PantyFanatic,

I think the first data supporting the theory that neutrinos had mass were reported in 1998 by physicists at the Super-Kamiokande detector in Japan, and subsequently confirmed at the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory in Canada, published in 2001. The most recent reports from Super-K are a refinement of the original work with some new data.

The Standard Model predicts that neutrinos have no mass and cannot change type. This led to the “solar neutrino problem”, when only about 30% of the predicted neutrinos were detected. The “type shifting” of neutrinos was first proposed to account for the delta between the theoretical and recorded counts.

I believe that there is no accepted Unified Theory yet. String Theory and Loop Quantum Gravity have yet to produce any theoretical predictions which can be tested.

Professor Hawking’s latest efforts seem to have been influenced by developments in Information Theory and the Generalized Second Law as described by Jacob Bekenstein. I will have to wait for a non-mathematical assessment of Professor Hawking’s Dublin paper.

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Eudaimonia