There is currently a great effort in Japan to build the world’s largest water bottle but not for the reasons many probably are thinking. The project which started in early 2020 and is still continuing is a highly ambitious one. Through the construction of the largest water bottle, Japan is aiming to uncover one of the biggest mysteries of the universe.
In order to build the largest water bottle, Japan is hollowing out a whole mountain in the Japanese Alps. This remote place is called Kamioka and this is where the construction is taking place.
The process of hollowing out a mountain is obviously no easy task. Japan has spent nearly a billion dollars so far and the project still has 3 years to finish. The hollowing out started by building a massive cylinder inside the mountain that serves as the observatory. It is 681 meters below the summit while also being 88 meters high and 69 meters wide. This means that the cylinder is big enough to fit an entire Boeing 747.
In addition, the hole will be filled with 260 million liters of water as well to make the observations more clear and without too much outside interaction. The premise of the project is to observe and detect atomic motions, especially those of neutrinos.
Neutrinos are sub-atomic particles that have almost zero mass and can move closer to light speed. Although there are 100 trillion neutrinos that pass through our bodies every second, it is impossible to see or detect them. So, how will this project help us do the impossible?
When neutrinos interact with another participle, they sometimes charge it with light speed. As the participle becomes that fast, it emits Cherenkov radiation which scientists can observe directly. The project involves the building of 40,000 photodetectors which will detect the traces of Cherenkov radiation. Through the study of these detections, scientists will try to answer how a neutrino moves without interacting with matter.
Potentially, this discovery has the possibility to change how we observe and understand the universe. Moreover, it also can highly develop practices in particle physics, medical imaging, fluid dynamics, and information technology as well.
