Section A: [Reading Comprehension)
1. Read the passage given below and answer the questions that follow.
[8]
just a few years ago, we witnessed how a national project, the India-based Neutrino
Observatory (INOJ, which is to study fundamental partides called neutrinos, was subject to a
barrage of questions from environmentalists, politicians and others ever since it was dearded.
The project, which involved the construction of an underground laboratory, was initially to be
located in the Nilgiris but later, on grounds that it was too dose to tiger habitat, was moved to a
cave under a rocky mountain in the Bodi West Hills region of Theni district, about 110 km West
of Madurai in Tamil Nadu.
The already much-delayed and important Physics needs to be explained.
India has been among the pioneers in neutrino research, the first of such laboratories having
been established in the 1960s. We led neutrino research when our physicists used a gold mine
at Kolar in Karnataka to set up what was then the world's deepest underground laboratory.
This was called the Kolar Gold Field Lab. In 1965, it enabled researchers to detect atmospheric
neutrinos. In 1992, when the mine became uneconomical, the laboratory was shut down. With
that, we lost our advantage and our global leadership.
Most of the advanced countries are already working vigorously in neutrino science with
dedicated labs. These indude the United States, Russia, France, Italy, China, Japan and South
Korea. India is set to not only join this league, but also become a key player in global efforts in
neutrino science The MAGNETISED Iron Calorimeter [ICAL] being set up at INO will be among
the largest ever in the world, weighing over 50000 tonnes.
Neutrinos, first proposed by Swiss Scientist Wolfgang Pauli in 1930, are the second most
widely occurring particle in the universe, only second to photons, the partides which make up
light in fact, neutrinos are so abundant among us that every second, there are more than 100
trillion of them passing right through each of us - we never even notice them.
This is the reason, why INO needs to be built deep into the Earth - 1300 metres into the Earth.
At this depth, it would be able to keep itself away from all the trillions of neutrinos detector.
Neutrinos have been in the universe literally since forver, being almost 14 billion years old - as
much as the universe itself.
From experiments so far, we know that neutrions have a tiny mass, but the ordering of the
neutrino mass states is not known and is one of the key questions that remain unanswered till
today. This is a major challenge which INO will try to resolve, thus completing our picture of
the neutrino
Neutrinos are very important for our scientific progress and technological growth for three
reasons. First, they are abundant Second, they have very little mass and no charge and hence
can travel through planets, stars, rocks and human bodies without any interaction. In fact, a
beam of trillions of neutrinos can travel thousand of kilometres through a rock before an
interaction with a single atom of the rock and the neutrino occurs. Third, they hide within them
a vast pool of knowledge and could open up new vistas in the fields of astronomy and
astrophysics, communication and even in medical imaging through the detector spin-offs.
While this should be a moment of joy, there is also some scepticism, partly arising due to the
fact that the neutrino, though so abundant is a silent stranger to most people.
2. On the basis of your reading of the above passage, make notes on it using headings and sub-
headings. Use recognisable abbreviations wherever necessary (minimum 4). Supply an
aopropriate tide to it
(5)
b. Write a summary of the above passage in 80-100 words
(3)
Answers
just a few years ago, we witnessed how a national project, the India-based Neutrino
Observatory (INOJ, which is to study fundamental partides called neutrinos, was subject to a
barrage of questions from environmentalists, politicians and others ever since it was dearded.
The project, which involved the construction of an underground laboratory, was initially to be
located in the Nilgiris but later, on grounds that it was too dose to tiger habitat, was moved to a
cave under a rocky mountain in the Bodi West Hills region of Theni district, about 110 km West
of Madurai in Tamil Nadu.
The already much-delayed and important Physics needs to be explained.
India has been among the pioneers in neutrino research, the first of such laboratories having
been established in the 1960s. We led neutrino research when our physicists used a gold mine
at Kolar in Karnataka to set up what was then the world's deepest underground laboratory.
This was called the Kolar Gold Field Lab. In 1965, it enabled researchers to detect atmospheric
neutrinos. In 1992, when the mine became uneconomical, the laboratory was shut down. With
that, we lost our advantage and our global leadership.
Most of the advanced countries are already working vigorously in neutrino science with
dedicated labs. These indude the United States, Russia, France, Italy, China, Japan and South
Korea. India is set to not only join this league, but also become a key player in global efforts in
neutrino science The MAGNETISED Iron Calorimeter [ICAL] being set up at INO will be among
the largest ever in the world, weighing over 50000 tonnes.
Neutrinos, first proposed by Swiss Scientist Wolfgang Pauli in 1930, are the second most
widely occurring particle in the universe, only second to photons, the partides which make up
light in fact, neutrinos are so abundant among us that every second, there are more than 100
trillion of them passing right through each of us - we never even notice them.