What's The Probability You Have Seen A Neutrino?

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Neutrinos are the least well understood fundamental particle, and the fact that they don’t interact very much doesn’t help us study them. 300 trillion go through your body every second which is why some people call them ‘ghost particles’. But very occasionally they do hit us, and I wondered what would happen if one of them happened to hit us in our eye. Could we see it? So I figured it out with the same physics behind neutrino detectors, and the answer seems to be yes! Although you need a lot of eyes.

--- References ----
[1] Mean free path of neutrinos in water (1.7*10^17m)
[2] Measured neutrino flux from Super-Kamiokande (2.41*10^6 per cm^2 per second for neutrinos in water)
[3] Cherenkov radiation peaks around 420nm (visible)
[4] Human eyes are sensitive to 5-7 photons, down to just 1
[5] Super Kamiokande paper

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Optometric tech here. Blue flashes of light can also be caused by post vitreous detachment. An interesting phenomena wherein the vitreous (jelly) of your eye starts to liquify and separate away from the retina. As it detaches, your body perceives this stimulation as light. It’s also the reason you may see floaters in your vision sometimes as well.

But like the video said, it always could be a retinal detachment. If your symptoms are ever worrying see a doctor.

warmweathr
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Minor correction at 1:29: the weak nuclear force is not called weak due to its short range. The strong nuclear force also has incredibly short range (it's confined to the nucleus and inside of nucleons). The weak nuclear force is called weak because its field interaction strength is magnitudes smaller than the strong interaction's field strength, which is powerful enough to overcome the electromagnetic repulsion between protons (also stronger than the weak force) and bind them together to form nuclei.

jmcsquared
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Very rarely, maybe just 2 or 3 times in my 62 year life, I have experienced a small bright flash. It happened to me in a complete dark environment, at night, when my eyes were totally adapted to the darkness. I don't suffer from any eye related health issue. I guess neutrinos are not the most probable cause of flashes inside the eye. Lots of high energy particles, cosmic rays are bombarding the earth constantly. Exceptionally, gamma rays may find their way to the earth's surface and strike the retina of a human eye.

Berre
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I haven't been keeping an eye (heh) out for faint blue flashes, so I have no idea. I'll think about it forever now, but sadly I'm not often in very very dark places. And even if I were and it did happen, I'm pessimistic about my brain parsing it as noteworthy. Unless it's a revelatory flash, I'll probably automatically dismiss it like I dismiss all the other curious photon-retina interactions that happen throughout the course of life.

Still, I love the fact that you've found the most legitimate way to ask, "Have you seen a ghost?"

philophos
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Your brain creates a composite image from both eyes - generally favoring what it considers the most relevant data. But the neutrino hit would only occur in one eye!

I'd wager that if you had one eye shut and the hit occurred in the closed eye then the brain would simply edit out the flash, favoring the more relevant (open) eye data.
If the hit happened in the open eye (with the other eye still shut) then the hit would probably be seen with little to no compositing for the same reason.
If both eyes were shut then the flash should be the most relevant data and would probably be composited in as if seen from both eyes.

You guess is as good as mine as to what extent the flash might be edited out or composited in by our mercurial brains with both eyes open.

geodesic
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*Edit: It is true!*
1:04 sadly it's not true! Since the photon receptors in your eyes constantly produce false alarms, the brain will only see a signal if about 12 receptors in one area will go off simultaniously.
*6:23 CLEARED IT UP

krischi_mk
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people normally sleep for 8h per 24h, so there's basically a 1/3 chance that a person with a "neutrino flash" is asleep as it happens.

DukeBG
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After I learned about how eyes could detect particle collisions inside of them a couple of years back I've noticed a couple. One was blue but I'd imagine that's probably some other particle or something else entirely. It was a blue dot that was there for a fraction of a second, fading very fast.

freedomofspeech
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top of my christmas wish list is a DoS branded vat of human eyeballs

melm
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Once a year I see a small dot of purple light in one of my eyes (but it happens in both of them), in random positions and places. Now I know that statistically it's more likely to be an optical health problem. But thank you so much for that amazing content!! ❤️

agiovannaamorim
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I had something like this happened to me, it was a few years ago. I was Caving in West Virginia and we where sitting with are lights off to experience the total darkness of being a few hundred feet below a mountain. I saw a faint flash of light in my left peripheral vision but i do not remember the color of the flash, at the time I believed it to be my mind playing trick on me as is know to happen in those kind of environments.

knghtpaco
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I have to say - it is sooo interesting and easy to hear you explaining about quantum physics
! I also have to share the fact that I have had many weird experiences of little alterated perception moments in my life, which I was able to understand and expand through meditation, but which I could only find meaning and scientific evidence for them when I dove into quantum physics. suddenly all the layers of reality and filters of perception we use to understand life in Traditional Chinese Medicine are deeply entangled and operate in the Quantum world. specially meditation.
Funny fact, the "rain of neutrinos" coming from the sun, passing through us and all visible reality, I've seen it with eyes closed, and we use it to visualize a rain of energy cleansing our body in qi gong meditation.
uau ahah sorry (long text) I got super excited with your work!! :)
Thank you for sharing!
Marta

martasantaclara
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I searched and landed on this after it happened me to few minutes ago, similar to your idea after I saw the flashes, I wondered whether it was particles like neutrino as I already knew neutrino constantly bombard us with little to no interaction. About the flash it wasn't as blue that you see during cherenkov radiation for me it was bit more greenish and a bit blue near the edges.

paramn
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i swear i have seen once like 3 months ago. You can imagine a black monitor infront of you and only 1 pixel turns on for 1 sec and flashes blue and a bit red. I was kinda confused but now i know what that was.

invisible_maxim
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FUN FACT: Since it is neutrinos, if this we can see these flashes even with eyes closed
NB: So don't worry about keeping your eyes open during the whole night.
PS: By closing the eyes prolly your visual cortex may not work as when u are awake.

fazilnajeeb
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I have perceived a lightning-like flash in my vision, 4-5 years ago when I closed my eyes to listen to a piano piece. I thought it was because classical music, a newly discovered source of joy for me, is so good it can elicit synesthesia. However, it never happened again. Also, I distinctly recall it being white, not blue!

ironmaz
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I’m freaking out ! 😮I’ve been helping my siblings, getting inspired to learn.
This happened to me a couple days ago coincidentally we were supposed to watch this video but I had an accident. So I’m watching now with them! ❤😅 I’ll get my eye checked out if it keeps happening!

charlotteharperlurae
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Back in my school days, I had a theory that these strange flashes in the dark while I was lying in bed could be flashes from neutrinos passing through my eyes. And now, after many many years, some dude from YouTube made a video that this is possible! Haha, incredible!

wdm_frwrd
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The worst part about filling up two super kamiokande with eyes is that no one of us would have eyes to see the spectacle with.

daniellassander
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Again incredible video! Quick question: What software do you use for animations?
Keep it up! 🙃

PenandPaperScience