The Velocity of Muons in Direct Relation to an Indoor Environment vs. an Outdoor Environment

The purpose of this experiment is to test if a substantial amount of matter could affect the velocity of a muon as it travels through space. We tested this idea out by collecting data from the scintillators on a wooden shelf that stands 2.175 meters tall, with an average of a 0.725 meter difference in length between each scintillator paddle. The data collected from the paddles is analyzed from the trials the detector runs from both inside the building and outside the building. A time of flight study is ran on both groupings of trials: inside data and outside data. We found that there is no real significant difference in the velocity of the muon comparing the velocity of the muon within the time of flight studies of the indoor and the outdoor data. Possible conclusions that could explain our results could include the possibility that the muons that travel through the building are travelling at such a high velocity that the building can't offer enough impedance to significantly change the muon's velocity. Future studies that could possibly be ran and investigated includes utilizing thicker buildings to run studies in, or running the detectors in a wide open field so the muon’s velocity wouldn’t be hindered by structures or matter farther away from the detectors.