Re: starship-design: Neutrinos

[Timothy van der Linden <Shealiak@XS4ALL.nl>]

Adam,

>>"Anomaly" neutrinos? I'm sorry, I'm not exactly sure what you mean.
>>(The neutrinos from the Sun and space aren't anomalous and are likely of
>>all 3 generations (electron-, muon-, tauon-neutrinos).)
>
>That's what they call the neutrinos created by cosmic rays cracking up in
>the atmosphere. I didn't think the Sun produced any tauon neutrinos, though,
>even with oscillations.

Clearly electron neutrinos will be in the majority. But statistically there
must be a some muon- and even fewer tauon neutrinos.
I wonder if cosmic rays (gamma rays?) will actually generate a lot of
neutrinos when being absorbed by molecules in the atmosphere.

>I spoke to John Cramer about the neutrino findings soon after they came in,
>and he said the "neutrinos are tachyon" thing is still possible. Would be
>really cool since you'd be able to hover on a beam of neutrinos without
>drawing any power [except to generate the beam] and so on... 

His idea is based on the possibility that neutrinos have imaginary mass. I
can't imagine how his case would hold once there is evidence that their
mass is real and positive.

Timothy