Cosmic Rays Mystery Solved - Sixty Symbols

New observations seem to settle the question of where cosmic rays come from.
Dr Tony Padilla discusses the research. See the paper at: arxiv.org/pdf/1302.3307v1.pdf
COMMENT FROM TONY: "My comments at 1.30 were a bit hasty. Cosmic rays do not pass through the earth. Most collide in the upper atmosphere. I was actually thinking of the LHC safety debate. If they exist, mini blackholes produced by cosmic ray collisions on earth would slip straight through because the earth isn't dense enough. But not the protons themselves."
Tony tweets at / drtonypadilla (lots of good science news, links and jokes mixed with some over emotional football commentary)
Nasa write-up at: www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2013/...
Visit our website at www.sixtysymbols.com/
We're on Facebook at / sixtysymbols
And Twitter at #!/periodicvideos
This project features scientists from The University of Nottingham
www.nottingham.ac.uk/physics/i...
Sixty Symbols videos by Brady Haran
A run-down of Brady's channels:
periodicvideos.blogspot.co.uk/...

[@sixtysymbols]

see the video description for note from Tony (there is an annotation!) mixture of unscripted interview and editing I expect, but we've put a note on.

[@sixtysymbols]

yes, I make the films on sixtysymbols and a few other channels! see the full video description!

[@christianhurry3219]

These are the best Sixty Symbol videos, and this guy is absolutely fantastic at explaining very recent publications! Please make lots of these sort of videos Brady :)

[@garogum]

I really like the videos in which these people explain the physics behind different problems, although at a somewhat basic level. Awesome video!

[@sixtysymbols]

see video description for note from Tony!

[@AlkisGD]

It's so wonderful seeing Brady's guests so excited about the things they are talking about in the video :D

[@Jack7967]

Another entertaining and informative video from sixtysymbols. Keep up the good work!

[@MichaelMedlock]

"so we throw up our hands in the air and say we're never gonna know" "no, of course we don't do that..." Heh, now that is an answer from a true scientist. :P

[@Triantalex]

false.

[@BB0YMatty]

Thank you for this, I've read the article but this is very good!

[@ceilingcatiswatching]

Hi, this all makes sense and the idea of them following 'some crazy magnetic field' seems to fit in with their observation primarily (if not exclusively) over the South Atlantic Anomaly. With the SAA growing the cosmic ray visual phenomenon will become increasingly easier for you to study, would you say it could soon effect us all?

[@LuisSanabriaRodriguez]

You didn't link the SixtySymbols video about Quarks.It is nice that you had a video for almost every concept he mentioned with Pions and Gamma rays being the exception.

[@Ph4nt4sm4ge]

Nice and informative video.Additionally, i'd like to ask if you could work on videos about the Millenium Prize problems by the Clay Institute.(Riemann hypothesis, etc)

[@TheMdc78]

Hey Brady, I would love to see a video on triple points, its a very interesting and counter intuitive subject.

[@SNoCappidona]

Hi, Firstly, i would like to say i read the description, However i think it's an interesting topic to discuss. Most cosmic rays probably do not go through the earth but i believe some small portion probably does. My question is regarding the center of the earth and how these particles would interact with it. Would they be attracted to the center of the earth due to their charge, or reflected by it? And can these cosmic rays contribute to lightning strikes that happen in the atmosphere?

[@sixtysymbols]

Yes indeed - but there's an annotation and note in the video description. I realise people may not see them, but you did take the trouble to scroll down and comment mate! :)

[@Hematite1000]

Hey Brady, I was wondering if it's possible to create a device that absorbs the thermal energy of warm air and converts the gathered energy into usable electricity; e.g. a device that cools the air while simultaneously generating electricity? I'm not thinking of it as an efficient means to gather a substantial amount of electricity, I'm thinking of it as a way to cool the air without having to supply any energy. Like a sort of energy-free air conditioning unit.

[@lennutrajektoor]

This is awesome! More like this videos! More about hard-core cutting edge science and knowledge!

[@NotHisRealName]

My mind just melted. I think I need to consume this one again.

[@arianseyedi]

Question: if the particles posses an energy of around 300,000,000TeV, that means that the velocity they have is much more than that of the speed of light: 3e20eV =~ 48 N/C 48= 0.5 m v^2 => v =1.94e^10 (speed of light is ~ 2.998e8) Please explain this. Thanks

[@endemiktm]

Hey Brady, just wanted to let you know that this channel along with deepskyvideos (and prominent figures such as Sagan, Tyson) helped me figure out that I want to study Astrophysics :)

[@davidsweeney111]

Ah that's what it was all about, thanks very much for your message. Most of the time I understand these videos with no problem but this one threw me, must be getting old ;) cheers for your help !

[@caderrabeth]

I'm actually curious as to how the proton gains energy by passing the shock wave multiple times. Wouldn't the energy gained from the push forward be lost as the proton travels backwards into the wave again? Or, is this a consequence of the wave not being uniform throughout, where it passes opposite to the wave's force at a weak point, and back forward at a stronger point?

[@lordicemaniac]

hmm, if momentum p=m*v, only way to gain momentum faster is gaining mass. I see m0 (rest mass) being used in formula for calculating energy of particles, so besides changing speed i don't know how they would gain momentum. Can you explain it bit further? This subject rly interests me.

[@Takiro_Ryo]

Never heard of sub absolute zero temperatures before, just googled it because i saw it on your comment. It's amazing, thanks dude.

[@mystarmach]

Physics is not my strength so the answer to this question may be obvious, but at 5:20 it's said that two cosmic ray protons colliding creates a pion which decays into gamma waves. Are all waves formed this way? Does this mean all waves are decayed/failed atoms, like subatomic shrapnel? Or vice versa, clumps of waves influenced by each other's properties become atoms/matter?

[@PeterGeras]

I've done a few calculations myself and yes, it does seem to be that way. The approximate probability of a proton colliding with another nucleus in the Earth after n metres is 1-e^(-n) and as n gets large, this approaches 1. I've noticed that we're talking about protons though, when we should be talking about photons, which this entire video is referring to - cosmic rays. But regardless, if they were protons, would a nucleus be enough to stop a very high energy proton?

[@cristianfcao]

Here's an interesting follow-up video you can do to this one or if you ever wish to talk about the upgrades in the LHC: Why giving a proton some tiny bit of extra speed (say: changing its speed from 99.9999% the speed of light to 99.999999%) can give it such a huge increase in energy?

[@RobertBardos]

could you please qualify what you mean by "near by" ? within our solar system? galactic neighborhood? i believe the speakers supposition is they eminate from supernova wich would be fantasticlly obvious if they frequently occured near by in any sense of the word.

[@sutematsu]

Thank you! I somehow forgot that light has frequencies; thank you so much for helping me out!

[@00bean00]

I have to ask Dr. P a question: _Why_ does the proton start interacting with the CMB at that energy scale?

[@Destro7000]

The thumbnail to this video is amazing.

[@Maggie.The.Unicorn]

Hey Brady, could you do a video on particle-wave duality? That could be interesting. Unless there already is one, then I apologize.

[@Chemateur]

I tried to give a direct link to the paper but couldn't get it to work, but if you google the title you can probably find it. It's a pretty dense read, but at the end is the section on relativistic mass. The author even refers to it as a "pedagogical virus" which I find pretty funny. It doesn't go into much detail about what actually happens, but if you look at my other responses to Squagnut they have more info. I'm not exactly an expert, but if you have more questions, I'll try to answer.

[@Hematite1000]

Ah, but the cost of it is what bogs it down. Ni45Co5Mn40Sn10 is an interesting material. A multiferroic alloy that becomes magnetized when heated, the magnetism can then be used to generate a current in a conductive coil. Though from some graphs I've seen it seems that a temperature difference of around 20 degrees, in the upper range of 100C is necessary to initiate this change. Does this material's "absorbing" of differences of heat cool whatever the heat source was?

[@vava54]

The soccer ball + tenis ball is the best explication of how a super nova work I have ever seen. (When trying to explain it to someone who doesn't understand them)

[@drios111]

Is there a way to harness the energy from these cosmic rays?

[@couplingconstant]

I love your videos. Just a small correction though, pion mass is 135 MeV not GeV.

[@MichielHaisma]

How do these prototons 'contain' more or less energy? Is it all kinetic i.e. it's speed? Or am I missing something?

[@bastiaan1brink]

can we use this to power/propel spacecraft, or is it to weak?

[@thany3]

So these are particles, meaning particles with mass, flying around at (for most intents and purposes) the speed of light? And the high energy comes from the supernova constantly trying to push those particles faster and faster, but because they can't they get more massive. And that, if it's correct, it still incredibly weird to me.

[@takshjyoti]

Light is thought of as a wave.so do two light waves interfare causing constructive or distructive interferences like sound waves ????

[@KafshakTashtak]

@ArYaN sy actually no, as you get closer to the speed of light, it becomes harder to accelerate the particle. kinda feels like the particle is heavier. and the for

[@casualjoe2]

6 times? Gonna be pondering that one all day..

[@mystarmach]

Cool, thanks for your response

[@noblessus]

Looks like an interesting channel you have there; subbed. :D

[@AntiProtonBoy]

Wouldn't the light path be non-linear due to gravitational effects of the stars it passes by?

[@TheGuaver]

I'm sure someone thought about this already but, if the protons have that much energy they must be traveling ridiculously close to the speed of light, and if that's true then relativity tells us that they would experience near-zero relative time. So maybe the reason that we are able to detect cosmic rays with higher than maximum energy is because they haven't had enough time to interact with the microwave background radiation via pions. I am probably totally wrong though.

[@samirrimas]

Very late answer but, imagine you can track this proton, if you could you would see it fly very quick and interact with allot of these MBR photons. Its true that the proton experiances almost 0 time but from a observers point of view whom is racking the proton it would seem that it has enough time to interact with photons and lose energy.

[@brokenlyspiritual]

Wow, you both are remarkably intelligent. ❤️❤️

[@JohnnyAgard]

It depends on what we mean by energy. The energy of a photon doesn't affect the speed, it affects the quality of light (its frequency). The kinetic energy of a particle is given by KE = 1/2mv^2, but photons have no mass, so the equation collapses there. We use E = hf for photons, where hf is frequency multiplied by Planck's constant. Energy doesn't just affect speed, it's just that most objects gain kinetic energy when a force acts upon it.

[@MrEndoftheRoadRC]

I don't know about all this Cosmic Rays mumbo jumbo, but that Waldos Shirt @ 2:14 Love the Vids, Cheers!

[@Hack3r91]

Energy is not just kinetick energy, lots of it comes from the rest energy AKA mc^2. Also, in such field kinetick energy is also NOT 1/2 mv^2. The relativistic energy is sqrt(m^2*c^4 + p^2*c^2), p being the momentum. Now, suppose the velocity is small as respect to c and write E like mc^2*sqrt(1+p^2*/m^2*c^2). Take p^2/m^2*c^2 = K. Series expansion to the first term: E approx. mc^2*(1+1/2*K)= mc^2 + p^2/2m= mc^2 + 1/2 mv^2 + O(K).

[@VegetableJuiceFTW]

Who manages the audio? I would want to enjoy this show, please.

[@sidewaysfcs0718]

O_o that particle sure sounds odd i wonder what it's wavelenght was, would it be close to the planck lenght? :D

[@mrwho995]

Not meaning to be rude, but I was under the impression that the source of cosmic rays (being supernovae and stars in general) had been common, basic knowledge around astronomers for a while. I certainly had known it for a while (although less so supernovae than stars, but it is heavily implied). Am I missing something?

[@MrToughAndDrRuff]

a) Pions have a rest mass of about 140 MeV (not GeV) b) cosmic rays do *not* go through the earth "because it is not dense enough" but rather an avalance of secondary charged particles is created by them, the so-called air shower (and well yes, within this air shower, neutrinos are created which do penetrate earth, but these make up only a tiny fraction of the total energy released) c) cosmic rays above the GZK threshold do not pose any mystery, they are probably simply created "nearby"

[@StubbornProgrammer]

Okay, that makes sense. I think what happened is that he said something I'd inferred using language I didn't expect, making my sleep addled brain think he meant the opposite of what he actually said. The critical piece that I missed was "below that value." Thanks for the helpful restatement.

[@Chemateur]

I think it's important to distinguish between mass and kinetic energy. Protons have a pretty specific mass, and even when moving at relativistic speeds the mass doesn't change. What does change is how fast the protons move. As the protons get closer and closer to the speed of light their kinetic energy approaches infinity.

[@jonatanpinadulucmusic]

Why do higher-than-the-limit-energy protons interact with the Cosmic Micrwoave Background, such a low energy band of frequencies?

[@davidwilkie9551]

After burner on Hyperdrive?

[@Lundburgerr]

Sorry for the late reply. It doesn't increase exponentially, mathematically you rather have denominator that approaches 0 as the speed of the particle reaches c. The total energy of a particle is E=mc²/sqrt(1-v²/c²). This includes it's rest mass energy of mc².

[@Skindoggiedog]

Cool video, for sure. Learnt stuff, I did. Thanks :)

[@mhoroub]

you mentioned that the mass of a pion is 135 GeV, I think you mean MeV

[@GreaterDeity]

Depends on the particle. The only thing that can interact with the CMB is most likely WIMPS, because the CMB itself is so "cold". It's very weak, in fact, we interpret it as static. :3

[@OutdoorsEmbrace]

These videos are made for a purpose: to get people interested in science. Whether it works or not, I am ignorant, but I do know that putting others down doesn't get us anywhere closer.

[@mnkyman66332]

One other correction, Brady: Pions have about 135 MeV rest mass, not 135 GeV. That's quite a big difference too!

[@ravener96]

same speed, diferent strength. we see the diference in energy as colour in visible light, however the scale goes both up and down from there with radio waves at one end and these high energy gamma rays at the other. both radio waves and gamma rays move at the same speed though, so you almost had it.

[@Bacopa68]

That idea sounds vaguely like a thermocouple, interesting, but not the kind of power you are going to need. Still think you might like the geothermal heat pump. it uses a ground loop heat exchanger to boost efficiency for both heating and cooling.

[@HenkJanBakker]

Check the disclaimer in the box.

[@LynneSkysong]

Lol! I never thought of that, though I typically use "I guess" when I'm not 100% confident, but will still go through with something.

[@sixtysymbols]

cool!

[@RudoAB]

had the same issue, thank you!

[@Sleepy.Time.]

well now i can finally sleep at night with this answered

[@Skarabelus]

I meant it differently. Particles are known to react at certain energy-level with those photons from Cosmic Microwave Background - therefore they have energy maximum. But if they pass that point anyway they might stay at higher energy-level than maximum. To this state they would get in area which does not contain any Cosmic Microwave Background. Traveling through would make no reaction then. (not sure if this last particular thought is legit)

[@Joeobrown1]

is Brady the 'owner' of all these channels? i keep hearing him mentioned...

[@EebstertheGreat]

It's actually hyperbolic (essentially). It's proportional to γ=1/√(1-v²/c²), where v is speed and c is the speed of light in a vacuum. At v=0, γ=1. As v approaches c, γ approaches infinity (grows without bound).

[@Hack3r91]

That really is impossible, in the classical sense. That really is a matter of definition, temperature as physically connected to kinetick energy can never be negative, but thermodynamics also treats other kinds of systems in which the overall energy is negative and temperature kinda loses its meaning. That result is interesting nonetheless because it means they could rise the energy of the system without increasing the enthropy of it, that is impressive.

[@annayosh]

As I understand it, all that's really shown by these results is that somewhere in space significant amounts of pions are being created. How certain is it that it's the protons-and-supernova-shockwaves mechanism that produces them, and not some completely different mechanism, either or not also creating the high-energy cosmic rays?

[@Drapsicle]

Good Topic!

[@Chemateur]

"The Concept of Mass in the Einstein Year" That's an excellent paper on the subject (I apologize if you can't access it) Relativistic mass is convenient because it's easily measurable, but it's not useful for explaining what actually happens. Mass has a definition which has to do with the interaction of the Higgs Boson with matter, and while it is true that the inertia (used to mean the resistance of matter to change) does increase near light speed, the Higgs Boson Interactions do not.

[@Tossphate]

OK, so the difference between an atom of low energy and an atom of high energy are the energy states of the electrons right, so what the heck is the difference between a low and high energy proton?? They move at the same speed, obviously have the same mass, so in what form is this extra energy? where is it stored?

[@khajiit92]

accounting for the effects of gravity is a lot simpler than accounting for the effects of magnetic fields. it IS possible they're affected by gravity, but accounting for that isn't such a big problem. (i'm not sure if it's still a big problem, but definitely easier than accounting for magnetism which the prof mentioned being a problem).

[@julsius]

theyre paths are linear as measured by us because of how far away these stars are. the curvature produced from far away stars would be negligible and the curvature of their path produced by closer celestial bodies is more profound but still negligible (they're going really fast).

[@KafshakTashtak]

@ArYaN sy and the formula you wrote for energy is not correct for energy of particles with speeds close to speed of light.

[@edwardjbwright]

oh right, so as a proton approaches c its energy will increase exponentially?

[@jlmknight]

oooooh ooooh oooh I would love a gzk cuttoff video :D

[@Nikkuuu69]

How does a proton coming from a supernova have more energy than one accelerated in the LHC? The proton is the same, so is it the speed that is way faster?

[@chaplinjohn1]

Is higgeldy piggeldy a technical term?

[@ericsbuds]

great video

[@sutematsu]

Thank you!

[@Wafflical]

So, is it just the actual amount of energy contained? Sort of like mass but not acting as mass?

[@Maggie.The.Unicorn]

Yes, you could say that. He's the ones who makes the videos for all these channels. Busy guy!

[@kxg123]

Daaaam! same here. That's mindblowing.

[@KickYouInTheThroat]

yea man out of all the explanations ive seen that use that animation of rays moving around and not moving around a galaxy everyone skips right over WHY gamma rays are so beastly and do not get pulled around. i want to know as well.

[@OlleLindestad]

The energy of a photon is not just dependent on its speed (which is, as you say, always c) but also its frequency. Gamma rays are high-energy photons by default, because of their high frequency.

[@sutematsu]

Thank you! I was really confused. I had managed to forget that light has different frequencies. >_

[@dragonore2009]

Most cosmic rays are stopped by the Earth's atmosphere, but some do make it to the ground. One, quite, odd way to know if one hit your are, is your computer. If you have a computer and its running fine, then for some reason, seemingly out of nowhere you get a blue screen of death, it could be from a cosmic ray that flipped a bit for go from a 1 to a 0 and crashed your computer. Obviously there could be more common explanations, like a computer virus, new software that is having compatibility issues, or new hardware where you device drivers are not jiving right causing a buffer overflow.

[@RimstarOrg]

LOL! "It's, like six times." I said the exact same thing! Come one guys, the mystery's not over. Back to work. :)

[@docsharp00]

what I do not understand is a proton in LHC is 99.99% of the speed of light and 7TeV, a proton from cosmic rays is 300,000,000 TeV. E²= (pc)² + (mc²)², M and C are constant. so the 0.01% do the 3e8TeV just because of the momentum of the proton?

[@zirize]

Magnetic field can bend the course of Photon????? Is Photon non-charge particle?

[@davidsweeney111]

I think I saw something on the TV, Brian Cox maybe, he said cosmic rays come from the Sun and Earth's magnetic field deflects them to the North pole and you get northern lights, but now I know these rays come from other places too, like supernovae, that's cool!

[@kas00078]

I wouldn't call it a "sensationalist title" As far as I understand, the paper with the observations from the Fermi LAT was published less than a week ago.