would have an idea what makes up much , if not most, of the dark (nonradiating) matter in the universe, 2) solar physicists could account for the sun's "missing" neutrinos, and 3) theoretical physicists would be able to explain in great detail and depth how the fundamental forces of physics unify.
From a conference in Italy comes news that scientists love to hear. Different research groups independently detected neutrino mass. To be more precise, they observe neutrinos oscillating, 1 spontaneously switching from one "shape" to another. (Neutrinos come in three varieties: electron, muon, and tau.) Oscillation means mass. Neutrinos can oscillate only if they have mass.
The case for neutrino mass is all the more compelling because two radically different types of detectors came up with the same result. One was a 50,000 ton water tank surrounded by 13,400 photo detectors; the other a thousand tons of corrugated iron interspersed with charged-particle detectors.2
Neutrino oscillation experiments only tell us that neutrinos have mass, not how much mass - at least a few billionths the mass of an electron, and they reveal the differences in mass among the three neutrino varieties.
Several research labs are attempting to make direct measures of neutrino mass, using something called "neutrinoless double beta decay" experiments. I'll spare you the technical details, but a Russian-German collaboration already has determined that neutrino mass can be no greater than 0.48 electron volts (that's slightly less than a millionth of an electron mass).3
The number encourages all three groups of physicists that they are on the right tract. With neutrinos as viable candidates to explain the exotic matter in the universe, cosmologists can refine their creation model (a model that beautifully corroborates the biblical creation account).4,5
Solar physicists can now understand why their neutrino detectors have found only a third of the neutrinos produced by the sun's nuclear furnace. Their detectors are tuned to pick up just one variety of neutrino. The "missing" neutrinos apparently were missed when they oscillated. The neutrino "deficit" is no deficit after all. (Note: some young-earth creationists have cited this deficit as "proof" that the sun cannot be a nuclear furnace. That proof can no longer be used.)
Grand unified theorists are ecstatic, too. Even the crude, preliminary mass estimates for the neutrino help these physicists determine which particle-origin models are closer to being right. And as they get closer to the truth of particle creation, they get closer to the truth of the whole creation.
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