What is the difference between electron, muon and tau neutrinos?

[thenewmans]

I know there's a difference between how they're detected. (Cherenkov radiation cone size) They have different "flavors." (I'm not sure what that means.) There's a difference in their simbol. (Ve, Vu, Vt) And they have different masses. But that's all I know. There must be something more to the difference. My guess is it has something to do with how they interact using the weak force.

 

[tom.stoer]

We don't know.

For each fermion doublet (up-quark,down-quark), (e,μ) and the corresponding (e-,μ-neutrino) there are two additonal doublets which are identical in all quantum numbers except flavor. We don't know why they are there, and why three.

 

[thenewmans]

Cool. Good to know. Thank you.