We take the RV on a longer shakedown tour of northern Minnesota's State Parks starting in Tower at the Sudan iron mine. They have two tours. One is a physics tour and one is the historical tour.Sunday morning we put 55 gallons of petrol in the tanks and head on up the Three Five E. By noon we are dropping into a 2300 foot deep hole at 9 miles per hour in a steel milk carton for a tour of a physics lab.
We learn about
neutrino
an uncharged elementary particle that is believed to have a very small mass, that has any of three forms, and that interacts only rarely with other particles.
The 3 types of neutrinos are Electron, Muon and Tau. The can change Flavors between the three for no reason so the lab is trying to figure it out as they pass through the detector at the speed of light. Charts of interactions look like the images below. I could explain what it means but you wouldn't want to read it. :)
The collector and lab looks like this.
This is a painting that includes lots of images of physics and it's historical contributors. It's painted on the rock wall covered in shotcreat so it's not going to be smooth.
The last thing about high energy partial physics is this old antique proton decay cabinet. It's what started the lab here many years ago when scientist wanted to understand if protons were stable or if they decay into other partials. Well they do but it takes so long it's likely it's never happen in the universe. That's good news for all of use made up of Fermions otherwise you'd be driving to work and just evaporate.
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| Elevator |
The crusher motor is 150hp and a lot of belts!
At the bottom of the elevator you need to take a train ride.
When we return it's off to Bear Head State Park for some hiking in the rain and cold.
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