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The hyphens seemed more common, and "particle" lower-case seems more consistent with other particles, that's about as deep a reasoning as I have for this particular choice of name. Stan 06:29, 24 May 2004 (UTC)
BTW, this article demonstrates the evils of orphans; I remembered reading the first article, but had a terrible time finding it. Finally located it in the list of links to Salt Lake City. Stan 06:34, 24 May 2004 (UTC)
Would be a Micro black hole affected by the GZK limit? If not, here's your "best" suspect. --LF1975 (talk) 13:23, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
I think the use of fastball gives this piece a look as if it was a joke, can it be re-written slightly more formally? Cokehabit 12:17, 24 Feb 2005 (UTC)
If I have to use the sentence above - in particle physics I am one of those "joe off the street". However scientist tend to publish scientific jokes sometimes. Is this event confirmed by an independent source or it happened only for a short period in 1991 and only in particular region of Utah? The whole story and the name suggest more towards a joke. A real particle will not be only dubbed but will also be named. All the sources I was able to find through Google sooner or later go to fourmilab.ch. This is a site of an entusiast and not a scientific magazine (as it says in the faq - fermilab is in the other hemisphere). So please provide some verifiable sources. TIA, Goldie (tell me) 18:17, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
I think the article mentions something about a proton or so, never heard of this one...gotta be a joke. In good meaning, i recommend to first get acquainted "how to search the internet" -> google it up. Slicky 09:55, 28 February 2006 (UTC)
This is not a new _type_ of particle. This is an ordinary particle (either a proton or an atomic nucleus) moving at speeds more extreme than we've seen just about anything move at. Particles _moving in this manner_ are (whimsically) dubbed "oh-my-god particles". Whimsical naming in this manner is common in science. A relatively recent example is the "sonic hedgehog" gene in fruit flies (one of a series of "hedgehog" genes, named because they produce spiky-looking development defects), but even the names of the quarks show this (up, down, strange, charm, bottom, and top, with the last two formerly called "beauty" and "truth"). --Christopher Thomas 06:08, 1 March 2006 (UTC)
Definitely NOT a joke. The name "Oh-My-God" particle was clearly meant to be humorous, but there really have been detections of ultra high energy cosmic rays, which scientists are currently studying. See, for instance:
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/288/5469/1147a
http://prola.aps.org/abstract/PRD/v34/i5/p1622_1?qid=75ae0aca4f0202c0&qseq=15&show=10
-- tim314
Though these might be valid sources they all require payment:
Regardless whether it would be 1p or 1 million, I do not want to pay just to verify a scientific joke (or a nickname). So I still consider the information unconfirmed. For some reasons I am calling the proton a proton, and am not considering it a different particle than the ... proton. If those scientific journals state just a high-energy proton was detected, this whole article ought to be merged as a section at Proton. -- Goldie (tell me) 17:28, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
It still strikes me that people tend to rely on Google for counting but are reluctant to rely on counters for ... er, searching. Moreover using the stated ("oh my god particle" -wikipedia) search pattern produced here only 482 hits. As I am not accessing Google from China, the politically-correct filtering ought not to apply. It was even more weird to me that one of the first-page hits was derived from Wikipedia, was admitting the fact, but Google still have put it in the list. As few hundreds seemed to me still unmanageable I've ruled out "fourmilab" citations too and tried some one-by-one checks.
From what I've seen all references were rumors repeating the rumor (all that very famous John Walker article), and all was based on one-and-only observation! This article here is talking about "at least fifteen similar events confirming the phenomenon" but references do not show any!?! OTOH I've seen numerous theories about the particle type (an example: neutrino coliding to anti-neutrino and emitting some others) but the article is certain it "was" proton. If we look at Vela Incident article, it is talking about much easy verifyable matter but is employing much more cautious approach. Maybe some people understand the Oh My God Almighty and His particles much better than His creatures. -- Goldie (tell me) 11:48, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
"might be" valid sources? What are you suggesting, that I'm trying to trick you? You are clearly not a practicing physicist, or you would recognize the journals Science and the Physical Review. These are some of the most well known journals of physics (follow the links to their Wikipedia article if you don't believe me.) I appologize for the fact that access to scientific journals generally isn't free, but there's nothing I can do about that. Anyone who does have a subscription (which should be basically any practicing physicist) can easily verify that they are legit. (And if you can even get to the Abstracts for free, it seems to me this should be proof enough, given that they are located at the well-known domains of major scientific journals.) Trust me, this is a real subject of study, and not a joke.
As for the claim that it should be merged with proton, I'm afraid you are missing the point. The "Oh-My-God particle" isn't significant because it's a new kind of particle. It's significant as an old kind of particle with a shockingly high energy. The phenomenon is what's significant (and thus worthy of its own article), not the kind of particle. Similarly, if an amazing flying horse were discovered, it would make sense to give it its own article, not merely a section under horses. Tim314 00:40, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
Incidentally, Goldie, you may be having trouble finding articles on the Oh-My-God particle because that name is mostly used in the media, not in technical journals. If you want to find real journal articles, you should search for terms like "Fly Eye", "cosmic ray", and "high energy".
There's a free pre-prints archive located at www.arxiv.org. Use the search function to find physics papers with "Fly Eye" in the abstract, and you'll see tons of references to high energy cosmic ray detections. The term "Oh-My-God particle" won't appear in most of them, because that's a non-technical term mainly used with the popular press, but that's what they're talking about. Likewise, real journal articles will refer to the "Higgs boson", not the "God particle" (as it's called in the media). Physicists tend to use cutesy names to get the general public to take some interest to what are actually rather esoteric topics. Tim314 01:05, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
I think the term "Oh-My-God particle" should be dropped entirely from the article. I'm working in the field of high energy cosmic ray physics myself, and had never heard of the term prior to reading this Wikipedia article. -Svenlafe 17:29, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
"Because of its mass the Oh-My-God particle would have experienced very little influence from cosmic electromagnetic and gravitational fields..." and in the 1st external link "A particle with such energy would be deflected little by galactic magnetic fields" Is this a relativistic thing? because classically the force qv x B increases with velocity just as fast as the time spent in the field decreases with it, so deflections are the same for particles of all velocities. Thor2023 19:47, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
Not true, light moves away from everything at a constant rate, no mater what its speed, its called the theory of relativity. I think that should be fixed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.32.72.233 (talk • contribs)
M_0 M = ------------ [1] v² Sqrt[1 - --] c²
Going over my recollections, it looks like I'd botched last night's calculations (used a first-order formula valid only at low speeds - whoops). I've gone through the correct version, which produces an answer that agrees with the one given by John Walker. My (current, hopefully correct) calculations are as follows, for anyone who wanted to see the steps JW omitted:
...And this is close enough to the 5e-24 value the article cites, which is consistent with a lag of about 50 nm.
So in summary, I goofed about the values. Sorry for the trouble.
Per the original thread, all of this is consistent with SR, and nobody who replied (including me) said otherwise. Part of the point of relativity is that all observers see light as moving at C, regardless of their motions with respect to each other. An observer on earth sees the particle travel for a year and arrive 50 nm behind a photon emitted at the same place and time. An observer sitting on the particle sees the photon receding at C, but sees a much shorter time between emission and detection, making the viewpoints consistent with each other. --Christopher Thomas 05:53, 31 March 2006 (UTC)
"The Oh-My-God particle is a proton with the energy of a slow-pitched baseball. And it's moving so fast that after travelling for a year, it would only be a few nanometers behind a photon travelling at the speed of light." [2] OK not an authoratative source, but can someone check the energy calculation? Rich Farmbrough 21:18 30 March 2006 (UTC).
Personally I would like a little mroe accuracy in the speed of the basebal, there has bene alot of comments on this reference, elts see if we can clear it up and see what the speed of the baseball would be. Eg i the format of "A baseball pitched at a speed of X would..." it flows decently with the article and probably stop to many more comments being raised about it. -Robert Maupin 03:35, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
Instead of having UHECR point to this article, could we move that around? "Oh-my-god" particle isn't exactly a recognized name in any literature I've read. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 132.250.167.155 (talk • contribs) .
what would it happen if it had hit a human? at that energies it would create tremendous pressures on the skin wouldn't it? or would it just pass right through? - jak (talk) 16:01, 12 June 2006 (UTC)
Ignoring science, it's funny to think about a guy getting blown back a few feet from a particle that nobody can see. It'd be as if an invisible man punched 'em. That's a frickin' crazy amount of energy. BirdValiant 03:31, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
The article doesn't seem to mention its mass. Does anyone know what it is? Would I be right in thinking it's a proton or something of similar mass? raptor 11:14, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
If the OMG particle "hit" a person... It wouldn't or should I say the chances are very very low. Why? Due to the fact the OMG particle is traveling at the speed of light, or almost the speed of light, the chance of it hitting any particle (i.e. electron, proton, neutron) would be highly unlikely. Atoms "vibrate" at very high speeds in relation to the speed of light, however, any motion of the atom or particles would be inconsequential to a single atomic nuclei traveling at the speed of light. It is kind of like trying to shoot a bullet from earth and hit a bullet shot from the moon. This is hard for people to comprehend due to the extreme speeds and vast relative distances of an electron's orbit to the nuclei ratio.
The article talks about the so-called OMG particle, but has very little information about extremely high energy cosmic rays. It should discuss how these particles are studied, for examples with detectors that measure cherenkov flashes in the sky. It should mention how these particles produce a huge pancake of secondary radiation that can be measured and back-tracked by ground detectors. 71.112.95.176 01:28, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
I think this article is misleading in light of the recent evidence from Pierre Auger Observatory. As I understand it, the evidence points to a potential explanation of the ultra high energy cosmic rays that does NOT violate the GZK bound. The article implies that single observations (like OMG particle) are sufficient evidence for the phenomenon being unexplainable using known physics. Atlytle 02:07, 16 November 2007 (UTC)
The sentence "To a static observer, such a proton, traveling at [1 − (5×10−24)] times c, would fall only 46 nanometers behind a photon after one year." doesn't seem to make sense. Could you please explain the set up of this mind-experiment for the uninitiated? Plantsurfer (talk) 10:35, 7 March 2009 (UTC)
Doesn't LQG explain ultra-high-energy comsmic rays? 74.14.111.238 (talk) 05:22, 29 July 2009 (UTC)
It's hard to tell which of the senses of "tracer" is intended in explaining the source of these cosmic rays.Unfree (talk) 18:19, 30 July 2009 (UTC)
There are several possible explanations for these particles, but only Zevatron has its own very short article. Does it have enough notability beyond being a possible source of ultra-high-energy cosmic rays to warrant it's own article? And are there enough reliable sources to expand it beyond the stub it is now? I propose to merge it into this article and redirect Zevatron here. If the section gets too large we can always fork it off again. Smocking (talk) 17:57, 23 February 2010 (UTC)
The article misleads people into thinking that ZeV is an accepted term for 10^21 eV. Zevatron is merely slang or at best jargon used by some ultra-high-energy cosmic ray researchers. The name does not derive from a unit of energy named ZeV. ZeV is derived from the slang term zevatron. A search for zevatron in Google revealed only the use of the term in this Wikipedia article and non physics uses such as a hair restorer advertisement. We missed a chance to simply delete the zevatron article for lack of notability or even notoriety. Now we should repair the damage the merger has done. - Fartherred (talk) 23:46, 2 April 2015 (UTC)
Archived self-published work. |
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The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it. |
Mechanism-Revealed Physics (32/40) Completely solving the problem of ultrahigh-energy cosmic rays by discovering the mysterious source of ultrahigh-energy cosmic rays. The mysterious source of ultrahigh-energy cosmic rays has been widely recognized as one of the most fundamental mysteries in physics and astrophysics for several decades. The problem of ultrahigh-energy cosmic rays has been completely solved by identifying the mysterious source of ultrahigh-energy cosmic rays (P. 574 ~ 577, 5.9, Ch.5C, reference #1), with the newly established MRBHT* as fundamentally indispensable basis. (*Note, MRBHT = Mechanism-Revealed Black Hole Theory, P. 541 ~ 548, 5.5, Ch.5B, reference #1). Be clarified, in solving the problem of ultrahigh-energy cosmic rays, the concept and implication of black holes is based on MRBHT, rather than from current postulate-based black hole theory, i.e., mechanism-revealed black holes rather than postulate-based black holes. First of all and most of all, based on MRBHT, black holes and only black holes, due to their hugely massive nature, can have the ability to generate and emit such ultrahigh-energy cosmic rays, whereas all other ordinary astronomical objects (e.g., a variety of stars) do not have the ability to generate such ultrahigh-energy cosmic rays at all. Second, observational evidence shows that ultrahigh-energy cosmic rays have to originate from the Milky Way galaxy. Therefore, the combination of MRBHT and observational evidence determines the clear and solid conclusion: the black holes in the Milky Way galaxy are the source of ultrahigh-energy cosmic rays observed nearby Earth. In addition, five clues that are supportive of or consistent with the very conclusion are provided and analyzed (P. 574 ~ 577, 5.9, Ch.5C, reference #1). This conclusion is further consolidated by the fact that black holes are the source of gamma ray bursts from the comprehensive and systematic perspective (P. 567 ~ 574, 5.8, Ch.5C, reference #1), since gamma ray is one of the four common types of cosmic rays. The key to understanding the solving the problem of ultrahigh-energy cosmic rays: (i) considering the solving the problem of ultrahigh-energy cosmic rays together with the GZK limit in the famous GZK paradox, along with the reminding that the famous GZK paradox has been completely solved with the discovery of the source of ultrahigh-energy cosmic rays (P. 578 ~ 580, 5.10, Ch.5C, reference #1). (ii) As long as you have known the greatest equation in the history of science, which is Einstein’s famous mass-energy equation (E = mc2 or E0 = mc2), you will easily understand the solving the problem of ultrahigh-energy cosmic rays, because the law of object’s mass doing work (OMDW) (P. 93 ~ 109, Ch.1A, reference #1), which is the root of the solving the problem of ultrahigh-energy cosmic rays (P. 895, reference #2), has also revealed the mechanism behind the greatest equation (P. 114 ~ 118, Ch.1B, reference #1). (iii) The newly established MRBHT is the key to unlocking the mystery of ultrahigh-energy cosmic rays.
Ph.D., Bingcheng Zhao, The author of “From Postulate-Based Modern Physics to Mechanism-Revealed Physics” 1401 NE Merman Dr. Apt. 703, Pullman, WA 99163 USA. Email: bczhao12@gmail.com or bzhao34@yahoo.com or bingcheng.zhao@gmail.com —Preceding unsigned comment added by 204.52.246.120 (talk) 19:11, 18 March 2010 (UTC) |
There is another possible source for the most energetic cosmic rays that should be listed. A significant and reasonable explanation for the origin of the most energetic cosmic rays could be based on gravitational acceleration. A reference could be given to www1.iwvisp.com/LA4Park/CosmicRays.txt , which serves as evidence that mentioning it would not be original research (as it is already published) on the Internet. Cosmic rays could have their kinetic energies increased by absorbing more attractive gravitons head-on than tail-on. That would apply if the speed of light is constant with respect to the frame containing the preponderance of particular-interacting-matter, given that gravity absorption evidence has been observed during some total solar eclipses. One can see en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allais_effect and prd.aps.org/abstract/PRD/v62/i4/e041101 for examples of this absorption evidence. Alden E. Park (talk) 06:32, 7 October 2011 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Content of Oh-My-God particle was forked from here, and people have been making half-hearted attempts to merge it back ever since. The content of 'Oh-My-God particle' is almost completely duplicated in the target, the 'name' has no real independent notability, and there is no potential for expansion. This should be merged back, with a redirect to the relevant section. Reventtalk 23:16, 31 July 2014 (UTC)
I've edit out the parts where it says that it's a proton, and replaced it with Iron Nuclei because of this article: the team has found evidence that these highest-energy cosmic rays might be iron nuclei, rather than the protons that make up most cosmic rays. http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100222/full/4631011a.html
Michel_sharp (talk) 23:10, 21 June 2015 (UTC+01:00)
2* 10^20 ev/(3*Boltzmann's constant) = 7.7 * 10^23 kelvins
http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/Astro/timlin.html
Just granpa (talk) 18:49, 8 December 2016 (UTC)
It may be worth mentioning that the candidate dark matter particle mass -- 15 times the proton mass, or 1.4e10 eV -- has been excluded by later research. For example, Calmet & Kuipers[1] use quantum gravity to show that a particle heavier than about 1e7 eV needs to either interact with photons (hence not dark) or decay on a timescale shorter than the age of the universe (hence not a candidate for dark matter in today's universe).
But I'm not sure how to work this in or if this is even appropriate so I'm just leaving this here. - CRGreathouse (t | c) 13:30, 12 October 2021 (UTC)
References