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 shape-shifters, 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.