avors, and at the specific level of a single leptonic flavor. This solves the “mystery of the missing solar neutrinos”. (See: A. McDonald, J. Klein, and D. Wark: “Solving the Solar Neutrino Problem”. Scientific American,April, 2003.) (See also: Science: Vol. 313, 21 July 2006, page 291, regarding neutrino oscillations). The situation is complex in that while an electron neutrino can only react with an electron (or positron), it may nevertheless change into a muon or tau neutrino during flight, and while in this new configuration, react only with a muon or tau (or their antiparticles). Hence while a specific neutrino flavor does code for and react with a single leptonic flavor, you can’t be sure which neutrino flavor you are going to end up with, no matter what flavor you began with.
The fluid mix of neutrino identities (in flight) reflects the fluid state of identity in the electroweak symmetric energy state generally, in which all leptonic identities are merged at their generic level, and likewise all quark identities are merged at their generic level. In the electroweak symmetric energy state (or during the electroweak era of the “Big Bang”), transformations of one leptonic flavor into another, or one quark flavor into another, were simply the normal course of events. This is the generic level of symmetry which the “W” family of IVBs recreates (and is how the “W” effects identity transformations), not the specific level of “broken” symmetry (individual identity) we experience today. Specific leptonic and quark identities “freeze out” or “crystalize” only in the cold ground state of our present electromagnetic era. In flight, the neutrino seems to at least partially return to this fluid state of electroweak generic identity. Oscillations or superpositions of identity occur between other closely related particles as well, including the quarks of the “K0 long” and “K0 short” mesons, and even the proton-neutron “nucleons”.
It is interesting to note the unexpected but crucial role of mass in both the IVBs (field vector) and the neutrino (alternative charge carrier) of the weak force. This mass is the basis of similarity allowing their interaction, and it is of course the weak force that brings mass-matter into existence. The three oscillating mass states associated with a neutrino flavor bring to mind the three oscillating (but massless) color charges which are likewise necessary to differentiate the quarks of a baryon. Just as any quark can have any color, so any neutrino can have any mass state. We cannot push this analogy too far, however; we are trying to use it to understand why neutrinos are distinguished by mass rather than by some massless attribute (such as color).
The mass of a neutrino provides a basis of similarity allowing interaction with other massive particles, beginning with the massive IVBs. Because neutrinos lack electric charge, there must be some other (non-gravitational) principle which allows interactions with other massive particles. An alternative charge carrier must not only be able to accept and bear a symmetry debt, it must also be able to pay and discharge the debt through a final interaction.
The role of deBroglie mass waves is fundamental to the phenomenon of neutrino oscillation. The oscillating neutrino spectrum is a consequence of the 3-member family structure of the elementary leptonic mass series – electron, muon, tau. If the leptonic spectrum had only a single member, then we would have only a single neutrino and no oscillations. Since this hypothetical single neutrino would still have to interact occasionally – to receive and discharge its symmetry debt – we may assume it would still have to be massive to provide a functional basis for interaction with the IVBs.
The IVBs recreate an invariant, primordial state of force unification symmetry (the electroweak era) by virtue of their huge and quantized mass. In this state the three members of the leptonic elementary particle spectrum are all equivalent (a generic level of identity rather than a specific level of identity), and transformatio