The Oh-My-God particle was a cosmic ray detected in 1991 at a salt flat in Utah, carrying about 10^20 electron volts of energy, the highest ever recorded for a single particle. It was moving at a speed so close to light that its velocity was described as 99.999999 followed by about 15 nines of light speed, making it the fastest massive particle ever observed. The name came from researchers' shocked reaction upon seeing the measurement, and the discovery raises the open question of what kind of cosmic accelerator could impart that much energy to a single proton or atomic nucleus.
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The hosts compare the particle's energy to a single baseball thrown by MLB pitcher Yamamoto, to illustrate how much kinetic energy was packed into one subatomic particle.
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The hosts note this record still stands as the fastest thing ever observed in the universe.
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15:0210 to the 20 electron volts is an insane amount. The very famous Oh My God particle, which we have covered on this podcast before, this was named because researchers shouted Oh My God when they saw this particle. It was in 1991, it was discovered in Utah. It was discovered in one of the salt flats in Utah. And what they figured out was that this thing must have been traveling at 99.999999 with like 15 nines, the speed of light. This was the fastest thing, this is currently still, this is the fastest thing that we have ever observed in our universe. And it begs the question like what is actually making it that fast?
15:43Right, because the point is the source of where it came is an interesting thing to understand because it is basically able to get the closest to the speed of light that we've seen of any, that. Of any massive particle, right? Like this thing had enough energy, a single particle, like could be a proton, could be maybe a atomic nucleus. This thing had the same amount of energy as like Yamamoto from the Dodgers throwing a baseball, a single particle, right? It's insane the amount of energy that was packed and it's very non-trivial how you even do that, right?