Nobel Prize in Physics goes to Francis Halzen(nobelprize.org) |
Nobel Prize in Physics goes to Francis Halzen(nobelprize.org) |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IceCube_Neutrino_Observatory
Mechanism is via conversion of neutrinos into charged particles which are then detected via Cherenkov radiation which is produced when a charged particle moves with speeds larger then the speed of light in the medium. (That is only possible because it is less than the speed of light in vacuum which cannot be exceeded.)
This was also discussed recently if you are interested: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49655286
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=south+pol...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Pole_Traverse
https://octanepress.com/content/south-pole-traverse_antartic...
Significant amounts of things still come in by air cargo at great cost, but a lot also comes the long slow way.
Thanks, I had no idea this was possible!
I'm personally very happy that we're still funding science that isn't obviously monetised.
The reason for Antarctica is that it's the only place you find cubic kilometres of stable ice that doesn't drift around.
1: Ice-mass that isn't contaminated by atomic testing fallout (if the ice has been there since the 40s it's without radioactive waste (faschinating to read about how WW2 wrecks is a prime resource of steel since it's a huge amount of steel without trace amounts of radionucletiods from testing fallout).
2: No current interference (nuclear power, radiowaves,etc) creating possible test uncertainties.
3: I'm sure there are other reasons
The negative naturally is cost, but since the expriment succeeded it will probably be useful for any attempts to send robots or even humanity into space beyond the solar system.
I appreciate the boldness of this project, it has an element of sci-fi to it. Building a base at the south pole to bury sensors in ice to measure elusive particles. The stuff of dreams!
There are nearly 300 living laureates. Enough to hold a yearly meetup for them in Lindau, where usually about 40 gather. This year, for the event's 75th anniversary, there were even about 70. Imagine that.
IIRC Oppenheimer facilitated / sponsored a meeting there after the Manhattan Project, as a gathering where physicists could talk freely about physics for a change.
https://science.nasa.gov/image-article/apod-2011-february-13...
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/chennai/why-the-neu...
One thing I noticed was that more than a few were seriously sick in childhood and had to be homeschooled. This includes Edward Morley, Peter Higgs, René Descartes (though I'm not sure how rare it was at his time), and the mathematician Julia Robinson, who was bedridden with scarlet fever at 9 years old, then had to get tutoring to catch back up, and had this to say about it [2]:
> I have since read that a solitary childhood or, what amounts to the same thing, a period of isolation resulting from an illness is frequently noted in the early lives of scientists. I am not sure what the significance of this finding is. Obviously I had to amuse myself for long periods of time, but I didn’t do so with mathematics. I am inclined to think that what I learned during that year in bed was patience.
> By the time I was well enough to go back to school, I had missed more than two years. My parents arranged to have me tutored by a retired elementary school teacher. In one year, working three mornings a week, she and I went through the state syllabuses for the fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth grades. It makes me wonder how much time must be wasted in classrooms.
Sidenote: I found the book [1] through asking a free LLM what source this quote might be referring to. They are reasonably good at this kind of literature search, especially because it's easy to judge whether they gave you something useful.
[1] https://archive.org/details/cradlesofeminenc0000goer_l9f8/pa...
[2] https://web.archive.org/web/20181207045746/https://www.maa.o...
