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from the tek-tek-tek-tek-tek-tek-tek-tek dept.
Unlike electromagnetic radiation, which consists of massless and accelerated charged particles, galactic cosmic rays (CR) are composed mostly of atomic nuclei and solitary electrons, objects that have mass. Cosmic rays originate via a wide range of processes and sources including supernovae, galactic nuclei, and gamma ray bursts. Researchers have speculated for decades on the possible effects of galactic cosmic rays on the immediate environs of Earth's atmosphere, but until recently, a causal relationship between climate and cosmic rays has been difficult to establish.
A research collaborative has published a paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that mathematically establishes such a causal link between CR and year-to-year changes in global temperature, but has found no causal relationship between the CR and the warming trend of the 20th century.
http://phys.org/news/2015-03-cosmic-fluctuations-global-temperatures-doesnt.html
[Abstract]: http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2015/02/23/1420291112
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Thursday March 12 2015, @04:16PM
http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/2007/jul/06/new-limit-placed-on-photon-charge
But were the photon to have charge, we'd have to rewrite *all* the textbooks - it breaks the standard model (which has photon == antiphoton).
Verifying that photons can't have mass above a certain level is like verifying that the complex zeroes of the Riemann Zeta function can't lie off the critical line below a certain size. It keeps us content to persue theories that are predicated on the Riemann hypothesis. Every now and then someone releases some theorem which choses ~RH as a postulate, which they have the right to do, but that doesn't make RH false.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by wantkitteh on Friday March 13 2015, @12:24AM
Hmm, seems a couple of years earlier than I was thinking, but sounds about right - maybe she was reading a report on a follow-up paper.
I was with your explanation up as far as "complex zeroes" - I'd like to think it's something to do with just having got home from a Pearl Jam / Nirvana tribute band double bill, but it's not - did I mention I suck at maths and physics? ;) Hell, I needed a Brian Cox TV series to illustrate relative velocity warping space time before I could understand it.