Neutrino Escape (en)

Neutrinoescape

The current version is optimized for playing on a computer. If you want to play on a mobile or tablet, please read the instructions first.

Attention!

Instructions

Instructions

New Game

New Game

Instructions

Play

Continue

Continue

Credits

Credits

Instructions

https://cvws.icloud-content.com/B/AZ1LaUIBnwCgW_MYZzckJTt0RO86Acxx7UIJwvvvhY4PrVEc42ghddZj/Fog.mp3?o=AprcyUSevUISlYgETuq5M18aveursTmpgojDUVezgjCS&v=1&x=3&a=CAogFxqCokOp-0sj6ZQEFd0iRrfeHdkU_7-ILd_PV0-vLaESaxCljN_GrjMYpem6yK4zIgEAUgR0RO86WgQhddZjaiWL2SJ7xHghmm7k_2ZH9Vi2cg6oQqz2Md1CFwY0KYe6AUvFfZRQciVB_LohY1x8F-SQKHCFYw-j89WM6Yyb9U6WS8lwI-sDBN9a8MZH&e=1764846646&fl=&r=ca9a11c0-d18d-42d1-91a2-a03a6cc7dca5-1&k=6bGC8xitq03y8US0dn1p0Q&ckc=com.apple.clouddocs&ckz=com.apple.CloudDocs&p=140&s=k4wan2yrKArokplmxr4EvYPaXfo&cd=i

Who am I?

Touch me

• Armario
• =
• 0

• Armario
• =
• 1

Identify the elementary particle

Identify the elementary particle

For Emergency use only

For Emergency use only

• Armario
• =
• 1

Identify the elementary particle

Identify the elementary particle

For Emergency use only

For Emergency use only

Identify the elementary particle

Identify the elementary particle

• Armario
• =
• 1
• 0

Oh, no!

That was a composite particle, made up of other particles...

Try again

Try again

I'm an elementary particle...

but, which one?

You found 3 radioactive isotopes. Will you be able to discover what they decay into? To do this, you'll need to learn the rules of the game. Once you know them, draw cards...

0.1

You found invisible particles!!!

Check solution

Checking total charge . . . . . . . ok

Checking total p+n . . . . . . . . . ok

Checking total energy . . . . . . . ok

Particle identified . . . .

#09fb01

• 100
• 10
• 10
• 1000

Ah, I feel invisible, I must be a neutrino...

but, where do I come from?

This is a fusion reaction that, in addition to energy, produces neutrinos. But, how many?

Search for neutrinos

Find the invisible particles

How many neutrinos are produced in the fusion of 4 protons?

OK

Continue

• SolNeutrinos
• =
• Unsolved

https://cvws.icloud-content.com/B/AfaElZ0LpcDX9J2UNxBihKEkU9ETAXs-v-HYI_RRcZcSGqR24mErd7uS/Night_Sky.mp3?o=Aq3TE4dlI3xgY7d4kcg6JZYtYLGpG50falFE3vEoNpRI&v=1&x=3&a=CAogRG710upxq5vGaWYbiBPAsbW4uAuTKhiXYcv2IiUqUJoSaxDAovTGrjMYwP_PyK4zIgEAUgQkU9ETWgQrd7uSaiXsp9XNhFtIaY3XrZjEwvYZE_qYJMVWSIrKWnY-0AYXnJoDKu9eciVn6vFvBJC-gfgChjfD1f5xxgLCepRQqELqSvJ3ZCiE3VJS4fcX&e=1764846993&fl=&r=7a472c4f-5b49-4772-a072-fa2dd8bc8461-1&k=ttLoijoDNvlBgcNg9HWqeQ&ckc=com.apple.clouddocs&ckz=com.apple.CloudDocs&p=140&s=jv8sI8KC5rFrzvfs-AeMixBJVw4&cd=i

Where am I?

• Telescopio
• =
• 0

• Gravedad
• =
• Unsolved

• Pantalla_BH
• =
• 0

• Laberinto
• =
• Unsolved

• Puerta
• =
• Cerrada

• Telescopio
• =
• 0
• 7

• Telescopio
• =
• 1
• 8

• Gravedad
• =
• Solved
• 1

0.1

• SolNeutrinos
• =
• Solved
• 2

• Laberinto
• =
• Unsolved
• 3

• Laberinto
• =
• Solved
• 4

• Puerta
• =
• Abierta
• 0

• Puerta
• =
• Cerrada
• 5

• Puerta
• =
• Abierta
• 6

• Pantalla_BH
• =
• 1
• 10

• Pantalla_BH
• =
• 2
• 11

• Pantalla_BH
• =
• 1

• Pantalla_BH
• =
• 0
• 9

• Puerta
• =
• Abierta

0.1

Open

0000

Deny

https://cvws.icloud-content.com/B/AbGWqyZEf9UZLvEpObiY1cMS4MtyAcFA27UuaJdY0R7tWgy_1S0ZcrBD/Wrong_pass.mp3?o=AojxinsEX36Yq1SLQB9_KwlVbIFVd-oO1uzhgPBS-vON&v=1&x=3&a=CAogJnxHpn6_zKWiVKQjsIPpqy4vNQJQTYkGTcwAz0ppDrMSaxDm9u3GrjMY5tPJyK4zIgEAUgQS4MtyWgQZcrBDaiXv61s9-0zbaTAqahF8htGukIwvUS-bRuV7UJr7TmQ3qEG8SGsQciXIKIGRPiDGO_t6ww7J_Uwak9Qj-sGWGfo1bU7kiCN_CDjp4hJ1&e=1764846889&fl=&r=34c35c34-de02-4a7c-981e-449482b4e35a-1&k=mHRZu9-I76IT1EJZ5sYBhA&ckc=com.apple.clouddocs&ckz=com.apple.CloudDocs&p=140&s=wxJBXwQAlnu34uFRnwOBQ2U_FAY&cd=i

CE

0820

0.1

#3ea1b6

error

There is something in the center that draws me in...

https://cvws.icloud-content.com/B/AbGWqyZEf9UZLvEpObiY1cMS4MtyAcFA27UuaJdY0R7tWgy_1S0ZcrBD/Wrong_pass.mp3?o=AojxinsEX36Yq1SLQB9_KwlVbIFVd-oO1uzhgPBS-vON&v=1&x=3&a=CAogJnxHpn6_zKWiVKQjsIPpqy4vNQJQTYkGTcwAz0ppDrMSaxDm9u3GrjMY5tPJyK4zIgEAUgQS4MtyWgQZcrBDaiXv61s9-0zbaTAqahF8htGukIwvUS-bRuV7UJr7TmQ3qEG8SGsQciXIKIGRPiDGO_t6ww7J_Uwak9Qj-sGWGfo1bU7kiCN_CDjp4hJ1&e=1764846889&fl=&r=34c35c34-de02-4a7c-981e-449482b4e35a-1&k=mHRZu9-I76IT1EJZ5sYBhA&ckc=com.apple.clouddocs&ckz=com.apple.CloudDocs&p=140&s=wxJBXwQAlnu34uFRnwOBQ2U_FAY&cd=i

How many years would it take to get there?

0000

• 700
• 10
• 10
• 1000

25000

• Pantalla_BH
• =
• 2

• 100
• 10
• 10
• 500

#3ea1b6

Access granted...

Show door code?

08:20

No

Sí

Acess granted...

Show door code?

08:20

• Telescopio
• =
• 1

• SolNeutrinos
• =
• Solved

The Sun seen with neutrinos

Skip puzzle

The Sun seen with neutrinos

DACB

ERROR

Where is gravity strongest?

Touch from least to greatest.

It's 07:30

ABCD

• Gravedad
• =
• Solved

:2

Sagittarius A* Black Hole 25.000 light-years

Supernova 1987A 168.000 light-years

Crab Nebula6.300 light-years

NGC 604 Nebula 2,8 millones light-years

Bullet Cluster3.72 billion light-years

Gargantua Black Hole ???

Saturn80 light-minutes

Black Hole at the center of M87 galaxy50 million light-years

Andromeda Galaxy2,5 million light-years

I've been trying to get out of here for thousands of years...

Can you help me escape?

I am a photon, a particle of light

No

Yes

0.1

0.1

0.1

0.1

0.1

You have been captured by a nucleus!!!!

Try again

Quantum Mechanics

Spin Wave-Particle Duality Uncertainty Principle Quantum Tunnelling

Spin

You found a book on Quantum Mechanics. Which chapter do you want to read?

Wave-Particle Duality

Uncertainty Principle

Quantum Tunnelling

• Laberinto
• =
• Solved

I am free!!

You successfully escaped from the Sun and are on your way to Earth, where neutrino detectors are waiting to hunt you down. Your mission is to discover the secret of the neutrinos before you reach Earth.

Start

XX

• Challenge
• =
• 0

500

https://cvws.icloud-content.com/B/Adiq7LpJ6-QZmSmyZUdDBEc9tAMFAZX5W_OL6YyKeQKYNQO3ogBtd8qm/Challenge_8mas1.mp3?o=AsnKVcZFEEZFPpJNim4hi_HVb94B88js0Z1geQXtJtg8&v=1&x=3&a=CAogmO0F9H37Lu8nY5bvr0jQWdk7dDwGA2oc9yM-iJ0-6CMSaxC7k97GrjMYu_C5yK4zIgEAUgQ9tAMFWgRtd8qmaiWL79U8QNgbpc2v52v34CjVMABEJ6wSKtrSshD8SchJw2D2BwblciVTfPHkA1UFK4Db5D_5aqex-qnuqz0WOo8RkyKMed54MxgGpM8u&e=1764846630&fl=&r=5de017b8-1ac7-47d5-b91e-7c65b9e3d5f8-1&k=BmOGTwWqbFUi4_l633iMqA&ckc=com.apple.clouddocs&ckz=com.apple.CloudDocs&p=140&s=YPXImxwkEeYDcIairgg8Q4-JBt0&cd=i

$challenge|=|0

XX

?$challenge|=|3

?$challenge|=|2

?$challenge|>|2

?$challenge|=|1

?$challenge|>|1

You reached the Earth! You can now continue or check physics first.

XX

Find couples

Name the elementary particles

$challenge|+|1

XX

electron

tau neutrino

top quark

positron

up quark

photon

down quark

gluon

muon

tau

strange quark

W boson

electronneutrino

charm quark

Z boson

muon neutrino

bottom quark

Higgs boson

XX

Colour Particles

Classify the elementary particles

XX

$challenge|+|1

Lepton

Quark

Gauge boson

Higgs

OK

XX

Sort Particles

Which is the heaviest?

XX

0.1

!u

!e

!c

!a

!t

!nu

!mu

!Z

!tau

!g

!b

XX

$challenge|+|1

Higgs field activated

Now particles are massive

!u

!e

!c

!a

!t

!nu

!mu

!Z

!tau

!g

!b

Ranking MostMassive Particles

XX

$challenge|+|1

Click on the particles to see what I know

!u

!e

!c

!a

!t

!nu

!mu

!Z

!tau

!g

!b

Ranking MostMassive Particles

XX

Capture neutrinos...

...before they oscillate

XX

Capture the 11 electron neutrinosin 13 seconds

$mass|=|on#spin|=|off#v|=|alta

• Challenge
• +
• 1

0.1

XX

• Challenge
• +
• 1

0.1

XX

• Challenge
• +
• 1

0.1

XX

• Challenge
• +
• 1

0.1

XX

0.1

XX

0.1

XX

0.1

XX

0.1

XX

XX

Wrong flavour!

That wasn't an electron neutrino...

Try again

Try again

Try again

Try again

Try again

Try again

Try again

Try again

?$v|=|baja&spin|=|on&mass|=|off

?$v|=|baja&spin|=|on&mass|=|on

?$v|=|alta&spin|=|on&mass|=|off

?$v|=|alta&spin|=|on&mass|=|on

?$v|=|alta&spin|=|off&mass|=|off

?$v|=|alta&spin|=|off&mass|=|on

?$v|=|baja&spin|=|off&mass|=|off

?$v|=|baja&spin|=|off&mass|=|on

Configuration

XX

Captured electron neutrinos:

Try again

Try again

Try again

Try again

Try again

Try again

Try again

Try again

?$v|=|baja&spin|=|on&mass|=|off

?$v|=|baja&spin|=|on&mass|=|on

?$v|=|alta&spin|=|on&mass|=|off

?$v|=|alta&spin|=|on&mass|=|on

?$v|=|alta&spin|=|off&mass|=|off

?$v|=|alta&spin|=|off&mass|=|on

?$v|=|baja&spin|=|off&mass|=|off

?$v|=|baja&spin|=|off&mass|=|on

Configuration

XX

Configuration

$v|=|baja

?$v|=|alta

$v|=|alta

High speed Spin Mass

$spin|=|off

?$spin|=|on

$spin|=|on

$mass|=|off

?$mass|=|on

$mass|=|on

Back

Oh, nooo!!

You arrived on Earth without having completed your mission. After a tough interrogation in the neutrino detectors, physicists discover your deepest secrets... But don't be discouraged, you can try again.

Try again

Good job, during your journey to Earth you discovered the great secret of neutrinos: their mass Your last mission will be to hide this secret from the physicists who are looking for it. The problem is that you've arrived at their greatest weapon: a neutrino detector. Will you be able to escape before they discover your secret?

To the detector

$lancha|=|0#pesca|=|0#bombillas|=|0#int|=|0#tel|=|0#cher|=|0

https://cvws.icloud-content.com/B/AYdmGAJ-ZyFh1rComrS3ie4_riwCAfX4nlhZM7SEnN579pcREAPI6xCk/SuspendedWorlds.mp3?o=AiXmN7H7pfkcRLg5sqkE81ykdNb-spdiE0hpwYQjfs-g&v=1&x=3&a=CAogTrzkS6NhEBwIJcVK4bekRNreyKlx3tpZDl0TAr9d9icSaxCpnPvGrjMYqfnWyK4zIgEAUgQ_riwCWgTI6xCkaiWZgA4NZLOpInN0KHNiXoW_yYkNCYDT3Cj1QVonAQNV9dlx1quMciV8BiSU4dVgH8Egawt0WOC9jCgN5P3J9BbjhyX5nxvR346RnX-Y&e=1764847107&fl=&r=6e6519a7-ca5a-4d17-a4ec-dba3d85e9a27-1&k=UJjeQkyZil4i2RBoJ-_7MQ&ckc=com.apple.clouddocs&ckz=com.apple.CloudDocs&p=140&s=WaaOAUCOHHTM0hTpvuhQ3nXCuWs&cd=i

The tank is filled with water.

Now you can see the invisible

?$bombillas|=|0

?$bombillas|=|1

?$lancha|>|1

?$lancha|<|2

?$cher|=|0

?$cher|=|1

?$int|=|0

?$int|=|1

???

Feynman Diagram

You have found a jigsaw puzzle

???

Cherenkov radiation

Super-Kamiokande detection of a muon neutrino heading northwest.

$cher|=|1

• 5
• 4
• oui

Super-Kamiokande detection of a muon neutrino heading northwest.

Cherenkov radiation

$tel|=|1

Helpsent

You calledHappyDude...

0000

calling

calling

413

erreur

$int|=|1

• Telefono
• =
• Unsolved
• 0

Interaction between particles

• Telefono
• =
• Solved
• 1

Check

Valider

Physics Tutorials

413

413

413

413

413

413

413

?$tel|=|0

?$tel|=|1

Undo

check

REtirer le dernier trait

Reset

Correct interactions

Made-up interactions

Recommencer

Table OK

erreur

erreur

• Telefono
• =
• Unsolved
• 0

Interactions between particles

• Telefono
• =
• Solved
• 1

Check

Valider

Physics Tutorials

413

413

413

413

413

413

413

?$tel|=|0

?$tel|=|1

Undo

check

REtirer le dernier trait

Reset

Recommencer

Table OK

erreur

?$pesca|=|3&lancha|=|1

$pesca|=|0

$pesca|=|0#lancha|=|1

?$pesca|=|3

$pesca|=|3

?$pesca|>|1

$pesca|=|1

?$pesca|<|2

$pesca|=|1#lancha|=|2

?$lancha|>|0

?$pesca|=|1

$pesca|=|2

?$pesca|=|1

$pesca|=|0

?$pesca|=|1

erreur

$pesca|=|0#lancha|=|3

?$pesca|=|3

$pesca|=|3

?$pesca|>|1

$pesca|=|1

?$pesca|<|2&lancha|<|3

?$lancha|>|2

?$lancha|=|4

?$lancha|=|3

?$lancha|=|5

$lancha|=|6

$lancha|=|4

?$pesca|=|1

$pesca|=|2

?$pesca|=|1

$pesca|=|0

?$pesca|=|1

$orden|+|1#show|=|H#solved|=|1

?$orden|=|13

$orden|=|0#show|=|H

?$orden|<|13

$orden|=|0#show|=|tau

?$orden|<|7

$orden|+|1#show|=|tau

?$orden|=|7

$orden|=|0#show|=|us

?$orden|<|5

$orden|+|1#show|=|us

?$orden|=|5

$orden|=|0#show|=|WZ

?$orden|<|10

$orden|+|1#show|=|WZ

?$orden|=|10

$orden|=|0#show|=|nutau

?$orden|<|12

$orden|+|1#show|=|nutau

?$orden|=|12

$orden|=|0#show|=|WZ

?$orden|<|10

$orden|+|1#show|=|WZ

?$orden|=|10

$orden|=|0#show|=|c

?$orden|<|6

$orden|+|1#show|=|c

?$orden|=|6

1962

?$show|=|numu

Lederman, Schwartz, Steinberger

1897J.J. Thomson

1936Anderson

2012LHC

1975LBL, SLAC

1983SPS CERN

2000DONUT

1974BNL, SLAC

1979DESY

1905Einstein

1968SLAC

1995Fermilab

1977Fermilab

1956Cowan, Reines

?$show|=|mu

?$show|=|WZ

?$show|=|H

?$show|=|tau

?$show|=|e

?$show|=|a

?$show|=|g

?$show|=|nutau

?$show|=|c

?$show|=|t

?$show|=|b

?$show|=|us

?$show|=|nue

$orden|=|0#show|=|t

?$orden|<|11

$orden|+|1#show|=|t

?$orden|=|11

$orden|+|1#show|=|e

?$orden|=|0

?$show|=|a

?$show|=|mu

?$show|=|nue

?$show|=|c

?$show|=|tau

?$show|=|b

?$show|=|e

?$show|=|us

?$show|=|g

?$show|=|WZ

?$show|=|t

?$show|=|nutau

?$show|=|H

?$show|=|numu

$orden|=|0#show|=|us

?$orden|<|5

$orden|+|1#show|=|us

?$orden|=|5

$orden|=|0#show|=|g

?$orden|<|9

$orden|+|1#show|=|g

?$orden|=|9

$orden|=|0#show|=|nue

?$orden|<|3

$orden|+|1#show|=|nue

?$orden|=|3

$orden|=|0#show|=|numu

?$orden|<|4

$orden|+|1#show|=|numu

?$orden|=|4

$orden|=|0#show|=|b

?$orden|<|8

$orden|+|1#show|=|b

?$orden|=|8

$orden|=|0#show|=|a

?$orden|<|1

$orden|+|1#show|=|a

?$orden|=|1

$orden|=|0#show|=|mu

?$orden|<|2

$orden|+|1#show|=|mu

?$orden|=|2

$orden|=|0#show|=|none#solved|=|0

$lancha|=|5

2012LHC

?$lancha|=|6

$bombillas|=|1

?$lancha|=|6

Good job! You managed to escape undetected and keeping your secrets safe. Physicists will continue to think that the valid theory is their Standard Model, without understanding what happens with neutrinos. They will have to keep investigating them.

Escape

https://cvws.icloud-content.com/B/Ab1y_ikoJy01ZyGiTzz6ch0lYt1SAVLAdkwssZLaLHDWafdEI_AjsX6e/Marte.mp3?o=AtRVXtxbTH3b7cIVEXQD7BbKqfv2yWn7SZT0chzdecsM&v=1&x=3&a=CAog_zlWdI0shDAhaW2Ryfi2Wt2sM0PCvnyjj_GfgtoyP-oSaxDVhdiorDMY1eKzqqwzIgEAUgQlYt1SWgQjsX6eaiUV3WIBYM4UhjAPFrs1DEdTf30Anskpiu7BrNysRHs1dGo7J3HFciUuX4zRJHQgqdBTuwzCdl9Eg-yDoShg4YRDm6UffTMtJcBtIJWJ&e=1764246745&fl=&r=839e1369-7a3a-4677-bd1b-3689f70a25d4-1&k=YDVvFrbbsbR8b54dkTdCgw&ckc=com.apple.clouddocs&ckz=com.apple.CloudDocs&p=140&s=mXD4Z48DfCwcCICffj3XERf1kWI&cd=i

Neutrino Escape

2024

Game created by Xabier Marcano as part of the Marie Sklodowska-Curie Actions project no. 101066105-PheNUmenal, funded by the Horizon Europe program of the European Union and developed at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid and the Instituto de Física Teórica.

Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Research Executive Agency (REA). Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.

Script and puzzle design

Claudia García GarcíaXabier Marcano

Programming

Xabier Marcano

Developed in Genially with the add-ons by S'CAPE.

Illustrations and Graphics design

Claudia García García

Music

Music from #Uppbeat:Fog - Tranquilium https://uppbeat.io/t/tranquilium/fog Night sky - Tranquilium https://uppbeat.io/t/tranquilium/night-sky Suspended Worlds - Ambient Boy https://uppbeat.io/t/ambient-boy/suspended-worlds The Witness - Challenge musicAnitra's Dream + In the Hall Of The Mountain Kingby Edvard Grieg for the Peer Gynt drama. Marte by K!ngdom

Sound effects

Item or Material Pickup Pop 1,2&3 by el_bosshttps://freesound.org/s/665183/https://freesound.org/s/665182/ https://freesound.org/s/665181/ UI Button Click Snap by el_boss --https://freesound.org/s/677860/ toaster by jordanielmills -- https://freesound.org/s/652738/ Keycard Denial by OminousPlayer -- https://freesound.org/s/660224/ keyless unlock.wav by theplax -- https://freesound.org/s/618145/

Acknowledgements

Enrique Fernández-Martínez Luis García Hidalgo Manuel González-López Janire Ircio Laura Marcano David Millán Martín Daniel Naredo-Tuero Javier Quilis K!ngdom (@kingdom.band)

Thank you for playing Neutrino Escape!

Thank you for playing Neutrino Escape!

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Neutrino Escape © 2024 by Xabier Marcano and Claudia Garcia is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

By capturing the neutrinos coming from the Sun, the Super-Kamiokande detector has taken this photograph of the Sun as seen with neutrinos. It's a filter unlike any on the best social networks. Moreover, since neutrinos can pass through the Earth, we can see the Sun even at night. However, neutrinos are so difficult to capture that taking this photo took 22 years (from 1996 to 2018).

Learn more

:2

In classical mechanics, the physics rules we live with every day, it is impossible to go through a wall. In quantum mechanics, the one followed by particles, there is a certain probability of doing so to reach a lower energy state.

This phenomenon is known as the quantum tunnelling, it is experimentally proven and is in fact the basis of some microscopes.

Quantum Tunnelling

Microscope

Andromeda is a spiral galaxy and the closest of its kind to our own, just 2.5 million light-years away, making it visible to the naked eye. By the way, did you know it is on a collision course with the Milky Way? Estimates suggest the collision could happen in about 5 billion years, with both galaxies merging into one giant galaxy.

Andromeda

Collision

Black holes are cosmic objects that generate such immense gravity that not even light can escape them. This one in particular is Gargantua, offering a spectacular image because it was taken from the movie Interstellar. But keep searching, because we have photographed some real ones.

Have you turned the time machine on but don't know what to do with it? Have you tried turning the particles off? Be careful, though, the order of the factors sometimes does matter.

Solution

Usa la supercaña para pescar el pan, arrástralo hasta la tostatodora e introducelo para encender la máquina del tiempo. Vuelve al plano azul, que tendrá las partículas encendidas, y apágalas siguiendo el orden en el que se descubrieron. Cuando lo consigas, vuelve a esta pantalla para recoger la pieza que habrá salido de la tostadora. La necesitarás al final.

Now that you have the super rod, it will be easy to fish for something more interesting. Follow the blueprints to complete and turn the time machine on.

More hints

Feynman diagrams, proposed by the physicist Richard Feynman in 1948, are a graphical tool in theoretical physics for representing and calculating processes between particles.

They help us calculate the probability of a particle decaying, or colliding with another particle and producing new particles.

Learn more

Fundamental or elementary particles, such as electrons or quarks, are the smallest pieces of nature, not made up of anything else.

Composite particles, on the other hand, are made up of other particles, such as protons or neutrons, which are composed of quarks and gluons.

Learn more

Black holes are cosmic objects that generate such immense gravity that not even light can escape them. Recently, we managed to photograph one at the center of the M87 galaxy.

This was done, after many years of progress, by the Event Horizon Telescope. Or rather, it photographed its shadow.

Learn more

Event Horizon Telescope

Although light takes only about 8 minutes to reach the Earth from the surface of the Sun, it can take thousands of years to escape from the interior of the Sun.

Neutrinos, on the other hand, escape from the interior of the Sun easily, allowing us to better study the interior of stars.

Learn more

Here you will find hints to help you solve the puzzles...

Which will become increasingly detailed...

More hints

Solution

Until the solution.

The interactions or forces between elementary particles actually occur by exchanging other particles, more specifically the gauge bosons. The photon is responsible for transmitting the electromagnetic force, the gluons for the strong nuclear interaction, and the W and Z for the weak nuclear interaction.

Quarks and leptons do not interact directly with each other, although in some extensions of the Standard Model they do. Discovering this type of interaction would be to discover new physics (in the game played with Toothless).

Learn more

You need to solved first the other 4 puzzles in the main room first and look at the coloured clues you get. The Feynman diagram will show a purple arrow pointing east, the Cherenkov radiation puzzle will tell you that green points northwest (slide the puzzle to see the hidden message), and the interactions puzzle will tell you that red points south. Press the central logo with the neutrinos when it rotates. You will also need the yellow piece with the H that you get from the boat, but you can get it later.

Have you already completed the other puzzles? Then you should have learned enough to solve this one. By the way, have you seen these colours before?

Solution

Don't overthink it, there are too many combinations to try at random. If I were you, I would leave this puzzle for the end, when you have learned everything.

More hints

Show solution

Cuando hablamos de años luz, realmente estamos hablando de distancias, ya que nos dice la distancia que viajará la luz durante esos años. Como la luz va tan rápido, a 300.000 km/s, se usan para medir distancias enormes, algo muy útil cuando miramos al cielo. Los neutrinos, al tener una masa tan pequeña, viajan prácticamente a la misma velocidad.

The Standard Model of particle physics, our current theory, classifies elementary particles in a new modern periodic table. On the one hand we have the matter-forming fermions, which can be quarks or leptons, depending on whether they feel the strong nuclear force or not.

On the other hand, there are the gauge bosons, which transmit the fundamental interactions. And finally we have the Higgs boson, which is related to the mass of particles.

Learn more

A classic puzzle. If you don't know how to solve it, you can jump to the solution after trying for 1 minute.

Until the Higgs (actually its vacuum field) is turned on, none of the elementary particles have mass. Press the H switch at the top right to turn on the masses. You can then ask for more hints if you need them.

Elementary particles have mass, almost all of them, and they are quite different from each other. So all you have to do is sort them into their podium positions... What's the matter, do all the podium positions look the same to you? Maybe the Higgs hasn't kicked in yet?

Solution

In particle physics, we classify particles according to their properties. There are matter particles (quarks and leptons) and interaction particles (gauge bosons), as well as the Higgs boson, which is another story. Open the colour palette to choose the colour and try colouring the particles. And remember the names you learned earlier.

More hints

Solution

We call quarks to quarks. And bosons to bosons, except for the gluon and photon, which are also bosons. Leptons are all those that are neither bosons nor quarks.

The Bullet Cluster is actually two galaxy clusters that are colliding. Yes, colliding, because galaxies do crash into each other. In fact, this provides us with a lot of information about dark matter.

Bullet Cluster

Dark Matter

The uncertainty principle was enunciated by Heisenberg and tells us that in quantum mechanics it is impossible to know some quantities at the same time, at least with infinite precision.

For example, if we know where a particle is, we will not know where it is moving. And vice versa, if we know its motion, we will not know its position.

Learn more

Just as the electron has its associated neutrino (the electron neutrino), the muon has its own, the muon neutrino. And the tau will have its own as well, so in the Standard Model we have 3 types of neutrinos, or, as we say, we have neutrinos of 3 flavours. This second flavour, the muon, was discovered shortly after the first one in an experiment at Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL). For the third, we had to wait a few more years.

Learn more

The Higgs boson was predicted in 1964 by physicist Peter Higgs as a remnant of the mechanism that gave mass to the W and Z bosons, as well as to matter particles. The mechanism was actually proposed together with other people and is called the Brout-Englert-Higgs mechanism, but since the latter was the one who mentioned the boson in his work, it stuck with his name. It took almost 60 years and the construction of the world's largest particle collider, the LHC at CERN, for the ATLAS and CMS collaborations to discover it in 2012, thus completing the Standard Model of particle physics.

Learn more

The 3 processes you have here are examples of different types of radioactivity: alpha, beta plus, and beta minus, all with applications in our lives. The alpha decay of Americium-241 is used in smoke detectors; the beta plus decay of Fluorine-18 in PET scans; and the beta minus decay of Carbon-14 in dating.

By the way, all these atomic decays are understood through the decays of the particles that compose them.

Many particles decay into lighter ones. However, for this to happen, they must obey a series of conservation rules for charge and energy, which inspire the rules of this game.

Learn more about the decays of the game

The electric charge of a neutrino is zero, so the electric charge of an antineutrino will be zero. Then, how do we distinguish between neutrinos and antineutrinos? The question is a bit more complex, because neutrinos do have another kind of charge (the weak one), which distinguishes neutrinos from antineutrinos. Even so, neutrinos could be equal to neutrinos, being their own antiparticle (we say that they would be Majorana fermions instead of Dirac fermions, like the electron and so on). Clarifying this situation is one of the great goals of particle physics, and our best experimental trump card is to search for the double beta radioactive process without neutrinos.

As of today we know of 17 elementary particles, which form all the matter we see, their interactions and their masses. In addition, some of them have their antiparticles, the same in every way but with opposite charge, which would form antimatter.

The antiparticle of the electron is the positively charged positron. The rest of the names are given with an ‘anti’ in front: antimuon, antiquark, antineutrino, ...

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Antineutrino?

Learn more

According to Einstein's theory of gravity, the general theory of relativity, gravity also affects time, causing it to go slower in regions with stronger gravity.

Learn more

What's the matter, can't you find a path free of nuclei? I'm sure quantum mechanics has a solution. But where did I leave that book...?

Solution

It's a maze, you just have to get to the end. Just don't get captured by the nuclei!

More hints

Cross the maze avoiding the cores to the quantum mechanics book and choose the Quantum Tunnelling chapter. You will see an illuminated wall, which you can pass through thanks to this effect and reach the exit.

Black holes are cosmic objects that generate such immense gravity that not even light can escape them. At the centre of our galaxy is one, Sagittarius A*, and we recently photographed it.

This was done, after many years of progress, by the Event Horizon Telescope. Or rather, it photographed its shadow.

Learn more

Event Horizon Telescope

The nuclear fusion of hydrogen into helium is one of the main processes by which stars like the Sun emit the light and energy that reach us in the form of photons, or light particles. In this process, neutrinos are also emitted, which we very originally call solar neutrinos. They allow us to study both the neutrinos themselves and the stars.

Learn more

Here you will find brief explanations about the physics related to the puzzles you are solving, as well as links and videos to learn more.

IFT Outreach

I can't see anything; it's too far away.

I should write down the door password somewhere; that darn screen is about to fail...

This is how the full ranking looks like, including particles that were not in this set, such as the Higgs itself (which also has mass). By the way, it is not to scale. For example, the masses of u and d are almost the same, but the top is much, much heavier. So don't look at the jumps in the steps, just the order.

Elementary particles have mass, almost all of them, and they are quite different from each other. So you just have to arrange each one in its position on the podium.

More hints

Solution

The one to blame for the masses is the Higgs, maybe it can give you a clue.

Photons and gluons don't talk to the Higgs, so they have no mass. Neutrinos are more mysterious, and it is not clear whether their mass comes from the Higgs or not, as you will see later.

Fundamental or elementary particles, such as electrons or quarks, are the smallest pieces of nature, not made up of anything else.

Composite particles, on the other hand, are made up of other particles, such as protons or neutrons, which are composed of quarks and gluons.

Learn more

Fundamental or elementary particles, such as electrons or quarks, are the smallest pieces of nature, not made up of anything else.

Composite particles, on the other hand, are made up of other particles, such as protons or neutrons, which are composed of quarks and gluons.

Learn more

It is impossible to beat light in vacuum, but you can do it in a medium like water, where it slows down. And when a charged particle does so, it leaves behind a cone of light, a shock wave equivalent to when a plane breaks the sound barrier.

This phenomenon is called Cherenkov radiation and is how neutrinos are detected in detectors like Super-Kamiokande (well, actually the charged leptons that are produced).

Learn more

SK official web

The nuclear fusion of hydrogen into helium is one of the main processes by which stars like the Sun emit the light and energy that reach us in the form of photons, or light particles. In this process, neutrinos are also emitted, which we very originally call solar neutrinos. They allow us to study both the neutrinos themselves and the stars.

Learn more

The bottom quark is the second heaviest copy of the d quark and the second heaviest quark. The existence of this third quark family was first predicted theoretically, and then discovered in 1977 at Fermilab.

It turns out that all particles of matter come in 3 copies, what we call the 3 families of matter. But, why 3? will there be more?

Learn more

Drag the lighter circle over the eye around the screen until you find the hidden objects that will lead you to the puzzles in this room. If you find that you can't drag it by clicking on the circle, try dragging it elsewhere on the screen.

Can't you see anything? There seems to be a circle marked over the eye, if you could move it to an area with invisible objects...

Solution

This detector is full of invisible objects.

More hints

Show hidden objects

Since Newton's time, in the early 18th century, physics has been going round and round about whether light is made up of waves or particles. After several works that led to Maxwell's equations in the mid-19th century, it seemed clear that light was made of waves, specifically electromagnetic waves travelling at the speed of light (obviously, because it is light). However, in 1905 Einstein proposed that light was made of quanta of energy, of particles. The wave-particle duality tells us that light is actually particles and waves, depending on the situation, so the mess was expected. Today we call these particles of light photons. We know that they are massless bosons, with spin 1, and that they are in charge of transmitting the electromagnetic interaction, coupling to all electrically charged particles.

Learn more

Ask for help by clicking on the satellite and then on the chicken, which will reveal the tool panel. Drag the magnifying glass over the reaction to reveal hidden particles. You'll see that 2 neutrinos are produced.

Solution

Neutrinos are almost invisible, very difficult to detect. But if you had the right tools... By the way, has help arrived yet?

Don't know what to do? Maybe you could ask for help.

More hints

Although light takes only about 8 minutes to reach the Earth from the surface of the Sun, it can take thousands of years to escape from the interior of the Sun.

Neutrinos, on the other hand, escape from the interior of the Sun easily, allowing us to better study the interior of stars.

Learn more

The spin is a characteristic property of particles that, together with their charges and mass, defines who they are. Among other things, the spin tells us how they behave towards other particles of the same kind, or how they react to a magnetic field.

Historically, the spin was imagined as particles spinning around themselves, giving rise to the name. This analogy with our non-quantum reality is not correct, because an elementary particle is point-like and therefore cannot spin, but the name has stuck.

Origin of the name

Learn more

Drag the lighter circle over the eye around the screen until you find the hidden objects that will lead you to the puzzles in this room. If you find that you can't drag it by clicking on the circle, try dragging it elsewhere on the screen.

Can't you see anything? There seems to be a circle marked over the eye, if you could move it to an area with invisible objects...

Solution

This detector is full of invisible objects.

More hints

Show hidden objects

Neutrinos are some of the elementary particles we know, and they may be among the most mysterious, as they are very difficult to capture and study. Despite having learned a lot about neutrinos in recent years, there is still much left to discover.

Learn more

In theoretical physics we use symbols/letters as abbreviations for particles. We are not very original, though. They usually look very similar to their name, and sometimes we put subscripts or superscripts to mark details, such as charge or flavour.

More hints

Solution

Neither quarks nor bosons have these words in their symbols, which we choose according to the other part of the name. The most difficult is when we use the Greek letters mu, tau, nu (for neutrinos). What about gamma?

Game Rules

• The total charge must be the same on both sides of the arrow.

• The number of protons + neutrons must be the same on both sides of the arrow.

• The total energy must be the same on both sides of the arrow.

• Hint: the total of something is calculated by adding up all the cards on that side of the arrow.

The quark model with only 3 types or flavours (u, d and s) did not work well, as it predicted unseen processes between particles. The solution was proposed by Glashow, Iliopoulos, and Maiani in 1970, in what is known as the GIM mechanism. Interestingly, it predicted the existence of a new quark, knows as charm, since it was so charm solving the problems. Another proof of the progress made in studying flavour physics.

This new quark was discovered 4 years later simultaneously in two experiments at SLAC and BNL, discovering a meson composed of a c quark and a c antiquark.

Learn more

For many years, physics has debated whether light was made up of waves or particles. In the end, it turned out that both were true. In quantum mechanics, particles can behave like waves and vice versa. Light behaves as a wave (electromagnetic) in some cases, and as particles (photons) in others. And the same is true for electrons and other particles.

Learn more

Super-Kamiokande is a neutrino detector in Japan, and a big one, as it is a tank with 50,000 tonnes of water. It is in an old mine under the mountains, 1 km underground to protect it from other particles coming in from the atmosphere.

What look like light bulbs on the walls are photomultiplier tubes, very sensitive eyes to see the invisible.

Learn more

Official SK web

Tau neutrino is the neutrino associated with the tau lepton. It was the last particle of matter to be discovered, in 2000 by the DONUT collaboration, although its existence was predicted to complete the third family of fermions. Perhaps that is why it was the only neutrino discovery to miss out on a Nobel prize.

Learn more

Drag the stopwatch from the screen to each of the planets, and you'll see a clock revealing the rate at which time progresses on that planet. Since gravity slows down time, the clock that moves the fastest will indicate the planet with the least gravity, and vice versa.

Solution

Gravity affects the passage of time: the stronger it is, the slower time moves. If you had a way to measure the passage of time on each planet...

This is science; you can't just try things randomly. Take your time to measure the gravity first.

More hints

This theory tells us how particles get their mass, but not how massive they should be. Why are some particles so much more massive than others? Or, in other words, why do some feel the vacuum more than others?

Theory tells us that this depends on their Yukawa interactions, but we have no idea why this is more intense for some particles than for others. This is called the flavour puzzle.

The mass of the elementary particles we know comes from the Brout-Englert-Higgs mechanism, which tells us that the vacuum is actually filled with something we call the Higgs field. Without it, particles would have no mass. Instead, the more a particle feels this vacuum, the more massive it is. And if they don't feel it at all, like the photon, they will be massless.

Learn more

Learn more

Why of each of the masses

Use the fishing rod once, and keep clicking on the objects until you catch the chicken. Then drag the chicken to the rod to get the super rod. If you don't know how to continue, ask for help again. By the way, it's useless to keep fishing with the first rod, you'll only get magikarps (it's an old rod after all).

Look at the time machine blueprints. See what's missing? how could you capture it?

Solution

It seems that somehow you have to get the time machine started, but do you have all the ingredients?

More hints

Don't look too hard here, you'll find the missing piece by solving one of the other puzzles in the room. When you pick it up, it will automatically appear here.

Solution

Solve the boat puzzle until you get the yellow piece with the Higgs boson from the toaster. If you don't know how to do it, ask for more hints there. Once you pick it up, it will automatically appear in this room. Just click on it to put it in place and complete the Standard Model.

You're almost there, you just need to put the last piece of the puzzle in place. Have you got it yet?

More hints

The gluon is the gauge boson of quantum chromodynamics (QCD), mediator of the strong nuclear interaction. It was discovered in 1979 by the TASSO experimental collaboration at the German electron synchrotron (DESY).

The gluon is responsible for holding together the quarks that form particles such as protons or neutrons. Hence its name, as being the glue between quarks.

Learn more

Physics Tutorials

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Physics Tutorials

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Touch the spiderweb to clean it and open the tool panel. When you drag the hammer over the particles, you'll see that the ones on the left and center break apart, revealing that they are made of other particles and thus are not elementary. This doesn't happen to the one on the right. Now that you know which one is elementary, you can proceed.

You're not just trying to win by pure luck, are you? First, you'll need to check which is the elementary particle. By the way, don't you think the room looks a bit messy?

More hints

Solution

An elementary particle is one that is not made up of smaller particles. If only you had a tool to check that...

If neutrinos do have mass, this means that they sense the vacuum field and talk to the Higgs boson, right?... right?!? We don't really know! Neutrinos are so special and so difficult to study that they still hide many secrets, especially related to their mass. It could come from the Higgs, like all other particles, but it might not... That is why it is one of the most active fields in particle physics.

Neutrinos transform into each other as they travel. This is called neutrino oscillations, and it can only happen if neutrinos are massive particles. But the Standard Model says that neutrinos have no mass, so these oscillations just can't happen.

Neutrinos have mass, despite what the Standard Model says. We know this from having measured the phenomenon called neutrino oscillation. In real life, we can't control whether neutrinos have mass or not. But in the game you can play with it to see how the world changes with and without neutrino masses.

Oscillations?

Here's the interesting bit. About 25 years ago these oscillations were discovered, proving that neutrinos do have mass and that the Standard Model is wrong. Well, rather imcomplete.

So then what?

Learn more

Has encontrado un libro de Mecánica Cuántica. ¿Qué capítulo quieres leer?

Mecánica Cuántica

Espín Dualidad Onda Partícula Principio de Incertidumbre Efecto Túnel

Espín

Dualidad Onda Partícula

Principio de Incertidumbre

Efecto Túnel

If neutrinos do have mass, this means that they sense the vacuum field and talk to the Higgs boson, right?... right?!? We don't really know! Neutrinos are so special and so difficult to study that they still hide many secrets, especially related to their mass. It could come from the Higgs, like all other particles, but it might not... That is why it is one of the most active fields in particle physics.

Neutrinos transform into each other as they travel. This is called neutrino oscillations, and it can only happen if the neutrinos are massive particles. But the Standard Model says that neutrinos have no mass, so these oscillations just can't happen.

Here's the interesting bit. About 25 years ago these oscillations were discovered, proving that neutrinos do have mass and that the Standard Model is wrong. Well, rather imcomplete. Then, how we do complete it?

By the way, the game was to capture 11 neutrinos in about 13 seconds, which is the same as the Kamiokande II detector saw with the Supernova of 1987. Without such explosive events, the rate of neutrino capture is much slower.

Learn more

What happens now?

Despite the great success of the Standard Model theory, there are still some mysteries to be solved, problems with both experimental findings and theoretical principles. This is not to say that it is a bad theory, but that it is incomplete. And figuring out how to complete it is the daily business of the theoretical physics community.

Of these open problems, one of them is the fact that neutrinos have mass and all that goes with it. Where does their mass come from? what is the actual nature of neutrinos? and are they related to other unsolved mysteries?

For all these reasons, neutrino physics is one of the most active areas in particle physics.

Learn more

This is how the full ranking looks like, including particles that were not in this set, such as the Higgs itself (which also has mass). By the way, it is not to scale. For example, the masses of u and d are almost the same, but the top is much, much heavier. So don't look at the jumps in the steps, just the order.

Elementary particles have mass, almost all of them, and they are quite different from each other. So you just have to arrange each one in its position on the podium.

More hints

Solution

The one to blame for the masses is the Higgs, maybe it can give you a clue.

Photons and gluons don't talk to the Higgs, so they have no mass. Neutrinos are more mysterious, and it is not clear whether their mass comes from the Higgs or not, as you will see later.

You're in a neutrino detector, full of eyes to see the invisible. But for that it needs to be filled with water, otherwise it won't see anything.

Solution

Click on the eye/magnifying glass at the top left to fill the detector with water and start seeing the invisible.

Game Rules

• The total charge must be the same on both sides of the arrow.

• The number of protons + neutrons must be the same on both sides of the arrow.

• The total energy must be the same on both sides of the arrow.

• Hint: the total of something is calculated by adding up all the cards on that side of the arrow.

Saturn, the sixth planet in the Solar System, is a giant ball of hydrogen and helium, surrounded by rings of ice and rock. This photo, along with many others, was taken by NASA's Cassini spacecraft.

Learn more

Cassini

Touch the spiderweb to clean it and open the tool panel. When you drag the hammer over the particles, you'll see that the ones on the left and center break apart, revealing that they are made of other particles and thus are not elementary. This doesn't happen to the one on the right. Now that you know which one is elementary, you can proceed.

You're not just trying to win by pure luck, are you? First, you'll need to check which is the elementary particle. By the way, don't you think the room looks a bit messy?

More hints

Solution

An elementary particle is one that is not made up of smaller particles. If only you had a tool to check that...

By now you have learned so much that we have almost no physics left to tell you, or have we?

The lightest electrically charged particle known to us, about 2000 times lighter than the proton. Its antiparticle is the positively charged positron. Discovered by the British physicist J.J. Thomson studying cathode rays, although we have been using it for a long time, since electricity is nothing more than electrons in motion.

Learn more

The spin is a characteristic property of particles that, together with their charges and mass, defines who they are. Among other things, the spin tells us how they behave towards other particles of the same kind, or how they react to a magnetic field.

Historically, the spin was imagined as particles spinning around themselves, giving rise to the name. This analogy with our non-quantum reality is not correct, because an elementary particle is point-like and therefore cannot spin, but the name has stuck.

What is spin?

Neutrinos have a spin of 1/2. This is a property they have, which defines what they are, just like the fact that they have no electric charge. In real life we cannot control this property, it is always active. In the game we put it to give visibility to the spin, and to increase the chaos of the game.

Origin of the name

Learn more

Touch the spiderweb to clean it and open the tool panel. When you drag the hammer over the particles, you'll see that the ones on the left and center break apart, revealing that they are made of other particles and thus are not elementary. This doesn't happen to the one on the right. Now that you know which one is elementary, you can proceed.

Solution

An elementary particle is one that is not made up of smaller particles. If only you had a tool to check that...

You're not just trying to win by pure luck, are you? First, you'll need to check which is the elementary particle.

More hints

The muon is a heavier version of the electron, as it is exactly the same, except that its mass is about 200 times greater. Because of this, the muon is not stable and it tends to decay to an electron (and neutrinos). Its antiparticle is the anti-muon. It was discovered by Carl Anderson studying cosmic rays in a cloud chamber, although it took a while to clarify that it was an elementary particle and not a composite one. In fact, it was initially called mu meson (mesons are particles composed of quarks and antiquarks).

Learn more

The top is the heaviest version of the up quark. And so heavy, since its mass is 200 times that of the proton, the same as an entire atom of gold, concentrated in a single particle. So we are talking about the heaviest elementary particle. This also means that it takes a lot of energy to produce it, which is why it was only discovered in 1995 by Fermilab's Tevatron particle collider. Since then, only CERN's LHC collider has been able to produce top quarks again.

Learn more

Sorry, but there is no physics on this screen, just another kind of geekery.

By capturing the neutrinos coming from the Sun, the Super-Kamiokande detector has taken this photograph of the Sun as seen with neutrinos. It's a filter unlike any on the best social networks. Moreover, since neutrinos can pass through the Earth, we can see the Sun even at night. However, neutrinos are so difficult to capture that taking this photo took 22 years (from 1996 to 2018).

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The W and Z bosons are the mediators of the weak nuclear interaction. The Z is a neutral particle, while we have two W's are charged, the W- with electric charge equal to that of the electron, and its antiparticle W+, with positive charge. They were predicted theoretically by the electroweak theory of Glashow, Weinberg, and Salam in the 1960s, and discovered experimentally in 1983 at CERN's SPS (Super Proton Synchrotron).

Although they are also gauge bosons like the photon or the gluon, they have the big difference of being (very) massive particles, and this completely changes everything when it comes to writing a theory to explain them. The solution will be the spontaneuos electroweak symmetry breaking and, hand in hand, the Higgs boson.

And their masses?

Learn more

A supernova is an explosion that some stars undergo during the final stages of their evolution, when nuclear fusion reactions become uncontrollable, causing the star to collapse into a neutron star or a black hole. This explosion releases a lot of energy and particles, including photons and neutrinos, which we can detect from Earth. The supernova of 1987 was the first, and so far the only one, we observed with neutrinos as well.

Supernova

SN1987A

You will obtain 4 pieces of the code from 4 puzzles: the sun painting, the chest with the photon, the clock, and the screen. Then you'll just need to fit them together in the correct order and enter it into the door. By the way, have you looked through the small window?

Solution

Explore the room carefully; you'll see it's full of puzzles. If you manage to solve them all, you'll be able to escape.

So many things in this room...

More hints

Show code

0820

Before changing anything, the game is impossible: some of the electron neutrinos are transformed into other neutrinos (muonic or tauonic) before they can be captured. This transformation (which we call oscillation) only happens if neutrinos have mass. Thus, open the configuration and deactivate the mass so that they stop transforming. While you're at it, you can also lower the speed to make it easier, but it depends on your reflexes.

A simple game, you just have to capture the 11 electron neutrinos (painted in blue here). Too difficult? You can always lower the level of the game.

More hints

Solution

If the particles go slower, they will be easier to capture, OK. Whether they spin or not doesn't matter so much. But what does the mass matter?

The Standard Model of particle physics is one of the most complete and successful theories ever constructed. It was developed theoretically and tested experimentally during the 20th century, and tells us how elementary particles are classified and behave, as well as how they interact with each other. Even so, at the beginning of our century, this theory was not yet fully proven, as one last piece of the model's prediction was yet to be found: the Higgs boson. This was discovered by the LHC in 2012, thus completing the Standard Model.

Learn more

Solution

Do you think it's impossible? That it's impossible to satisfy all the rules? That you're lacking energy? Could it be that what you're missing are actually more cards?

Apply the rules to each decay (to each row). When all the particles are in their correct places, satisfying all the rules, you will be able to proceed. Oh! And rounding is not allowed!

More hints

A nebula is a region of space filled with gas and cosmic dust, which can either be the area where a star is being formed or the remnants of a star's death. The Crab Nebula corresponds to the remnants of a supernova.

Nebulosa

Nebulosa del Cangrejo

Did you call on the phone hidden in the main room? If you already got the help, look closely at the diagrams drawn on those notes - can you work out which particle interacts with which one? And what good will it do to know how particles are connected?

Solution

Completing the interaction table is optional, but you can do it by calling for help and looking at the diagrams in the notes (which particle is connected to which one). With that reference, do the same with the particles in the picture, connecting the ones that do talk to each other (click on a particle and then click on another to draw a line between the two).

The interaction table is meant to help you with the rest of the puzzle, too bad it's not complete... Don't know how to complete it? Maybe you can ask for help, is there a phone number somewhere?

More hints

Could I get there? It looks like they're waiting for me

Did you call on the phone hidden in the main room? If you already got the help, look closely at the diagrams drawn on those notes - can you work out which particle interacts with which one? And what good will it do to know how particles are connected?

Solution

Completing the interaction table is optional, but you can do it by calling for help and looking at the diagrams in the notes (which particle is connected to which one). With that reference, do the same with the particles in the picture, connecting the ones that do talk to each other (click on a particle and then click on another to draw a line between the two).

The interaction table is meant to help you with the rest of the puzzle, too bad it's not complete... Don't know how to complete it? Maybe you can ask for help, is there a phone number somewhere?

More hints

Neutrinos were theoretically predicted by Pauli in 1930 as an explanation for the apparent loss of energy in beta decays: the energy was not lost, but carried away by a new particle with no electric charge and therefore invisible to the detector. At first it was called neutron, but when they discovered what we now call the neutron, Fermi changed the name to neutrino, as it was lighter. But how do we discover something invisible? Luckily, neutrinos do have a weak nuclear charge, so they can be detected with a little patience and a very good detector. And if you go near a large source of neutrinos, even better. This was done by Cowan and Reines in 1956, making them the first neutrino hunters. Today we know of 3 types of neutrinos. As this one talks to the electron, we call it the electron neutrino. As original as ever.

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Super-Kamiokande is a neutrino detector in Japan, and a big one, as it is a tank with 50,000 tonnes of water. It is in an old mine under the mountains, 1 km underground to protect it from other particles coming in from the atmosphere.

What look like light bulbs on the walls are photomultiplier tubes, very sensitive eyes to see the invisible.

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Official SK web

Neutrinos travel very fast, practically at the speed of light in vacuum, as fast as you can travel. In real life we cannot slow them down, but for the sake of this game we put this fictional option in.

Game Rules

• The total charge must be the same on both sides of the arrow.

• The number of protons + neutrons must be the same on both sides of the arrow.

• The total energy must be the same on both sides of the arrow.

• Hint: the total of something is calculated by adding up all the cards on that side of the arrow.

It is impossible to beat light in vacuum, but you can do it in a medium like water, where it slows down. And when a charged particle does so, it leaves behind a cone of light, a shock wave equivalent to when a plane breaks the sound barrier.

This phenomenon is called Cherenkov radiation and is how neutrinos are detected in detectors like Super-Kamiokande (well, actually the charged leptons that are produced).

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SK official web

A nebula is a region of space filled with gas and cosmic dust, which can either be the area where a star is being formed or the remnants of a star's death. The NGC 604 Nebula is one of the largest we can observe.

Nebulosa

NGC 604

Before changing anything, the game is impossible: some of the electron neutrinos are transformed into other neutrinos (muonic or tauonic) before they can be captured. This transformation (which we call oscillation) only happens if neutrinos have mass. Thus, open the configuration and deactivate the mass so that they stop transforming. While you're at it, you can also lower the speed to make it easier, but it depends on your reflexes.

A simple game, you just have to capture the 11 electron neutrinos (painted in blue here). Too difficult? You can always lower the level of the game.

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Solution

If the particles go slower, they will be easier to capture, OK. Whether they spin or not doesn't matter so much. But what does the mass matter?

The Sun is one of the major sources of neutrinos we have nearby, but it's not the only one. Many neutrinos are also produced in nuclear power plants, in the atmosphere, and in many astrophysical processes, allowing us to study the entire Universe using neutrinos.

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The electric charge of a neutrino is zero, so the electric charge of an antineutrino will be zero. Then, how do we distinguish between neutrinos and antineutrinos? The question is a bit more complex, because neutrinos do have another kind of charge (the weak one), which distinguishes neutrinos from antineutrinos. Even so, neutrinos could be equal to neutrinos, being their own antiparticle (we say that they would be Majorana fermions instead of Dirac fermions, like the electron and so on). Clarifying this situation is one of the great goals of particle physics, and our best experimental trump card is to search for the double beta radioactive process without neutrinos.

As of today we know of 17 elementary particles, which form all the matter we see, their interactions and their masses. In addition, some of them have their antiparticles, the same in every way but with opposite charge, which would form antimatter.

The antiparticle of the electron is the positively charged positron. The rest of the names are given with an ‘anti’ in front: antimuon, antiquark, antineutrino, ...

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Antineutrino?

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Do you see nothing? It might be a technical issue

By dragging the target to one of the stars you should see what object is behind, but we have been informed that this game does not work well on some browsers/operating systems. If you don't see anything, click here to see what you were supposed to find, We apologize for the inconvenience and keep working to fix it.

Solution

The Higgs boson was predicted in 1964 by physicist Peter Higgs as a remnant of the mechanism that gave mass to the W and Z bosons, as well as to matter particles. The mechanism was actually proposed together with other people and is called the Brout-Englert-Higgs mechanism, but since the latter was the one who mentioned the boson in his work, it stuck with his name. It took almost 60 years and the construction of the world's largest particle collider, the LHC at CERN, for the ATLAS and CMS collaborations to discover it in 2012, thus completing the Standard Model of particle physics.

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Sorry, but there is no physics on this screen, just another kind of geekery.

Look at the image in the center; it's a photo of the black hole Sagittarius A*, located at the center of our galaxy. If you look through the window with the telescope from the chest, you can find it and see how many light-years away it is.

Have you seen these images anywhere else? They seem very distant, but with the right tools, you might be able to see them and figure out how long it would take to get there.

Solution

Something in the center... the center of what? And why is it drawing me in? Whatever it is, I feel like I've seen it somewhere else...

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Show code

25000

In the middle of the 20th century many new particles were discovered, but were they all elementary? Gell-Mann and Zweig proposed the quark model in 1964, being able to explain all these particles from more elementary particles, the quarks: first with only two, the up and down, and then the strange one was added. In 1967 they were discovered in experiments at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory.

A curious thing about quarks is that the strong nuclear interaction always keeps them locked together, forming composite particles such as protons and neutrons. This is a known property of Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD), but whoever can prove it rigorously wins a prize of $1 million.

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The Standard Model of particle physics, our current theory, classifies elementary particles in a new modern periodic table. On the one hand we have the matter-forming fermions, which can be quarks or leptons, depending on whether they feel the strong nuclear force or not.

On the other hand, there are the gauge bosons, which transmit the fundamental interactions. And finally we have the Higgs boson, which is related to the mass of particles.

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The electron and the muon are not alone, as they have a third, even more massive copy, the tau lepton. It was discovered in 1975 in experiments at SLAC and LBL.

It turns out that all particles of matter come in 3 copies, what we call the 3 families of matter. But, why 3? will there be more?

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This theory tells us how particles get their mass, but not how massive they should be. Why are some particles so much more massive than others? Or, in other words, why do some feel the vacuum more than others?

Theory tells us that this depends on their Yukawa interactions, but we have no idea why this is more intense for some particles than for others. This is called the flavour puzzle.

The mass of the elementary particles we know comes from the Brout-Englert-Higgs mechanism, which tells us that the vacuum is actually filled with something we call the Higgs field. Without it, particles would have no mass. Instead, the more a particle feels this vacuum, the more massive it is. And if they don't feel it at all, like the photon, they will be massless.

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Why of each of the masses

The interactions or forces between elementary particles actually occur by exchanging other particles, more specifically the gauge bosons. The photon is responsible for transmitting the electromagnetic force, the gluons for the strong nuclear interaction, and the W and Z for the weak nuclear interaction.

Quarks and leptons do not interact directly with each other, although in some extensions of the Standard Model they do. Discovering this type of interaction would be to discover new physics (in the game played with Toothless).

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Super-Kamiokande is a neutrino detector in Japan, and a big one, as it is a tank with 50,000 tonnes of water. It is in an old mine under the mountains, 1 km underground to protect it from other particles coming in from the atmosphere.

What look like light bulbs on the walls are photomultiplier tubes, very sensitive eyes to see the invisible.

Learn more

Official SK web