 |
 |
Cosmic Strings and Homemade Particle Detector
Name: Unknown
Status: N/A
Age: N/A
Location: N/A
Country: N/A
Date: Around 1993
Question:
I have two questions. First, I have seen reference to "cosmic
strings", and was wondering exactly what these are. Second, is there a way to
construct some kind of detector for particles? I have heard of a homemade
cloud chamber, but this uses dry ice, of which I do not know any readily
available sources of. Is there any kind of rudimentary detector that could be
built at home using fairly common and easily obtainable items?
Replies:
Cosmic strings are hypothetical entities based on some ideas from
particle physics that there is some kind of background "field" of some sort
that permeates the universe, and that can have slightly different values in
different places, such that singularities in the field value can occur along
lines called strings. When you go around the string, this field value looks
like it is traveling around a circle, and so as you approach the string from
different directions, the field has different values, and those different
values must all be made to agree somehow at the center of the string. This
creates a very high energy defect in the structure of the universe. If such a
string closed in on itself, it would release a whole lot of energy by
ontracting and disappearing.
Arthur Smith
Click here to return to the Physics Archives
| |
Update: June 2012
|
|
