Tower and Town, May 2018 (view the full edition)Reality Of The ElusiveNot many things could claim to be born at the dawn of time. Yet my story begins in the heat of the beginning when "everything" was squeezed to an infinitesimal point. Suddenly, Big Bang, I found myself in a vast emptiness invisibly hurtling at the speed of light itself for 13 billion years. Moreover, as you are now reading these words, billions of my fellows are penetrating the page and emerging at an antipode, (corresponding opposite side of the Earth). I must have by now got you wondering. Well, I am the neutrino, an elementary sub-atomic particle, born at the Big Bang which started this universe. I am described as elusive because I am very hard to detect as I have extremely small mass and no electrical charge. This means that it is very rare for me to interact; and hence according to my reality this page, you, and earth itself are nothing but emptiness. We harmless neutrinos are readily produced by a radioactive decay process of atomic nuclei, and hence we are copiously produced by the sun, other stars, nuclear reactors, rocks, and (wait for it) YOU! In fact some of the neutrinos produced just now by traces of radioactivity from potassium and calcium in your bones and teeth will be crossing the distant boundaries of the solar system in a few hours' time. Raik Jarjis |