John Carlos Baez on Nostr: - most of the evidence regarding neutrino masses is indirect, so we know lots of ...

- most of the evidence regarding neutrino masses is indirect, so we know lots of things about their masses better than we know their masses. In particular, we know that some oscillations between neutrino flavors are much more rapid than others, like in this chart (which is just a simulation, not observed data - but it gets the point across). Rapid oscillations imply that two frequencies, hence energies, hence neutrino masses, are different by quite a lot. But this rapidity by itself doesn't tell us anything about which of the two masses are bigger.

Similarly, the slow oscillations tell us that two neutrino masses are very close to each other.

But we use need some other measurement to tell us that m₁ < m₂. That's the Mikheyev–Smirnov–Wolfenstein effect business.

Strider Uwe 🇺🇦🇨🇦🇲🇽 (npub1zkt…gyj7)