Review: Particle Physics, A very short introduction (Frank Close)

It’s pretty decent. I definitely learned a lot of quarks and squarks and other strange entities!

Particle Physics – A Very Short Introduction

The Sudbury Neutrino Observatory (SNO) is 2070 metres below
ground in a nickel mine in Sudbury, Ontario. Its heart is an acrylic
vessel filled with 1,000 tonnes of ‘heavy water’, called deuterium, in
which a neutron joins the single proton of ordinary hydrogen. In
SNO, electron-neutrinos interact with the neutrons in the
deuterium to create protons and electrons, and the fast-moving
electrons emit cones of Cerenkov radiation as they travel through
the heavy water. The Cerenkov light forms patterns of rings on the
inner surface of the water tank, where it is picked up by thousands
of phototubes arrayed around the walls.

Thats not right. Deuterium is not heavy water. But heavy water usually contains deuterium. At least, if one is using “heavy water” as any water molecule heavier than normal, that is, which contains either deuterium or tritium or a higher isotope of oxygen (17 or 18). See also Wikipedia on heavy water. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heavy_water#Other_heavy_forms_of_water

This is the first fortunate circumstance. Humans are the pinnacle of
evolution and it has taken almost all of those 5 billion years for us
to emerge. Had the Sun burned faster, it would have died before
we arrived.

Biologists hate such talk. Assuming that life only started once on Earth, then every single nonextinct lifeform is evolved to the same degree. At least, if that is what one means by having used the same time evolving since the first life.

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