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Is there even a theoretical way that this could happen? Seems essentially impossible. The whole thing with neutrinos is they just _don't_ interact with anything except _extremely_ rarely.


No. There is some evidence that a large flux of neutrinos can very slightly alter the rate of some nuclear beta decay (basically the decay which would release a neutrino can't if there are too many neutrinos already around it), but that won't do anything to trigger a nuclear weapon or nuclear plant meltdown. Even producing enough neutrinos to have a detectable effect at all would require a tremendous amount of energy - attempts to even detect such an effect on earth have been inconclusive. The only place in the universe where the neutron flux gets high enough to actually delay decay for a meaningful amount of time is in the core of a supernova, which is one way heavy elements are produced.


> The only place in the universe where the neutron flux gets high enough to actually delay decay for a meaningful amount of time is in the core of a supernova, which is one way heavy elements are produced.

That's very cool.


They can’t be focused, so if it did succeed - it would cook everything anywhere near it just as much. So think ‘interplanetary death ray’, not ‘surgical strike’.




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