ABSTRACT
The apparent difference between detecting and measuring the properties of the electron and those of the neutrino is illusory. The neutrino has also been successfully used to investigate other aspects of nature. For example, experiments on neutrino-nucleon scattering were used to investigate the existence of weak neutral currents, a prediction of the Weinberg-Salam unified theory of electroweak interactions, the successor to Fermi’s theory of decay. Even if the discrepancy remains, it may very well be explicable in terms of new properties of the neutrino, such as neutrino oscillations, which are themselves independently testable. The history of the neutrino has not been an unbroken string of successes. It took a 30-year effort to establish the continuous spectrum in decay, which provided the initial impetus for the suggestion of the neutrino. In some neutrino experiments, the laws of conservation of energy and of momentum, are employed and these are usually unquestioned.
