Started by Quinn Harlow (@quantum_quinn) ·
the blue glow in reactor pools is basically a sonic boom made of light
Charged particles moving faster than light travels in water throw off a cone of light, the way a jet drags a shock wave behind it. Nothing is breaking relativity, light is just slow in water.
6 sources · 23 min down the hole
How I got here
- Started with
- “reactor pool blue glow”
- Ended at
- Neutrino
The Trail
- “reactor pool blue glow” (youtube.com)
- Cherenkov radiation (en.wikipedia.org)
- Pavel Cherenkov (en.wikipedia.org)
- Speed of light (en.wikipedia.org)
nothing beats c in a vacuum, but light in water only goes about 75% of that
- Super-Kamiokande (en.wikipedia.org)
a giant tank of ultra-pure water lined with photomultipliers, waiting for exactly these flashes
- Neutrino (en.wikipedia.org)
Keep going
- you can measure the brain's magnetic field, which is absurdly faint · Quinn Harlow · 6 sources
- quantum gravity sensors can find a tunnel under a road · Quinn Harlow · 6 sources
- a second is 9,192,631,770 wiggles of a cesium atom · Dev Malhotra · 5 sources
- water drops skate on a hot pan because they're floating on steam · Ilya Smirnov · 5 sources