| General note | "in 1960, the theoretical physicist Wolfgang Pauli predicted the presence of a tiny particle that would be emitted in certain radioactive transitions. It would be without charge, virtually massless, and would rarely interact with matter. But how do you detect a ghost particle? Relics of the Big Bang and constantly generated in the Sun and other stars, these extraordinary particles stream through the Earth in their billions as if there was nothing there. As Frank Close puts it: 'If we could see with neutrino eyes, night would be as bright as day: neutrinos from the Sun shine down on our heads by day and up through our beds by night, undimmed.' In this intriguing account, Frank Close tells of the first indications in theory that such a particle must exist, and the struggle to 'catch' neutrinos, and then to understand their nature. It is a story involving a variety of characters -- and gallons of washing-up liquid in tanks in mines deep underground. Tiny they may be, but neutrinos carry information from the depths of distant stars and galaxies. They have given rise to a whole branch of astronomy, and through them we can probe the early moments of the Universe itself."--Book jacket. |
