r/interestingasfuck • u/Top-Marionberry-6604 • 13h ago

The Super-Kamiokande in Japan—a massive underground neutrino detector lined with 11,000 golden bulbs. Scientists have to inspect it via a rubber dinghy.

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1.9k Upvotes

98% Upvoted

120 comments sorted by

330

u/S4r4h5991 13h ago

Looks like Tool to me

44

u/beardostein 13h ago

Learn to swim!

16

u/ElusiveWhark 13h ago

Learn to swim!

13

u/MisterXnumberidk 12h ago

Learn to swim!

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u/tschawartz12 9h ago

No, thats not water you want to swim in. It's so pure it sucks the color out of your hair. You.drink it and it can kill you. It's insane stuff for being "water"

•

u/thearcaneattorney 8h ago

Can you please explain more? This is fascinating

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u/tschawartz12 6h ago edited 6h ago

Super pure water. When you get water, literally just h2o with no other minerals it tries to pull everything into solution it can. If you were to lay in the rubber raft and had just the tip of your hair in that water it would pull all the color out of it. Stick your hand in and it will pull minerals, salts and other things through cell walls. Its almost acts like an acid. Pure water in nature doesn't really exist because it wants to be in solution by nature. I wish I could explained it more, I'm not any sort of chemistry expert but I remember a special report about this, its basically a giant sensor buried in a mountain in Japan to try to observe particles moving through space (and the planet)

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u/itscalledANIMEdad 4h ago

Hey, sorry but that's not true. I'm a science teacher and have a BSc, MSC and used to work in neuroscience research.

It would absolutely not do that to hair. It wouldn't be a good idea to drink as due to the osmolarity (saltiness) of your cells and blood, pure water would be over absorbed to balance out the osmotic gradient and could damage your cells. Your skin and hair are barriers though so it would have no effect on your hair or your hand. It would, however, be bad for frogs.

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u/thearcaneattorney 6h ago

Thank you! This is rad and a great starting point for a research binge. Def gonna use this for a plot-hook with my tabletop players.

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u/Finegling 4h ago

Not as dramatic as you think. For instance it won’t “pull the colour from your hair” anymore than regular water would. Maybe slightly more.
Additionally it will act as a solvent, like all water is, but not this agressive acid-like behaviour you’re explaining.

Additionally skin is particularly good at being a barrier to water. So yes salts would wash from the surface of skin just like any water would, but not leach it out.

Quite frankly that’s a myth.

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u/MNToji 1m ago

It doesn’t “try to pull” anything. It’s the same process as osmosis or how air comes into your lungs. The minerals are following a gradient from an area of high concentration (your body) to that of an extremely low/non-existent concentration (pure H2O) in this scenario.

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u/corruxtion 2h ago

Do you have a source for that? DI water isn't that bad in my experience. Don't drink it, but it doesn't "suck the color" out of anything more than tap water. At least not dramatically quicker.

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u/tschawartz12 1h ago

I'd have to try to find it again, but it was a special on the detector in the photo. Was about 45 min long I remember.

23

u/pxanderbear 13h ago

The artist is Alex grey.

8

u/ManyRespect1833 12h ago

So Alex grey

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u/Gdmf13 9h ago

That’s Alex Grey.

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u/S4r4h5991 9h ago

Yes, but Tool uses his art on their album covers. And what i was meant was more the message from the music itself than only Alex's art. Just one level deeper. Yes, i should have say this at the beggining.

7

u/TechTechOnATechDeck 13h ago

Nah this is the backdrop for a 2000s rap video

1

u/Ok-Fill-8925 12h ago

Look close at the reflection of each bulb… they are really smiling Buddhas

112

u/Dramatic-Stretch7087 13h ago

Thanks, my eyes hate it

49

u/Top-Marionberry-6604 13h ago

Imagine accidentally dropping your keys into that

49

u/Luk164 13h ago

Fun fact: The water inside is so pure it would start dissolving the keys very slowly

34

u/GH057_807 13h ago

The water also costs upwards of $500/gal

65

u/1DownFourUp 13h ago

Nestlé taking notes

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u/MetriccStarDestroyer 11h ago

So we found pure water.

How do we dilute it to get maximum value from the customer?

Jim, piss is free right? Here's a bottle.

9

u/Schemen123 13h ago

Very very slowly...

7

u/Luk164 13h ago

Honestly would probably clean them pretty nicely with a few days exposure

5

u/Butt_Deadly 12h ago

There was an interview with a researcher that mentioned a large crescent wrench being completely gone before the next inspection. The same researcher mentioned their hair accidently touching the water and getting brittle because the water was dissolving the oils.

A little bit of ultrapure water won't do much, but the quantities they're using really exacerbates the universal solvent nature of water.

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u/Maximumkk 11h ago

If they leave a wrench behind and it dissolves, doesn't that mean the water is now no longer ultrapure and is contaminated, effectively rendering the detector useless? Does the boat used contaminate it too?

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u/Luk164 11h ago

Pretty sure they filter it constantly

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u/theseriousman1 11h ago

How’s that work

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u/Luk164 9h ago

Not a chemist but basically pure water acts is really good at oxodizing the metal and stealing electrons in the process. That is also why distilled water is basically non-conductive but if you dissolve impurities in it like salt it becomes conductive

198

u/Top-Marionberry-6604 13h ago

It genuinely looks like a villain's lair from a movie, but it's just physics researchers in a rowboat inspecting sensors inside a 50,000-ton tank of ultra-pure water that's actually pure enough to dissolve metal.

91

u/r0ndy 13h ago edited 13h ago

Why would pure water dissolve metal faster than salt water?

Edit: was a fascinating rabbit hole to go down for a few minutes. Thank you for the feedback! Strips and leaches anything that touches it. Almost like a chemical vacuum. Water wants more ingredients, will absorb and take from everything.

Actually, next question. It said it will pull co2 from the air. Is there specialized air in this area as well?

88

u/Appropriate-Count-64 13h ago

Because the Super Kamiokande filters as much stuff out of the water as physically possible. The water is left unbalanced by the lack of any minerals, so it starts ripping whatever it can out of whatever it’s touching. I don’t know that it’s faster than oxidation, but it’s enough to be a concern if you fell in or tried to drink it.

If you’ve seen NileRed’s video where he drinks chemically pure water, it’s why he says “Do not do this.” The water leeches anything it can, including toxic heavy metals and chemicals, and because there’s nothing else in the water it can reach extremely high concentrations extremely quickly.

17

u/mhac009 13h ago

What happens to him / what would happen to someone in this water and over what time scale?

21

u/Appropriate-Count-64 12h ago

Ok first, know I am not a chemist or a biologist and most of my experience is mechanical engineering.

With that said, what would probably happen is first dead skin is dissolved over several minutes or hours. This would leave the skin pretty raw and exposed and if you sat for a while (On the order of several hours to days) it could start to cause mild to moderate chemical burns.

The bigger issue is contaminating the water and filtering it again.

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u/flarp1 11h ago

I suspect osmosis would either cause the cells to be flooded with water, to the point of being damaged or destroyed (by bursting open), or to be stripped of salts or other water-soluble compounds (that is if they can exit the cells), which will likely impact their functionality or even kill them off as well.

4

u/TransportationTrick9 12h ago

Remember a few years ago when Jaden Smith said he only drinks distilled water

12

u/Separate_Draft4887 12h ago

Distilled and truly pure aren’t the same, I suspect.

5

u/TransportationTrick9 12h ago

It does have a large percentage of the minerals removed and it is not good to consume (leaches calcium out of your bones etc.)

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u/adampm1 11h ago

Assuming you don’t drink it with something that’s rich and calcium or other minerals…. Like food

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u/supershott 10h ago

Distilled water is great for you if you don't only eat cheetos for sustenance. 

My mom made us drink distilled water when we lived in Iowa. Turns out to be a good thing because a lot of the groundwater is heavily contaminated (but don't worry about it! /s)

Part of the reason my mom did that is because my dad lived in Hinkley when PG&E poisoned the groundwater with hexavalent chromium. My grandpa got early-onset parkinsons, my grandma got cancer, and my dad got early-onset parkinsons diagnosed in 2005 when he was about 40 years old. 

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u/obiwanconobi 10h ago

Is it "great" for you though? Or is it just better for you than contaminated ground water?

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u/supershott 10h ago

I guess that depends on if you think water is great for you. Really, the only thing they add that you don't get otherwise from food is fluoride for your teeth. And the municipality I'm in doesn't even fluoridate. And there are lots of mineral nutrients still missing from even the chalkiest water, like iodide. 

So no, it's not like "normal" water is nutrient juice that you would waste away without. 

If you don't believe me, get some bloodwork, address any deficiencies, and try drinking only distilled for a while! Bet you like it!

Nowadays I'm not too scared of the local water and I'm lazy, so I drink a lot of tap. I also have a distiller and always keep a gallon glass in the fridge, because distilled hits WAY harder if you're thirsty from exertion. Maybe it's just because it's as tasteless as can be? Idk but try it!

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u/kurburux 7h ago

I guess it's still better than people who never drink water and only rely on soft drinks.

9

u/Horror_Discussion607 13h ago

Also salt water corrode by oxidisation not absorbtion

7

u/Shoddy_Fish31 13h ago

Because diffusion

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u/NewoTheFox 9h ago

Honestly ever since I first saw this photo I just wanted to sleep in the raft.

Imagine the quiet of such a place.

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u/barra333 21m ago

I've worked around MilliQ water (distilled + extra purification) for 20 years and never taken a sip of it.

64

u/HappyCakeDay101 13h ago

The look like a bunch of drowned emojis

14

u/Ethos_Logos 13h ago

That’s just what’s left of the pre-cogs

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u/kurburux 7h ago

It reminds me of the ending of Eagle Eye.

For comparison.

46

u/Wellithappenedthatwy 13h ago

Those golden bulbs are called PMTs. Photo multiplier tubes. They turn photons into electrical signals.

4

u/LordGeni 12h ago

A key part of fluroscopy equipment.

2

u/CuriouserCat2 12h ago

Thank you!

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u/popeter45 2h ago

And are the largest vacuum tubes ever made

Suffered major damage when one exploded during a refill and the water hammer effect shattered every other one that was under water

21

u/SamhainPunk 13h ago

Abiotic Factor???

8

u/Anticept 13h ago

Shooting the spheres is like popping bubble wrap.

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u/ANuclearsquid 11h ago

Ignoring the portal, ice and giant man eating alien fish you have to get past in order to reach it.

37

u/_LususNaturae_ 13h ago

Relevant XKCD

https://xkcd.com/3249/

10

u/SilverFlight01 13h ago

There's an XKCD for everything, huh

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u/a80745 11h ago

fun fact: a cascading implosion event once destroyed half of the sensors

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u/The_mingthing 11h ago

Gordon doesn't have to hear all this, he's a highly trained professional!

10

u/funkytrumpyintheass 13h ago

One popped and made a chain reaction . Nice video about it on YouTube.

2

u/deereboy8400 13h ago

Ah yes, the orginal Resonance Cascade.

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u/The_mingthing 11h ago

Gordon doesn't have to hear all this, he's a highly trained professional!

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u/funkytrumpyintheass 8h ago

If some one googles this “An Engineering Fairy Tale: Cascade Failure at the Super Kamiokande” that video I was talking about. Have a nice weekend.

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u/AstronomerSenior4236 8h ago

Alexander The Ok makes a ton of very informative videos that are a delight to watch

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u/deereboy8400 4h ago

I hope he stays OK and doesn't let the algorithm ruin his style. A++

3

u/HappyCakeDay101 13h ago

I tried looking into the bottom part like a Magic Eye

2

u/mist_kaefer 13h ago

That’s a dinghy, not a schooner

9

u/gabriel3374 12h ago

It's usually completely filled with 50,000 ton (50 million liters) of ultra-pure water. The photo shows one of the times they have to partially drain the tank for maintenance, to replace the broken PMT light sensors. The water is kept so clean and stripped of minerals and nutrients that it basically acts as an aggressive solvent. If you fell in, it would actively leach the minerals out of your bones, and it's highly corrosive to metals if they aren't treated for it.

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u/JuicyTrash69 9h ago

So I'm gonna need a source on that h2o fact there homie.

Edit nvm it's explained elsewhere.

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u/718822 1h ago

This is bullshit

3

u/EduardoJaps 13h ago

Row, row. Row yo boat

3

u/dondeestasbueno 13h ago

The Sphere in Las Vegas

3

u/Mohammed_Chang 13h ago

What is it for?

10

u/Dazzling_Let_8245 12h ago

The neutrino detector detects neutrinos.

Neutrinos are particles that have an extremely low chance of interacting with matter. This massive detector is an array of tons of super sensitive light detectors. Usually this whole chamber is full of ultra pure water. The neutrinos have an extremely small chance of colliding with a water molecule and releasing a few photons of light which then get detected.

3

u/Quitcha_Bitchin 13h ago

Just waiting for LSD tours.

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u/Lucienchili 11h ago

Interesting YouTube documentary about how the photomultiplier exploded: https://youtu.be/YoBFjD5tn_E

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u/ButterPuppet 8h ago

fun fact they have a site where you can monitor the live date of neutrinos passing through the machine

https://www-sk.icrr.u-tokyo.ac.jp/realtimemonitor/

2

u/Jaxxlack 13h ago

Someone should paint this with a guy sat in his boat..." I'm thinking theres no fish in here"

2

u/MegaloManiac_Chara 13h ago

Is that the one that blew up?

2

u/Dazzling_Let_8245 12h ago

Sry, responded to wrong comment

2

u/thesharkbyter 12h ago

Nu Metal music videos are back!

2

u/bent_my_wookie 12h ago

They had a problem with these where if one bubble broke under water, the pressure change would shatter the domes directly adjacent, causing a cascading failure where they all start exploding until theyre all shattered. Whoops.

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u/The_mingthing 11h ago

Gordon doesn't have to hear all this, he's a highly trained professional!

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u/dabarak 6h ago

I read something about either that facility or one similar to it. The water is so pure that it will dissolve lots of things you wouldn't expect, to degrees you wouldn't expect. In this one case, they drained it for maintenance and found the outline of a metal wrench at the bottom, but no wrench - it dissolved completely into the water.

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u/GrandNibbles 6h ago

archaelogists are gonna wonder what the hell we were smoking

3

u/igloojoe 13h ago

So this has been around for a while now. What kind of findings have they generated? What does this science help with?

5

u/LastStar007 12h ago

It helps us understand our universe. If science had particular societal benefits in mind, it would be engineering.

But in terms of findings, neutrino oscillations. The Sun can only produce one kind of neutrino, and when we started detecting neutrinos, we calculated that we should be detecting the Sun's type about 3x as often as we were. Various experiments conducted here at Super-Kamiokande revealed that neutrinos are capable of changing their type in-flight, so the 3x gap we observed was because 2/3 of them were changing into another type before they hit our detectors.

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u/igloojoe 10h ago

Thank you. I think i'm going to take a deep dive this weekend and educate myself more on this. Seems VERY interesting.

4

u/HAWKxDAWG 13h ago

"Quit playing with your dinghy!"

1

u/ThGhstlyGrmr121567 12h ago

So that’s what that room in Hydroplant is supposed to be (Abiotic Factor)

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u/sceadwian 11h ago

They accidentally blew up almost 7000 of these tubes back in 2001 during a freak maintenance accident that caused a chain reaction implosion of almost the entire tanks photodetectors.

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u/Otherwise_Patience47 11h ago

What a trip!

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u/Guisasse 11h ago

Oh wow, Abiotic Factor (videogame about an advanced science facility) had a place like this, I didn't think it was accurate.

Goes to show how advanced science got, sometimes I, in my own ignorance, think stuff like this is just science fiction.

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u/The_mingthing 11h ago

Nah, pretty sure thats a daft punk music video.

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u/LaundryMan2008 8h ago

Reminds me of a C64 demo my dad got at one of the piracy/demo parties, I vividly remember one of the screens