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Nuclear weapons are the most terrifying invention of humanity. Could our genius to create such weapons also end them? Today we explore how neutrinos could be used to do just that, fizzling out nukes anywhere on Earth and with no defense.
Written & presented by Prof. David Kipping, edited by Jorge Casas. Special thanks to Sam Gregson ( / @badboyofscience ) for fact checking.
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REFERENCES
► The IceCube Collaboration 2023, "Observation of high-energy neutrinos from the Galactic plane", Science, 380, 1338: arxiv.org/abs/2307.04427
► Sugawara et al. 2003, "Destruction of Nuclear Bombs Using Ultra-High Energy Neutrino Beam", arXiv:hep-ph/0305062: arxiv.org/abs/hep-ph/0305062
► King 1999, "Potential Hazards from Neutrino Radiation at Muon Colliders", Proceedings of the 1999 IEEE Particle Accelerator Conference. 29 Mar - 2 Apr 1999, New York, New York. 18th IEEE Particle Accelerator Conference, p.318-320: arxiv.org/abs/physics/9908017
► Silagadze 2008, "SETI and muon collider", Acta Physica Polonica B, 39, 2943: arxiv.org/abs/0803.0409
THANK-YOU to D. Smith, M. Sloan, L. Sanborn, C. Bottaccini, D. Daughaday, A. Jones, S. Brownlee, N. Kildal, Z. Star, E. West, T. Zajonc, C. Wolfred, L. Skov, G. Benson, A. De Vaal, M. Elliott, B. Daniluk, S. Vystoropskyi, S. Lee, Z. Danielson, C. Fitzgerald, C. Souter, M. Gillette, T. Jeffcoat, J. Rockett, D. Murphree, T. Donkin, K. Myers, A. Schoen, K. Dabrowski, J. Black, R. Ramezankhani, J. Armstrong, K. Weber, S. Marks, L. Robinson, S. Roulier, B. Smith, J. Cassese, J. Kruger, S. Way, P. Finch, S. Applegate, L. Watson, E. Zahnle, N. Gebben, J. Bergman, E. Dessoi, C. Macdonald, M. Hedlund, P. Kaup, C. Hays, W. Evans, D. Bansal, J. Curtin, J. Sturm, RAND Corp., M. Donovan, N. Corwin, M. Mangione, K. Howard, L. Deacon, G. Metts, R. Provost, B. Sigurjonsson, G. Fullwood, B. Walford, J. Boyd, N. De Haan, J. Gillmer, R. Williams, E. Garland, A. Leishman, A. Phan Le, R. Lovely, M. Spoto, A. Steele, K. Yarbrough, A. Cornejo, D. Compos, F. Demopoulos, G. Bylinsky, J. Werner, B. Pearson, S. Thayer, T. Edris, B. Seeley, F. Blood, M. O'Brien, P. Muzyka, D. Lee, J. Sargent, M. Czirr, F. Krotzer, I. Williams, J. Sattler, J. Smallbon, B. Reese, J. Yoder, O. Shabtay, X. Yao, S. Saverys, M. Pittelli, A. Nimmerjahn & C. Seay.
MUSIC
0:00 Stephen Keech - Fable
1:25 Brad Hill - It’s Always Darkest Before The Dawn
3:54 Brad Hill - World of Wonder
5:00 Chris Zabriskie - Music From Neptune Flux 04
7:46 Brad Hill - Arctic Warmth
10:36 Brad Hill - Northern Boards
13:25 Joachim Heinrich - Stjärna
14:58 Brad Hill - Fragile
CHAPTERS
0:00 Neutrinos
3:39 Incogni
5:08 Neutrino Factories
9:11 Applications
14:19 My Take
16:17 Outro & Credits
#nuclearwar #nuke #coolworlds
Thanks for watching everyone! I wanted to add a slight correction here on the video. At 3:12 I describe how IceCube took a neutrino image of the sky last year. This is true, it certainly did take such an image, but confusingly that is not the image shown at 3:12. Although I never started the image shown was the real neutrino photo, I certainly get how many assumed this was so. Instead, the image shown at 3:12 is an artist's embellished version of the real image, not the true one, adding in some more textures and details from the optical spectrum. The real image can be found in Figure 1 of arxiv.org/pdf/2307.04427.pdf if you want to see for yourself, which as stated in the video shows most of its emission coming from the galactic disk (as expected). 👍
The neutrino beam is nothing like a spotlight when it emerges from the Earth. The beam may still be collimated to a one meter spot but it will have been attenuated down to one ten millionth of the original intensity. Air gaps can defend against the hadron shower and refrigeration mitigates the heating effect. Using neutrinos to deplete the energy in an adversary's nuclear weapons would only bankrupt the attacker
Another topic as add on to this one is the possibility of natural cosmic events that generates beam of neutrinos. Did scientists consider the natural spike of neutrinos bombarding Earth and activating all 14K and 450 reactors in 24 hours.
Modern nuclear weapons do not have the explosives in contact with the core. The core is a double paraboloid egg shaped piece. The explosives are a shaped charge that turns a plane wave to shape that turns the parabolic shape to a sphere. The neutrons could trigger fission enough to disrupt the crystal structure by causing microscopic cracks so the core would shatter before it could properly implode. If I had my way with them. I would use the plutonium as a seasoning for small lightweight nuclear reactors excellent for driving an ion thruster on space probes or powering locomotives that could run around the clock for 3 decades or more. In these reactors, plutonium would be like the kindling and thorium or as it is natural uranium would be the log. They would generate more fuel as they react.❤
Copyright alert, channel Universe Shiner has stolen your Oumuamua video
I hate Synchrotrons in my muons, just sayin.
It sounds more like a death ray that just happens to destroy nuclear weapons too. Very cool video, and the science is fascinating but the implications are pretty scary.
Exactly what I was thinking. Sounds like it would melt about anything you point it at, not specific to nukes at all. I doubt it would be useful as a nuke destroyer anyway because you need to know every nukes exact location to the meter, and it would just destroy one at a time. And after the first two or three, that would be taken as a definite first attack and would likely warrant a nuclear response, or at least a conventional military response. Even if anyone doesn't know specifically who the aggressor were, which seems unlikely, a response of some sort would happen and it would at least ramp up aggression severely. More likely this would be used as an assassination tool, or used to target large facilities like uranium enrichment facilities or power plants.
Would it melt that entire path through the earth? The volcanoes!!!
@@rodschmidt8952 I doubt that it would inject enough thermal energy into the Earth (which is already mostly molten) to change geological processes on a large scale. Human civilization is not that high on the Kardashev scale yet. But if you hit a localized magma chamber that is either way close to going off, I wouldn't bet on no harm being caused. Hitting deposits of climate-relevant or toxic substances could be another risk.
@@rodschmidt8952 No, it passes through normal matter mostly unimpeded. I think the danger would just be to lifeforms (humans), and electronics.
@@kinderdm It doesn't melt things, it's more like an EMP beam. It would kill humans, fry electronics, and fissile nukes, but it leaves ordinary matter relatively untouched. Armor wouldn't provide any protection either as the neutrinos pass through it as if it wasn't there.
Imagine the potential for destabilization if your adversary became aware of how close you were getting (if you were unable to keep it a secret) to achieving the ability to neutralize their nuclear arsenal. The potential result might be... to make them conclude a first strike must be carried out BEFORE you had perfected the technology. It must be acknowledged that this is how some people actually think. So does pursuing this technology make us safer, or might it produce the opposite effect?
I think they would decide that their nuclear arsenal is obsolescent (indeed, that mutual assured destruction was itself an obsolescent concept) and either come up with even more dangerous weapons (like using the technology as a weapon rather than as an anti-weapon) or finding some way to resolve their differences, perhaps by both sides simultaneously developing this technology and thus creating a stalemate like existed in cold war 1. This stalemate would exist at least until one side developed new and more advanced technology, in which case the arms race continues all over again until one side either goes bankrupt or decides to go to war.
Only way to make it work is if you shared it with the world.
People still killed eachother by the tens of millions before nukes, we havent seen death on that scale since their invention, and if they disappear or are rendered inert we will see that agin im willing to bet
IR Realism is best understood in the context of Constructivism
Indefinite or infinite amount of future time where any number of things could trigger annihilation at any time, vs an increased risk of annihilation for a finite period of time, followed by total removal of nuclear suicide as an option, forever. Clearly, logically, the risk is worth it from a utilitarian and selfless point of view.
Love this channel! But everytime Ice Cube came up l, I kept thinking about Ice Cube the person and how hilarious it would be for Ice Cube to be the one guy able to detect neutrinos and him calling up CERN like we got another one. Sorry, I couldn't help it. Btw, Ice Cube, much like Cool Worlds, is a national treasure :)
Ya, but do it like he did in Tank Girl.
It's very important to note that large yield nuclear weapons are fusion bombs, which require precise ignition of the core to achieve fusion. "Fizzling" the fission trigger would not ignite the fusion reaction, so 3% of the yield (assuming this is accurate) is 3% of the fission yield, not the total yield. I don't know the fission yield of modern nuclear weapons, but even if it's enormous (100kT range), 3% is bunker-buster scale, not city-destroyer scale. You are, however, converting the nuclear weapon into a dirty bomb, with all of the nasty consequences that entails.
This is the part where the authors admit they have no idea what would happen
@@CoolWorldsLablets test it!
@@rizkyadiyanto7922 We can test it on the Moon. 😛
@@rizkyadiyanto7922 If you can supply the nuclear explosives for testing, I will commit to providing a neutrino generator in the proper range. Deal?
@@CoolWorldsLab A question - the neutrino beam as I understand it can be emitted to any direction along the plane of the particle accelerator ring. If the ring been build like regular particle accelerator, with ring plane horizontal, how could targets on the other side of the earth be targeted? That would require the ring to be tilted relatively to the ground?
I had this idea last year as a fantasy concept. Someone develops a neutrino beam in their garage and manages to communicate with neutrino detection labs in another country by blinking with cherencov radiation in Morse code. Then he gets in trouble with the government and the world enters a panic trying to conceal the locations nuclear warheads and dumpsites for nuclear waste. Had no idea someone came up with a genuine concept all the way back in 2003. Pretty neat!!!
What about Neutrons instead, make a device that produces a neutron beam that can fire from a satellite and reach a nuke with such intensity to make any nuke explode while in a stored state... If this were combined with detecting nuke locations disarmament would be necessary. Neutrons are pretty penetrating.
Wow. I hope your doing something good with that big brain if yours. Seriously. 😊
Why the fear for nuclear WASTE sites? Spent fuel needs to be refined again to be able to chain react, so that would be literally wasting energy to throw away your enemy's garbage.
According to some extra terrestrial researchers the aliens who are here, already possess technology that can neutralize a nuke. I am sure that some of you have heard or read the stories from many years ago about how the USSR and USA claiming something similar to the above. I can't quite remember but there was the story of USSR that one of their nukes (I can't remember if lost the nuke or they could not retrieve the lost nuke) but it was in danger of kaboom and those in the know spoke with the aliens and they came to help.
That would have to be one gigantic garage...
I've seen this in sci-fi. In the form of N-Jammers in Gundam Seed. Used for the exact purpose of neutralizing Nuclear weapons.
Thats interesting
I've heard about people like you. You sit around all dam day watching cartoons. On an unrelated note, that Amuro Ray White Unicorn Gundam profile pic is pretty cool.... And no I don't know that obscure image cause I sit around all day watching anime since 1968........ I swear. "0_o"
Gundam is the best!
@@diGritz1I think that final sentence might be untruth
THATS WHY IM HERE!
I felt your plea for world peace at the end there 😥 reminds me of a quote by the Dalai Lama I have framed on my wall: " World Peace must develop from inner peace. Peace is not just mere absence of violence. Peace is the manifestation of human compassion." 🤲🕊🌎
Or as Sting said "There is no political solution, for our troubled evolution. We are spirits in the material world."
Cool
I feel this is more likely to be used as the ultimate stealth assassination weapon rather than as an anti-nuke
Setting off Geiger counters for miles around the target at the same time the collider generates a giant heat bloom isn't stealthy
@@shanent5793 yeah but it's impossible to detect it until after the targets skin is already peeling off, and also impossible to actually figure out where it came from. still seems fairly stealthy to me.
@@Deltexterity that's not how radiation poisoning works and the attack would leave a trail of radiation pointing straight to the source
@@shanent5793 keep in mind it’s enough radiation to get 300 degrees hot. also the trail is through the fucking earth, it doesn’t give much information.
One of the best channels out there
why?
@@Ezekiel903Because that’s how he feels about the channel. Do you really want him to explain or are you just being argumentative?? And yeah as science channels go, I happen to agree. This channel is fantastic.
@@burtbackattack no, just curious, you know Anton Petrov? he doesn't use this graphic, so many are bored, but his scientific videos are top notch! it seems people like more graphic illustration and a spectacular title, like how we can and nukes! although we know that's impossible
@@burtbackattack i'm asking you, is it the way he present the content, the illustration?
@@Ezekiel903 illustration help those who aren't scientifically literate to understand. why did you assume we don't watch anton because we're bored? did you ask anyone about this, or did you just jump into that conclusion, unchallenged?
Reminds me of part of a book called brainwave, nukes were rendered obsolete by the creation of shields, so there was a race to nuke the people creating these shields. The strike fortunately was thwarted by these shields. It's quite a good book.
Sounds like it could be an ultimate weapon, capable of destroying anyone or any object anywhere on Earth and beyond through exposure to massive radiation like a laser dot going through everything to the target. Someone who controls this muon collider, can delete anyone, anything anywhere at anytime and noone can do anything about it. Great future guys, looking forward to it.
but at what cost?
@@paulgoogol2652 One million dollars.
Except this weapon is completely stationary and small issues at any point in it would stop the function of the entire thing. So unless it is very well concealed its a huge sitting duck
@@haydenj4738 This^ the assumption that such a weapon could function if so long as a targeting beacon or similar method is locked onto the nuclear weapons in question can also apply to the beam launcher itself - and I bet you that if an ICBM was launched at the collider complex, they will have no way of practically firing it at the warhead unless someone makes a 100km-long TEL for the thing
@@ontheruntonowhere An 'evil' petting zoo...?
May the day come when old soldiers and scientists like me find a way for humanity to lay aside war and step forward into a brighter future. It is a Fool's hope, but those who dare win.
One can dream, though. One can dream....
It's absolutely possible.
The reality of the situation is we likely need to become a post-scarcity species to ascend beyond war. Probably around type-2 status. The finite nature of our small rock & the uncertainty of tomorrow makes humans very competitive. If humanity can get to the point where it feels like it has enough & tomorrow is guaranteed, then that day I believe the question of war will finally be asked seriously. Humanity as a collective will ask “is this worth it?” And I hope the answer then is no.
Soliders? Maybe scientists, but scientists aren't trying to achieve peace through war. Seems oxymoronic. The point of a soldier is to fight, and while science can certainly be used for bad, idk if it makes sense to put soldier and scientist side by side in an appeal for them to "lay aside war", most science and scientists aren't participating in any war, except maybe the war on ignorance.
I think it's about how societies distribute power. So much control and power is given to those at the top who'd rather choose war and use the insights from scientists for bad rather than good.
I very much appreciated the end of the video, I rarely comment but I was planning to say that the escalation of mean of destruction is not how you stop destruction, you just created more tool to do so great video as always
With all due respect I feel that's a bit wishful. In theory it sounds nice, and I fully support a world where we learn Love of each other. But in practical, real world terms, philosophy doesn't stop bullets. A superior method of destruction is, in actual practice, the only way we currently have to stop destruction.
In the 1950s, a typical computer was the size of a house... today, a typical computer is faster and more powerful than in the 1950s and can be held in your hand. Man will find a way to minimize the size. Another example is Directed Energy Beam Weapons carried around in large 747 aircrafts to a regular pickup truck.... As usual, great video, brother.
Your phone is more powerful than every computer on earth in 1975 or so.
I mean, there's also the fact that as a large, expensive, and time-consuming project that would be impossible to conceal the existence of, such a collider would immediately give incentive for a pre-emptive strike against its constructor before it could be completed, thus causing the very thing it sought to prevent. And that fact is compounded by presumably needing to build a new collider for each target, or otherwise having some sort of method of directing the beam to any arbitrary direction.
That was solid of you to shout out your friend’s channel. I’ll definitely be checking him out.
This has been your most thought provoking video that I have watched. Thank you.
Cool unique concept, haven't heard of it before, thanks for the video!
One could also use a neutrino beam to perform neutrino tomography of Earth and other planets to “x-ray” the target planet and thereby map the interior structure of the plant, including the locations of now-hidden ore bodies in the planet’s crust. The best way to do this would be an orbiting muon collider producing the beam along with an orbiting detector satellite.
Can't thank you enough for making these videos. Truly appreciated by every single person who watches your channel ❤
Just have The Red Witch say; "No more nukes"....
You,sir,never fail to amaze me ,bravo !!
I think this is the most valuable video you have produced yet. Phucking genius!
There is a much more practical approach to destroy nukes: By a diffraction-limit collimated and moderated neutron beam. Moderation is crucial, because speed determines the distance of interaction with matter. The higher the speed, the lesser are interactions. And collimation is required to get a sufficient energy density to deposit enough energy in the weapon's core made from ²³⁹Pu to transmute this material with atomic masses 240…244. Core material below about 94% purity is no longer considered as «weapons grade» plutonium, since it deflagrates instead of detonating. Enough neutrons to transmute about 6% of the ²³⁹Pu-isotopes can be easily created from a Farnsworth-Hirsch Fusor (D-T-fusion neutrons with 14.1 MeV. Now comes the critical part: Since neutrons don't have an electrical charge, there are other means required to collect, moderate and collimate these. Yes, we have the means to do it. At least on a military level within the US-DOD.
If you're talking about covertly transmuting dozens of grams of Pu239, per weapon, into heavier isotopes, without causing any serious side effects, at range, through layers of shielding, at a pace faster than watching grass grow...that doesn't sound even vaguely practical. Creating the neutron beam isn't the real hurdle here either; even with the ideal tool, you'd have to get very close to the target then calculate and fire a very precise dose (to account for the losses in whatever medium you're firing through and whatever shielding is present), over a protracted period of time (unless you just want to melt the target), without being detected or intercepted. I don't think the neutrino attack is very practical either, but the key advantage that spawned the idea, which is totally absent from anything that needs to rely on much larger neutrons, is the ability to attack targets at huge distances, through any obstruction. The technical hurdles with the neutrino beam are immense and the utility of the end result highly dubious, but at least the attack could be carried out without unrestricted intimate access to the targeted weapons.
Fission was discovered by the ability to generate a neutron beam in the 1930s. Given nearly 100 years of technological development since, the ability to create a suitable neutron beam should exist. A sufficiently intense pulse should trigger a nuclear explosion.
@@morbadthworst8148 Shielding does not stop a fast neutron beam. Conveniently, you can measure the correct energy. Target a piece of ²³⁹Pu with a fast neutron beam, then decrease the speed, until you get a neutronic answer, when the arriving neutrons have reached thermal velocity. Now, you know the deceleration rate of the particular shielding. Furthermore, you don't have to wait for a long time, because Hirsch-Farnsworth Fusors can easily produce a neutron lux of about 0.5 mole/sec. That means, every second, about 12…15g of the core can be transmuted. Contemporary subcritical Pu-Pits have masses of about 300…500g.
They used to put early versions of the neutron bomb atop Nike missiles back in the 1960's for this very purpose.
@@nicolasolton To ignite a nuke to prevent a nuclear explosion from an other nuke is neither a logical, nor sensible manner to deactivate a bomb.
If a neutrino is generated at the cosmological event horizon, travels over here, could it be effectively slowed to rest by cosmological expansion, so that we would accumulate basically a gas of low speed neutrinos swirling around with gravity?
why would it be slowed down by expansion of space? it will travel longer but keep its speed (of light).
The neutrino is massive, so doesn't travel at the speed of light: "The neutrino is so named because it is electrically neutral and because its rest mass is so small (-ino) that it was long thought to be zero." en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutrino Light is red shifted by the expansion of the universe and loses energy, maintains its speed because it is massless: "Since radiation redshifts as the universe expands" en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expansion_of_the_universe Likewise the neutrino's energy and speed would be knocked down by universal expansion.
Neutrinos can be slowed, the problem is that with such low masses even very low energies make them behave more like radiation.That is, the 'band' where enough slowing will occur tends to be quite narrow. Even the Cosmological Neutrino Background isn't expected to behave like a cool gas.
@@garethdean6382 thanks, makes sense en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_neutrino_background
Another quite excellent presentation! - great work!
I learned a couple of things. Thank you, sir!
2 aliens are talking in outer space, looking down on Earth. "It seems the inhabitants of planet Earth have created nuclear technology and missiles" says one alien " are they showing signs of intelligence?" asks the other "I dont think so. They seem to be aiming at themselves"
As I recall, there have been a few cases (classified ofc) of UFOs/UAPs hovering over nuclear missile silos for a short while, after which the nuke(s) in the missiles were found to have 'fizzled', but without igniting anything.
@@silvergreylion pure pseudoscience hogwash.
@silvergreylion do you have any good resources to find more information on this?
@@haydenj4738 In today's world, you really have to pick and choose the sources you believe, because there is a lot of disinformation now. Sadly, I can't remember where I read it. Probably on some website in the 2000's, that's no longer online. I'm not really sure which sources to recommend anymore. Also, I see there are stories about this on various websites now, but with the story having changed to the missiles' electronics being disabled instead. I consider that part disinformation.
@silvergreylion if you have tried to respond I think I got a notification but when I clicked on it nothing showed up, something about a fourth attempt
I absolutely love your channel! I have learned more from you than I ever did from every science teacher I ever had combined
It’s one of the best science channels on KZhead.
Many thanks for your videos. And congratulations on your recent success in gaining Webb time! The moment you mentioned "collimated" I immediately thought "laser/maser".
How about muon-catalyzed fusion power generation? Arthur C. Clark used that as his power source for the interplanetary spacecraft in his Space Odyssey Quadrilogy.
"Straight through the entire planet and trigger a shower of hadrons on the other side" ...and a shower of hadrons all the way through the planet as well.
would that have any effect though? I dont think its strong enough to exit the earth sideways at any meaningfull power and i also dont think a 1m² beam would do anything to the core. But im still interested
I feel like if you particle beam is activating a nuclear weapon through 4000km of compressed silicate mantle its probably doing something meaningful to that mantle as well. Nothing we'd have to worry about, but basically flipping neutrons and protons randomly and creating a slightly more radioactive column of material, that would then continue to move very slowly for millions of years to come and have no measurable impact on us.
Thankfully, nobody is living there, aside from the lizard people in the Hollow Earth.
@@danielgrayling5032 You mean something like this? kzhead.info/sun/astwZ7uGbaGYnmw/bejne.html
@@johannageisel5390 Don't you hate when you try to prevent a nuclear war but you set off the lizard invasion
🤔...I don't see why you would need to expose the nuke so long it went off. I would think several shorter exposures could keep the temps below the detonation point while still salting the fissionable material to point of uselessness. Spread the exposures out over a long enough period your adversary may not even be able to detect you did it. You could even build the massive Muon collider supposedly for purely scientific purposes and then quietly go about disarming everyone's nukes with it.... And or to continue the James bond/Doctor Evil theme you could build the collider underground on Luna Using Starship and the Boring Company's tunneling machine. The distance from and rotation of the Earth would make targeting a Neutrino beam much simpler. Building a Lunar City would be the perfect cover to hide the collider's construction cost and existence.
They would certainly detect it. The hadron shower would set off every radiological alarm around the target. If access to outer space has gotten to the point where we can build such machines on the moon, then it is trivial to put the nukes in orbit where they can't be reached by this attack
@@shanent5793 IDK they would certainly detect it. Nuclear weapons' are very stable items they don't give off any meaningful radiation that people managing them have any reason to possess equipment to monitor radiation levels in real time... Of course if someone had a giant nuke disabling weapon they would probably start monitoring radiation levels. So i guess that would be a good reason build such a device in secret. Which is why I floated the moon as a build site. Both a lunar city and Muon collider capable of disabling nukes seem like they will be technically possible in the same time frame. If some nation wanted to put their nukes in space (A) there is a treaty preventing that. (B) Putting them in orbit would make them even easer to target with a neutrino beam. As far as access to space goes Because we have SpaceX the US could have the ability to build massive structures on Luna and beyond in as soon as 10 years. The rest of the world probably needs more like a minimum of 50 years after the US gains that ability. In which case the US is looking at a 50 to maybe a 150 year gap where humanity will be moving out into the solar system and the US will be in position to dictate the terms of how that happens. Taking away the rest of the world's nukes could be useful to the US as they assert their monopoly in off world expansion.
Honestly the idea of this beam that can shoot through the whole planet is a terrifying idea for a weapon. Imagine having that kind of weapon, you could strike anywhere, and no one would know what the hell happened, nor be able to blame anyone. It could be dismissed as a freak of a nature, or of unknown cosmic causes, it's just a coincidence that the capital city of that country you don't like every one started getting sick and/or cooking.
To COOL WORLDS : Thank you for this video. Yet ,another exceptional piece with technical and emotional revelling. You're great!!
Damn, I'm speechless.
Say some leader is giving a speach live and this is aimed at their podium. What would happen?
Not fun things. The energy output of Great Britain, pointed and focused on a podium. Not good for the prime minister of UK’s health 😆
Somewhat surprisingly, not mass destruction, merely the destruction of any mass nearby.
Basically this is killing a weapon by creating an even deadlier weapon. Plus won't work for nuclear subs, because even they don't totally know where they are half the time.
@@thedeadmoneyallstars Isn't destruction of mass, mass destruction?
Speech, not speach, nutsack.
You were a voice of calm and wonder for me during the pandemic. That continues long past.
I think I remember a short story by Frank Herbert where during a war a soldier invents a type of energy field that destroys all types of munitions and explosives and could be used over an unlimited range. The story ended with the idea that countries would simply revert to melee weapons or weapons that don’t rely on chemical or other such reactions. Still a good idea though if it could end weapons we could use to destroy ourselves. Perhaps it’s us that need to change though rather than our weapons. The deadliest weapon on this planet is perhaps the human brain.
The Trigger by Arthur C Clarke
@@encyclopath perhaps the two stories have similar themes. But It was definitely a Frank Herbert story as it was from a Frank Herbert anthology I bought too many years ago.
I only know of Frank Herbert’s Dune. But in dune they use predominantly melee weapons because the interaction between shields and lase guns (very long light sabers) creates a nuclear explosion. The movies don’t talk about this much, but in the Dune universe, lase guns are basically banned for this reason, and what’s left is swords and knives.
@@tacticalgrace6456 yeah, you’re right, The Trigger ended with the technology being used to target individual DNA molecules. It wasn’t neutrino based, but a new hypotheticsl type of physics called “resonance”
You may have mixed something up. These are basically the shields from Dune, which are only penetrable for slow moving objects (e.g. melee weapons) and trigger a nuclear explosion when being hit with a laser.
Destroying ourselves, mainly a sentiment to try and level the playing-field, sprouts only forth because of individual exceptionalism. For many, our parents and society imprints on its children they are precious and special, but when reality hits, some are not ready to accept and face the fact that none of us really are, or, we and everything around us are. The biggest problem therefore is education and bringing up kids, as well as a systems that favors the few at the cost of the many. They both create and enforce these base sentiments and prevents humanity from soaring and thriving as it could and should.
Loved the video but did anything think the pacing was a bit fast in this video i.e., sped up?
Am I missing something? The key here is you know where all the nukes are, and that's already impossible because of nuclear submarines -- the whole point of them being that they're mostly untraceable so your adversary can never eliminate all your nukes with a first strike. All nuclear powers already move some portion of their nukes around randomly with submarines, train cars with hidden launchers, etc. Neutrino beams would bring the timelines for first strikes down from minutes to seconds, but this tech wouldn't affect second strike capabilities at all.
So true. We need to learn how to care for our fellow human more than just building a Death Star
Yet what if our fellow human chooses not to care for us? Then a Death Star comes in handy.
Guess this is another reason why ballistic missile submarines are the best deterrent
I keep arguing this point to a few people on here that think land based Hypersonic nukes some how tip the MAD balance or counter the nuclear triade. Between MERVs and subs wiith huge nuclear arsenals hypersonic weapons are a wasted effort for nuclear payloads. They have some value in traditional weapons though.
For now. The thing is even if stealth stops working nuclear subs will likely still be able to hide via distraction and overwhelming signal. We can only wait and see where things go. Under water is one of the largest accessible areas on the earth where things can hide. Under ground is even worse because it's stationary regardless, even if it's as deep as a submarine
How does one deter a mad man ?
We may also be able to use neutrino detectors to spot nuclear weapons anywhere. The danger of course is that even getting near a defence against nuclear weapons could spark a nuclear war. Not in all cases though eg if the technology developed at an equal rate on both sides.
@@budgiefriendSure, a truly 100% irrational actor could never be deterred, appeased or bargained with, only destroyed. Luckily most governments are acting under some sort of logic that we can understand, even if it's faulty. Nuclear deterrence hasn't failed yet.
God I love your videos. They sometimes provide hope but they always provoke thought. Keep it up, the world needs more people like you.
Nice idea. BUT: I have just solved, how to save nuclear weapons: It’s called a submarine. That’s because submarines don’t stay still, and their location tends to be pretty stealthy. The same is also true of aircraft, and to a limited degree: Mobile nukes. So the Neutrino Beam is only game over for silo based missiles + any warheads in known storage. But it is NOT game over for nuclear weapons, or therefore a response to any nation, that attacks with a neutrino beam. Nonetheless its a very cool concept that I had never heard of, and am glad to now know about. For sure such a facility could be justified in military terms, only to be actually used for peaceful research.
We need more people like you in this world.
Certainly food for thought: I remember a Dan Dare story in the Eagle Comic from the 1950's,. A futuristic spaceship flew over and ancient battlefield, turned on a super-strong electromagnet and lifted all the metal weapons out of the hands of the combatants. Would be great if an intervener could do that to all our nukes!
In such a case, a country with more soldiers and sharper wooden sticks would win. As Nanjing massacre has clearly demonstrated, genocide does not require sophisticated weapons.
Wow, your videos are so moving and inspiring, I truly love them👌👏👏
Oh boy, messing with the nukes game theory will be a wild ride... On such a large footprint, who's to say the adversary won't be inclined to consider this construction as a preparation for attack, and react?
Always a pleasure to watch your thought provoking videos.♥️
The knowledge required is not scientific but metaphysical one.... since justice, love and meaning are metaphysical truths.
Thank you for mentioning bad boy science channel, always on the lookout for smaller channels cast aside by algorithm will start consuming his content asap
Yup - great conclusion. BTW, it would be nice if you included not only article citations and music credits, but also credits for video snippets you used. I would very much like to know where is the one around 9:50 from. And thanks for pointing us to _Bad Boy of Science._
Video credits should be in the bottom right of the B roll elements
@@CoolWorldsLab Thanks, but I don't see them. I recognized a very short clip from one of the later _Star Wars_ movies several seconds earlier, but not that at 9:50.
How come Ice Cube has a observatory named after him ... I didn't know he is into astrophysics 😅😅
That neutrino beam sounds like a very good explanation for the radioactive Earth in Isaac Asimov's books.
Fascinating, this is like the 'real' laser. Apparently, in air, actual nanometer lasers are not effective over distance. Think anti-drone, anti electro magnetic weapon, they will never work with lasers... but neutrino lasers.... that could melt drones right out of the sky regardless if its smoky or dusty.
Yup. But only those drones that fly in the plane of the accelerator itself.
Glad we have something to look forward to once this technology is utilized
Consider me a skeptic. I don't understand how a 50km diameter collider could be aimed at more than two stationary points on the Earth's surface. Even if it can be aimed in any direction, it could destroy only one nuke at a time (assuming the enemy keeps their nukes separated) and the destruction of one nuke would license the enemy to nuke the collider before it can destroy any more. Also, if you have the access to plant "homing" transponders on the enemy's mobile nukes, then you also have enough access to destroy them with conventional explosives such as C4. Finally, I don't believe a 50km diameter collider could be built in secret, and if its design could threaten a well-armed enemy, they wouldn't permit it to be completed without an acceptable design change.
You'd steer the beam the same way a CRT TV would steer electrons to the screen: after you got the muons up to speed you'd send them past a series of magnets that would turn the beam by a variable amount and then let them fly straight in that direction as they decay and produce the neutrinos. So long as the target is very far away, a single degree of redirection could shift the target position by hundreds of kilometers. While a single accelerator would still be limited to hitting targets in a certain region, an accelerator complex could have a single common accelerator that outputs to different tar getting lenses directed at different regions. Though the point of being able to destroy nukes anywhere on Earth refers more to the idea that this technique could be used to target a nuke anywhere, ie nowhere is inherently safe, as opposed to it can target everywhere. Indeed, being geographically limited might be a blessing - if you can prove that your anti-nuke device can only be used against say North Korea, then other nuclear powers whose nukes are sufficiently far from North Korea might not take pre-emptive steps to stop you from building it. Also when he says "james bond planting a homing transmitter" he just means espionage. You don't need a homing device on the nuke, you just need to determine its location. For example if you can find a missile silo, and you know the approximate dimensions of the missile, then you know where the warhead is. Locating nukes to within a few meters is difficult, but certainly not impossible.
>mojojoko : 1. The diagram in the video shows the collider's neutrino beams emitted in only two directions: inline with the two long straight sides of the "oval-shaped" collider. 2. The homing transmitters mentioned in the video were said to be a way to target _mobile_ nukes. (They wouldn't be needed to target missiles in immobile silos.) It's silly to think it would solve the problem of nuke mobility.
@@brothermine2292Yes, and those long straight sections can be pointed in any direction.
>mojojoko : How can the long straight sides of a 50km underground oval be reoriented?
@@brothermine2292Again, magnetic steering. You don't need to move the accelerator, you only need to reorient the beam within it. Think of cars moving along an oval race track - a car could go straight down the middle of the straight sections, or it could move from the outside to the inside lane, so the direction the car is moving can be at an angle to the track and that angle can be varied.
"If we want to live our lives in peace without such existential threats looming over us then the answer is not going to be found in some scientific paper or invention. The innovation required is not technical. It's in how we interact with each other." We're screwed.
Individuals are screwed and it could be any of us next. But most of us alive now will *probably* escape nuclear annihilation or similar human-caused extinction. But the next generation might not be so lucky. And the one after that less likely still. Human civilization as a whole is unlikely to survive another dozen generations. Peaceful coexistence is not getting any closer. And our capability to end it increases every day. In the large sense we are certainly screwed as you say. Hopefully it's a flaw in our evolution and doesn't apply to every civilization in the universe, provided that are others.
We can destroy nuclear weapons by creating a much more powerful weapon. Does that comfort anyone at all?
@@CheatOnlyDeath I was mostly joking. I don't think we will or even could completely extinct ourselves with nukes. We could certainly reduce the global population to a tiny fraction of what it currently is. We could do that with ease. But there's gonna be some holdouts here and there who manage to survive and repopulate. Killing every last human would be a lot harder than you think.
You destroy the first nuclear weapon. Your adversary won't wait for you to destroy the rest.
unless you make a beam so big, you destroy all of them at the same time. can't fire them if they all blow simultaneously.
This reminds me of Gundam Seed, a world where they did just this and developed a weapon system that renders all nuclear devices useless. The only thing that resulted from that was humanity creating new and terrifying ways to commit mass destruction
I understood every bit of this , I did , honestly.
That silly clock will be the cause of the annihilation. What happens if it goes to 0? Will the leaders feel obliged to then let their arsenals go?
11:48 Nuclear bombs are delicate pieces of equipment which require periodic specialized maintenance; therefore, each nuclear power has only a handful of places where they keep their arsenal. Their location is well known and monitored by adversaries, with the exception of those ICBS on submarines hidden somewhere in the global ocean, but that's usually a small subset of nuclear weapons. Satellite monitoring can also give indications that an opponent is preparing to launch their ICBMs. I that case, such a neutron beam could be used to neutralize the nukes before they even leave the ground. If you could aim it, then you could even target the missiles in flight. Once a missile is launched it's impossible to for it to hide, and there's no way it could evade the beam. This would be a fantastic missile shield. The only limitation here is how fast can such a thing fire and how accurate can it track a supersonic object through the surface of the earth. It would require some impressive computing to make it work.
I have nightmares about witnessing a nuclear bomb going off above the Appalachian mountains where I happen to live. I'm outside star gazing like the dork that I am and then.......BOOM a bright white flash. I instantly know what has caused it (because I'm a dork and I've been fascinated with nukes since I was a small child) and then I wake up terrified! Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk 😁
it's sad that we could be the hand of our own destruction.
Its the whole purpose of this simulation
The ability to destroy yourself is the most fundamental aspect of agency over yourself and your life.
It's been that way for almost 70 years now... Ever since the MAD Doctrine was coined during the 1960s... Indeed, some scientists hypothesize that the reason why our galaxy isn't teaming with Life, is because a lot of them might have blown themselves to bits, over petty arguments and differences in ideologies... Anyway, never forget that... Ultimately... It's down to US! Wen need to ensure, in Democratic systems at least, that we vote in those for whom War Itself is asinine! And conversely vote against those who glorify War... And seek to increase defence budgets, even at the cost of their own citzens. Last I checked, America spends almost a TRILLION dollars annually on defence spending alone! Can you imagine what we could achieve, if say, NASA had just an additional FRACTION of that colossal amount?! We'd have a Moon base in no time! So yeah... Education is the KEY! The more of us that are educated, the less risk we would have in blowing ourselves to bits!!!
Or impressive
@@Tenderbitswho's to say that's a good thing?....But then again how do you define "good"😳😵💫
This would just be creating something even worse than nukes though. I'm fascinated and ready for the journey, but that actually sounds more dangerous rather than a safe alternative.
This principle would make a damn decent premise for a sci fi / espionage movie.
In some type II supernovae the rebounding core doesn't have enough energy to unbind the star. The enormous high-energy neutrino flux slamming into the upper layers of the star does ("Jason Kendall" channel's "Core-Collapse Supernovae" video.)
Interesting the moment i heard the use of neutrinos against Atomic bombs and fusion i did remember something. In the Anime Mobile Suit Gundam SEED after a nuklear attack they invent something what they call N-Jammer out of fear for more nukes. They even drive hundreds of them into the soil of the earth because they produce nearly all electricity via nuklear fusion and with this all energy was gone till the invention of the N-Jammer Canceller. Its strangely fitting :P
It's possible to shield against such an attack. The hadron shower isn't collimated or focused so its effect can be attenuated by the inverse square law. Since the shower develops in the soil between the neutrino source and the target, placing the weapon in the middle of a large, otherwise empty chamber would make the attack ineffective. Boring tunnels in the direction of potential neutrino sources is also an effective defense. Placing them in orbit is another defense, especially effective because of the arbitrarily long vacuum that can be placed between the weapon and the source.
Ooooh, neutrino focused-energy weapons, very exotic. Beats an anti-matter bomb that'd blow a chunk of the Earth to pure energy or neutron bombs.
'We live in the best of times & the blurst of times!?' 'Stupid ChatGPT!' :)
To address the risk of destabilization leading up to the completion of such weapons, it's rather likely that the true purpose of such a device would not be knowable, let alone be openly theorized by the public, because the science behind it has not been published. Just look at how the world did not care when Europe developed the LHC at CERN. Also, how do you direct such a high energy beam? The change in velocity vector must be enormous.
That's the idea behind using muons, they're heavier so the velocities don't have to be so high
That ending was haunting
Woah, this is different direction.
Knowing the history of the world, the creation of such a weapon is inevitable and another way we will destory ourselves at the joy of potential visitors.
One particle or stream of energy theory would nicely fit in with quantum physics. Only one particle or stream of energy theory can explain spooky action at a distance! It also explains the limit to the speed of light. It also fits in with dark matter as perhaps neutral matter, or matter without a positive or negative charge. But that one particle or stream of energy would only exist within our observable universe, and not the entire Universe.
Attacking the enemies nuclear weapons with our own nuclear weapons has been a topic of nuclear war strategy since 1950. I thought the best concept was the orbital X-ray laser sats. It is all sci-fi till somebody actually does it. So the atomic bomb in 1914, HG Wells, was also science fiction.
Ur videos are great an u also made me a fan of Hill too. Guy who does some of the music in the videos for people who dont know.
Yep. I’ve wondered about this too and I’m not even a scientist.
I'll admit that I'm a bit of a space nerd. Because of it, I've taken up playing the space game, Elite Dangerous. There's not a second that goes by while I'm playing that I don't think of you. That game would be nowhere if it wasn't for Exomoons. Point that out to the people with JWST.
The antineutrinos generated from the tritium decay would be a very bright source since each nuke has about 3.5g of tritium, 45kCi worth. The only brighter sources would be nuclear reactors and cobalt 60 sources. Interesting enough beta decay generates an antineutrino while electron capture generates neutrinos. The first step of stellar fusion generates neutrinos by quantum tunneling where a proton captures an electron and becomes a neutron generating a neutrino in the process.
Thank you for the great video.
Basically, this means we can build a scary death ray (as if lasers weren’t enough)…maybe eventually a Death Star…but I have no clue how gravity works on Death Star. 😊
"The nuclear arms race is like two sworn enemies standing waist deep in gasoline, one with three matches, the other with five."-Carl Sagan
Never heard the quote before, but damn, Sagan always so on point.
I think most nuclear powers would be sensitive to and aware of such a development. I can imagine it being a lucrative pre-war target for all sorts of 'things.'
It would really excite me if you create a documentary.
If someone solves high temp superconductivity and we are able to make superconducting magnets at high temp how would it change the the sizes of the colliders you proposed? Can we estimate what a high temp superconductivity breakthrough would do for superconductive wires or magnets if anything.
The single biggest “excuse” is the need to have the means to deter subjugation by extortion by a power with these weapons. It might be mad to have nuclear weapons, but not having them means those who do can use that against you.
Very useful if the muon beam could be focussed on destroying planet destroying comets or meteors, especially if they could produce enough heat to shatter them. Not sure how they would work with ice or iron. As for such a large Collider it is putting all the eggs in one basket so smaller ones might allow smaller beaks to target a focal point rather than a single beam.
Thank you!
5:24 - 5:30 what exactly was that a video of? What were we watching take place? (Referring to the light blue circle surrounded by darkness) by the way I really love how you include the names of other KZhead video creators, it’s always fun to check out new videos and people who create more interesting content, and I have to admit you’re one of my top favorites, there are very few people who make better content than you! Veritasium is another one of my favorites.
For every attack, there is a defense or, at least, a counter-attack.
Love this channel and wait with baited breath for each upload! Great video! Ty!
Bated not baited
@CoolWorldsLab, Could Starlink (or a similar mega constellation) be used as an orbital colliminated Sun Gun? In 1929, the German physicist Hermann Oberth developed plans for a space station from which a 100-metre-wide concave mirror could be used to reflect sunlight onto a concentrated point on the earth. Imagine that instead of a vast individual mirror, hundreds of low cost reflectors could in theory be synchronized to concentrate solar irradiance and aim it at a target. Could such a hypothetical vast mega-constellation (like Starlink), each individually fitted with low cost reflectors be used to shoot down ballistic missiles from space by concentrating their combined light on the projectile?
That's about the energy levels of nowdays modern Military UFOs.
Hope to see a Muon collider soon. I know Fermilab has been considering it. Whoever does this first will probably win the prize.