To understand what Kenneth Ganezer does for a living, it's best first to understand the neutrino.

Good luck.

Neutrinos, also known as "ghost particles," are subatomic particles so tiny, they can be said to hardly even exist at all. Ten billion times smaller than the minuscule neutron, they could pass through a solid block of lead that stretched from the sun to Pluto without touching anything. They are so small that the amount of neutrinos that can fit in a salt shaker is 10 followed by 60 zeroes. Right now, thousands of them are passing undetected through your body like pebbles falling through the Grand Canyon.

And they are so insubstantial that the contents of that salt shaker would weigh a mere one-millionth of a gram. And yet there are so many of those little suckers flying around the universe that combined, they weigh more than all the stars and planets put together.

"It's a little bit abstract," Ganezer said. "But you get used to it with practice."

Which brings the story back to Ganezer, because before the professor of physics at California State University, Dominguez Hills, and his team of ghost particle busters came along, scientists thought they didn't have any mass at all.

It was a discovery that could change the way the universe is understood, and provide answers to how the great forces of the universe interact, a question that even Albert Einstein was unable to crack. It could even help produce technologies that are as yet unimaginable.

"It helps account for part of the mass of the universe," Ganezer said. "They played a role in galaxy formation and could help us come up with a Grand Unified Theory."

And it pretty much happened by accident. Ganezer was part of a team of physicists conducting research in new ways to make images of bones for the treatment of osteoporosis when neutrinos kept showing up in their findings.

"They didn't behave the way they were supposed to behave," he said. "We had this anomaly and didn't understand it."

With a rambling manner, unkempt hair, black socks and white tennis shoes, the longtime marathon runner looks every bit the stereotype of the physicist he is. If an office in a state college, whose main mission is teaching, may seem a strange place for discoveries that one expects to happen at world-class research institutes, Ganezer said it's becoming more and more common.

"The (California State system) has been moving in that direction for years," he said. "We don't get a lot of majors, so we have to justify the department. If you want to teach, first you have to have the credibility and do research."

Dominguez Hills President James Lyons Sr. said research is important not only because it allows experts to further their field of expertise, but it also inspires students.

"Research in all areas is important to the university because it ensures that faculty members remain current in their fields, have an opportunity to pursue their intellectual passions, and are apt to convey that excitement to encourage our students," he said.

Much of Ganezer's research has taken place deep underground, where the occasional neutrino can be captured in gigantic pools of water. Every so often, one will collide with a water molecule, an interaction that can be detected by sensors. The discovery that neutrinos have mass in 1998 came while Ganezer was part of a combined American-Japanese team called the Super-Kamiokande collaboration.

For Ganezer's efforts, Dominguez Hills was given $295,000 for further experiments on neutrino physics. The grant came from the National Science Foundation, an independent government agency that promotes the advancement of science.

Studying invisible particles may seem a quixotic adventure, but for NSF physicist M. Mitchell Waldrep, it can have profound implications.

"On the one hand, it sounds esoteric and who cares?" he said. "You drag this stuff out at a party and people's eyes glaze over. On the other hand, it bears quite directly on some of the largest questions -- even religious questions. Like, where did the universe come from? Where did this stuff come from? Where did we come from?"

Ganezer said that while the discovery about neutrons may seem obscure to the uninitiated, there's no telling where it could lead.

"We don't know what the practical applications will be," he said. "But I take heart in the fact that when there have been advances in physics, there have been important applications."

Previous arcane discoveries have led to superfast computers, medical imaging devices, lasers and cell phones. "In order to use a cell phone, we have to use the theory of relativity to assign frequencies," Ganezer said.

Of course, theoretical discoveries can also lead to technologies with terrifying implications. But Ganezer said it is worth the risk.

"Nuclear energy led to atomic bombs, but you always better mankind when you add knowledge," Ganezer said. "What you do with it is a matter of philosophy and ethics."

The truth about neutrinos could help propel human understanding of the universe.

"This is one of the great questions of science," Waldrep said. "It's been said that there are four great questions in science. No. 1 is the origin and nature of the universe. Two is the origin and nature of life. Three is the origin and nature of the mind. And four is the nature of matter itself."