The Neutrino Painter

Particle physics is driven by surprise. Researchers in the 1960s studying tiny but ubiquitous particles called neutrinos found only a fraction of what they expected to be in their detector. That unexpected result eventually led to the discovery that neutrinos are shapeshifters, oscillating between three types as they travel. Scientists are still studying these tiny transformers, and their antimatter counterparts, in the hopes that their properties might explain an even bigger mystery: Why we exist at all.