3249: Neutrino Project

Neutrino Project

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Title text: We definitely put the pool in a mine for shielding. It was absolutely not to hide it from the funding people.

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Explanation

This is one of 44 incomplete explanations: This page was created recently by a solar neutrino. Don't remove this notice too soon. If you can fix this issue, edit the page!

A neutrino is a type of cosmic particle that very rarely interacts with matter. In nearly all cases, neutrinos pass through objects, regardless of density or composition, with no effects whatsoever. For instance, about 100 trillion neutrinos pass through your body every second to no noticeable effect.

However, there is a very small chance that a neutrino will collide with any material, including water. Neutrinos can thus be detected by constructing a large pool of water, shielded from all other particles, and carefully monitoring it for the small flashes of light that occur when a neutrino does interact with one of the many water molecules within the pool. The photomultiplier tubes mentioned in the comic are used to assist in detecting these very faint flashes.

The comic jokes that these detectors were not constructed with this purpose in mind, and were instead created via financial embezzlement from a "neutrino project" that was created solely to obtain funding for a pool party. The organizers of this project supposedly only then realized that the pool could be repurposed as an actual neutrino detector. (It is unclear what, exactly, they had claimed to be building with the funding they somehow obtained.)

The title text elaborates on why the pool was suitable for a neutrino detector. In real life, these detectors must be heavily shielded from all other particles that might drown out neutrino interactions, generally requiring them to be deep underground (like this and this and this), so a surface-level pool would obviously be unsuitable for that purpose. Randall implies that the pool was built in a deep mine in order to prevent it from being noticed by the people responsible for funding the project, which could fulfill the shielding requirement but is a humorously excessive strategy for hiding a swimming pool from a small group of people.

Transcript

This is one of 34 incomplete transcripts: This transcript was written by a pool party attendee. Don't remove this notice too soon. If you can fix this issue, edit the page!

[There is a large circular pool at the bottom of the panel, with a diving board and several stickfigures in and around it. Ponytail and Cueball are talking in the pool, two hairy Kidballs are passing a ball, a Kidball is jumping of the diving board, and a Ponytail with a drink and a Danish are walking along the outside of the pool.]

Ponytail: How much trouble do you think we'll be in when they find out we used the grant money to throw a huge pool party instead?

Cueball: We could argue that we did build a neutrino detector.

Cueball: There's a lot of water here. A solar neutrino will probably interact with it at some point.

Ponytail: ...Wait. Actually, if we got some photomultiplier tubes...

[Caption below comic:]

How the neutrino detector was invented

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Discussion

Never been this early to a new comic before. Good way to get some editing practice Black Hat's Hat (talk) 19:14, 22 May 2026 (UTC)

You just beat me, I was writing a transcript at the same time. Barmar (talk) 19:25, 22 May 2026 (UTC)

Booyah. I was editing transcripts already when it popped it, so I was already primed at the gunshot Black Hat's Hat (talk) 19:30, 22 May 2026 (UTC)

Is that really Ponytail and Danish at the top? They're hard to distinguish because they're so tiny, but I thought they might be Blondie and Megan. Barmar (talk) 19:16, 22 May 2026 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure its Ponytail, but it could either be Danish or a wet-haired Megan. Feel free to change it, it's not like the fate of the world hangs on this transcript. Black Hat's Hat (talk) 19:24, 22 May 2026 (UTC)

A note about Blondie: Some people have considered it best to recently deprecate all such Blondie characters in favour of them now officially being folded into the Miss Lenhart category.

I personally suspect that these examples are intended to be mere generic characters (even if using some of the small pool of recurringly 'recognisable' features). Or at least that it doesn't narratively matter, in this case, except to those who really want to categorise every single stick figure to their own personal satisfaction.

I don't think there's even one 'ideal' level of segregation of characters, never mind one that everyone can agree upon, but just conveying what I know/have observed about this. 81.179.199.253 21:52, 22 May 2026 (UTC)

The merge was my idea. User:YZ100 00:44, 29 May 2026 (UTC)

Particle physics-compatable swimwear needs to be thoroughly rinsed and air-dried after swimming to protect the sensitive elastane fibers from developing gaps.BorQhue del Sol (talk) 19:21, 22 May 2026 (UTC)

Added some size estimations for the pool. My math says it should be about 1.5km deep to match S-K’s volume; please re-check that. Not very certain on the diameter estimation, maybe someone wants to pixel-count the stick figures in the background against the visible arc of the pool and correct for perspective? — 2A04:6EC0:271:E850:F420:9A86:97FE:2FB7 20:31, 22 May 2026 (UTC) (kleines Filmröllchen)

I don't think it's very deep. The characters are standing, not treading water, and their heads are above the surface. Barmar (talk) 04:29, 23 May 2026 (UTC)

Math correction : 50000 metric tons of water = 50000 cubic meters; divide by 314 m^2 gets you a depth of 159. Looks as if the decimal point was off by one.

Pools come in many shapes; this one is not necessarily circular. Martin (talk) 04:53, 25 May 2026 (UTC)

Do we use "kidball" to mean a small stick figure with hair? "Cueball" is a joke about the figures being bald. At least one, possibly two of the small stick people have hair. Nitpicking (talk) 02:38, 24 May 2026 (UTC)

I think it must only mean any no-hair child, like Cueball means any no(-obvious)-hair adult.

Though I'm awfully conscious that it'll be a divisive subject which children are kidballs, like there's also a few "Cueball"s that arguably have subtle signs of hair. 81.179.199.253 17:36, 24 May 2026 (UTC)

Actually, just realised why I was confused about the question. None of the characters in this comic ever looked lie children to me. Ajusted the Transcript and Categories accoringly. (No children, no Kidballs, the one doing the arms-out cannonball-somoersault-thing from the board is another Cueballm making it a Multiple case, etc.) YMMV, but I'd personally default to what takes the least assumption for the scenario, and it doesn't look like a family-orientated pool party. 81.179.199.253 17:53, 24 May 2026 (UTC)

There's an anecdote floating around implying that the ultrapure water these detectors use would really effective leech nutrients from your skin and probably wouldn't be very fun to swim in? Better citation needed on that but:

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/insane-golden-chamber-contains-water-080000465.html, might be a fun fact to include if stronger evidence for the claim can be found.2600:8806:2A12:9A00:5DFA:61B8:D026:F59B 11:19, 27 May 2026 (UTC)
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