Neutrino's are like humans, but smell better

Whenever I use this banner, you can be certain about two things: 1st. I have no cohesive, well thought out issue to discuss, 2nd it probably won't make sense.

Still reading? You must be very bored.

Well my question today is:
Are neutrinos like humans?

Let me go find a picture of a neutrino, so we know what we are talking about.

I'd bet money that's not a 'real' neutrino because they are really small.

Before we go further, here is it's definition.
A neutrino is 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

Translation: The neutrino lives in an atom with their family. They are very small and shy of other particles. As long as they remain with their family they do well. But when they decide to leave and go out on their own, they quickly die.

And scientist are lurking about like space predators to trick the neutrinos to leave their home because...and you might want to send your small children away from this blog... BECAUSE THEY WANT TO MEASURE HOW LONG IT WILL TAKE FOR THE NEUTRINO TO DIE.

Is that not the sickest thing you've ever heard?

Well, the Scientific Community is up in arms over the situation, but not because it's cruel and morbid, but because the little neutrinos don't on average all die exactly at the same time. In fact, there is a 9 second discrepancy between the two measuring techniques. That is huge length of time in neutrino land. 

Now things are going to get technical here, so I'm going to get really silly so you won't stop reading. I'll give you the link to the real article later in case you actually wish to know what is going on.

There are two ways to measure a neutrinos death. Yes, we are so morbid that one way to measure wasn't enough, and now it's come to bite their morbid asses, because the two methods don't agree when little neutrino dies. Before we begin, let's me clear about the term 'death'. Like humans, when neutrinos die, they don't disappear, they become something else. When we die, we become foul smelling goop and bones. When the neutrino dies, it becomes protons after emitting an electron and an anti-neutrino, but to the best of my knowledge, none of those are goopy or smelly.

The 1st method used for about 30 years now is called the Beam Experiment. It sends the neutrons marching down a narrow beam until they die and transform into a proton. A proton trap is laid on the sides of the narrow beam to capture and count the protons. 

The 2nd method, used for 15 years, and is considered to be more precise, is called the bottle method.  It gets the neutrinos drunk, traps them in a bottle, then watches as they die over time.

Seriously, could these scientist be more morbid?
Actually, they are because the two methods of luring neturinos out to watch them die are coming up with different averaged death times.

The beam's average is 887.7 plus or minus 3.1 seconds. 

The bottle's average is 878.5 plus or minus 1 second.

Thus, proving once again that walking is better for you than drowning yourself in a bottle. 

It's true with humans and it's evidently true with neutrinos.
You cannot expect drunken neutrinos, stuck in a bottle watching each other dying to live the same life span as neutrinos that walk towards infinity, dying along the way.  

Moving makes you live longer. There is no mystery other than neutrinos live by the same underlying principles that humans do. Exercise will outlive stationary every day.   There may also be a relativity issue going on here as well, concerning time and movement, but I've played with your brain enough now. 

For those whose ears aren't bleeding, here is the link to the real scientific article from Scientific American.

Of Termites and Robots

Robots can learn the skills of a termites, who without a leader can build themselves a new home. All a robot needs are instructions about building and traffic rules.

Building instructions are pretty simple. Set up the conditions and the actions under all scenarios. 

For example: If current level requires no more bricks begin next layer, otherwise place brick in section needing brick.

(I’m sure their instructions are more geeked up with code, but you get the idea. Laying a brick is pretty much the same on one layer as it is on another.)

They only thing left is dealing with which robot is going to lay the last one on row one and which robot will begin row two and how to keep the robots from knocking each other over, getting in the way of other robots, and starting a brawl…which is the reason why humans require supervision.

The way to prevent these bad behaviors is called TRAFFIC RULES and it turns out termites and robots will follow them MUCH BETTER than humans.

Take the speed limit for example. I’m pretty sure the sign

doesn’t say ‘Go 9 miles over the posted speedlimit because then, then cop will stop someone else.’

Or the law about staying in the far right lane except when passing. NO ONE follows that rule, possibly because it’s a stupid rule that would make it impossible for new people to enter the road if we all ignored the other lanes and kept to the right.

I’m all for the rule don’t pass on the right, but lots of people ignore that too.

And some, usually after drinking, enter the freeway going the wrong direction. That never works out well.

However, as long as we don’t give robots stupid rules they’ll be fine.

So if we tell them to go in one direction, they will. After laying their brick, they’ll continue on their path, climb down, grab another brick and get back into the queue. 

They will not honk horns, fly birds, get out of robot shoes or throw their bricks at one another. They will patiently wait for their time to come. 

They will not fall asleep while waiting, or step out for a smoke. They will just wait. 

They won’t monkey with each other’s code, or rile the other robots up about their low (as in no) pay or their inability to vote, despite the fact they are far closer to being a human than any corporation is.

No they will stand ready, holding their brick, waiting for their time to lay it and go back to retrieve another.

The robots could build dams, levees and ugly warehouses because we could use some new ones.

And as long as the robots were given good code to begin with, they will build it perfectly. Just like termites do.

Okay, I’ll admit termites seem to lack aesthetics, but have you ever tried to kick one of those mounds. You’ll break your foot.

So while we’ll have ugly dam, levees and warehouses, it’s better than giving the robots designer rules. That creative spark could very well give them self-awareness and soon we’ll have a whole bunch of outraged robots wearing scarves that tangle in their wheels and catfights over whose brick is prettier.

No it is better we have ugly but strong dams and levees.

For the sensible (but not nearly as funny) version of this article go to Scientific America. You'll also get to see a video of the robots in action.