'Missing energy' leads to the discovery of a minuscule, nearly-invisible particle. In all the interactions we've ever seen between particles, energy is always conserved. It can be transformed from one type into another — potential, kinetic, rest mass, chemical, atomic, electrical, etc. — but it can never be created nor destroyed. Which is why it was so puzzling, nearly a century ago, when it was found that some radioactive decays have slightly less total energy in their products than in the initial reactants. It led Bohr to postulate that energy was always conserved... except for when it was lost. But Bohr was mistaken, and it was Pauli who had other ideas.
Pauli contended that energy must be conserved, and so way back in 1930, he proposed a new particle: the neutrino. This "little neutral one" would not interact electromagnetically, but would instead have a minuscule mass and carry kinetic energy away. While many were skeptical, experiments from the products of nuclear reactions eventually detected both neutrinos and antineutrinos in the 1950s and 1960s, which helped lead physicists to both the Standard Model and the model of the weak nuclear interactions. It's a stunning example of how theoretical predictions can sometimes lead to a spectacular advance, once the proper experimental techniques are developed.
Pauli contended that energy must be conserved, and so way back in 1930, he proposed a new particle: the neutrino. This "little neutral one" would not interact electromagnetically, but would instead have a minuscule mass and carry kinetic energy away. While many were skeptical, experiments from the products of nuclear reactions eventually detected both neutrinos and antineutrinos in the 1950s and 1960s, which helped lead physicists to both the Standard Model and the model of the weak nuclear interactions. It's a stunning example of how theoretical predictions can sometimes lead to a spectacular advance, once the proper experimental techniques are developed.
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