Francis Halzen Wins Nobel Physics Prize For Antarctic 'Ghost Particle' Hunt (wisc.edu) 49
University of Wisconsin-Madison physicist Francis Halzen has been awarded the 2026 Nobel Prize in Physics for his contributions to understanding astrophysical neutrinos. Halzen led the development of the IceCube Neutrino Observatory beneath the Antarctic ice, which has helped trace high-energy neutrinos back to cosmic sources such as supermassive black holes and opened a new era of "multi-messenger" astronomy. Longtime Slashdot reader schwit1 shares a report from UW-Madison: Embedded in a cubic kilometer of Antarctic ice, IceCube uses thousands of light sensors to survey the universe for neutrinos, nearly massless particles that rarely interact with other matter. Neutrinos provide information about the workings of black holes, galaxies and other objects in the cosmos. "IceCube is like no other telescope in the world," says UW-Madison interim Chancellor Eric M. Wilcots. "And there is no other scientist quite like Francis Halzen, whose idea to create a neutrino detector under almost a mile of ice has led to a remarkable multinational and multi-institutional scientific collaboration and a fundamental shift in how we think about the universe."
Unlike the neutral neutrino, cosmic rays are charged particles whose paths cannot be traced directly back to their sources. But the powerful cosmic accelerators that produce them, like supermassive black holes, will also produce neutrinos. These so-called "ghost particles" travel nearly undisturbed from their accelerators, giving scientists an almost direct pointer to their source. Along with observations by other telescopes, the neutrino first detected by IceCube provided the first-ever evidence of a source of high-energy cosmic rays, whose origins have been notoriously difficult to pinpoint since their discovery over 100 years ago by 1936 physics Nobel laureate Victor Hess.
Unlike the neutral neutrino, cosmic rays are charged particles whose paths cannot be traced directly back to their sources. But the powerful cosmic accelerators that produce them, like supermassive black holes, will also produce neutrinos. These so-called "ghost particles" travel nearly undisturbed from their accelerators, giving scientists an almost direct pointer to their source. Along with observations by other telescopes, the neutrino first detected by IceCube provided the first-ever evidence of a source of high-energy cosmic rays, whose origins have been notoriously difficult to pinpoint since their discovery over 100 years ago by 1936 physics Nobel laureate Victor Hess.
Nice! (Score:5, Insightful)
These projects are not very visible, but they are right there in the rather large hole we have in known Physics. Anything getting us a bit more is very welcome.
Re:Nice! (Score:4, Funny)
These projects are not very visible
I'll say! They buried it at the South Pole!
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"Dark" Energy/Marketing
You have a theory, in this case General Relativity, that has been confirmed by testing for many decades. Experimental data shows anomalies that the theory cannot explain. So either:
- The theory is wrong (or incomplete)
- Our ontology is wrong
- Or both of the above
So, what do you do? Do you abandon the theory, in spite of the huge amount of evidential backing, or do you change the ontology while you investigate further?
rather large hole is getting known in the taxpayer community for gold digging.
Yeah, it's a well known fact that all astrophysicists are coining it, they are all as rich
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I am with Roger Penrose on this: Quantum theory is wrong. Saying it is "incomplete" is just a more polite form of saying it is wrong. Now, you do not abandon theories you know are wrong unless you have better ones. But you always remember they are wrong and you are careful not to make sweeping predictions based on them.
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Former President Obama said that the Biden/Harris Administration was "continuing and building on" the Obama Administration
There was a deal between the US and Iran that was negotiated during Obama's presidency. You might argue that it wasn't the best of deals, but it did lower tensions, and constrained what Iran could do.
Trump didn't attempt to improve the deal, he just withdrew from it in 2018, which removed the constraints on Iran enriching uranium. He has done nothing to fix this in either of his terms in office.
But this war began with the war in Gaza, which started October 7, 2023 - during the Biden/Harris Administration.
Ah, so it took place during Biden's presidecy, therefore it was purely down to Biden, no other factors whatsoever.
Re:Fundamental physics has never been more dead (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah, what has a better understanding of particle physics ever done for US, huh??? ... ...
_ ...........
Re:Fundamental physics has never been more dead (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Fundamental physics has never been more dead (Score:5, Funny)
"Okay, nuclear power. Yeah. Yeah, they did give us that. That's true. "
"And industrial-scale superconducting magnets!"
"Don't forget GPS satellite relativistic corrections!"
"And radioisotope therapy!"
"Electron beam therapy?"
"World Wide Web, wasn't that created by particle physicists?"
"Yeah, they did do that."
"Capacitative touchscreens too, you know."
"All right, all right, FAIR ENOUGH! But APART from computers, telecommunications, nuclear power, PET scans, MRIs, satellite communications, superconductors, radioisotope therapy, electron beam therapy, heat-shrink tubing, cargo and baggage screening, smoke detectors, muon tomography, capacitative touchscreens, and the World Wide Web, WHAT HAS PARTICLE PHYSICS EVER DONE FOR US?!"
"Synchrotron light sources for drug discovery?"
"Oh, drug discovery?! GROW UP!"
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This does a nice job making it clear using concrete example that basic or foundational science, though pursued for the sake of knowledge (or high-confidence information at the least), often without an immediately obvious application or practical upshot, often leads through winding and indirect paths to incredibly important practical discoveries. No basic science would mean no technical progress after we work out the consequences of what we already know.
Also, I think you left out "photon radiotherapy" -- pr
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That came from studying Special Relativity, not Particle Physics. A completely different branch of physics altogether.
Re:Fundamental physics has never been more dead (Score:4, Interesting)
The need for them came from relativity, but the atomic clocks needed to be able to handle such fine corrections are based on the hyperfine transition of 133Cs. You're not getting very far on atomic clocks without particle physics
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And those corrections require atomic clocks.
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"Oh, drug discovery?! GROW UP!"
Your SnR's been steadily dropping, Rei; just an FYI.
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Okay Felicia. [youtube.com]
Re:Fundamental physics has never been more dead (Score:4, Insightful)
He was *solely* awarded a Physics Nobel, the 1st such in over 3 decades primarily for, NOT an original idea, but a refinement of one proposed, persevered and built by John Learned who is still alive.
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He was *solely* awarded a Physics Nobel, the 1st such in over 3 decades primarily for, NOT an original idea, but a refinement of one proposed, persevered and built by John Learned who is still alive.
He was a master of self promotion. He's been manipulating a huge number of people to get this award. My field isn't even at all related to particle physics, but we've all felt his wake. Hopefully, now that he has his Nobel, he can chill a bit and let the rest of us get our work done.
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Sounds like Newton. Long tradition, I guess
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Nobels are awarded for the concept, the planning, the execution of the idea, generating data and proving a result.
Learned did good work, but his proposal and concept failed.
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What's the difference between the idea and the concept?
Re: Fundamental physics has never been more dead (Score:1)
You're right. Maybe not so much for us, but it certainly did much more to educate our adversaries not to fuck with us.
Re:Fundamental physics has never been more dead (Score:5, Funny)
Just because everyone was operating on the assumption that high energy cosmic neutrinos exist doesn't mean that it isn't worth proving that beyond all doubt. It wouldn't be the first time if the results was unexpected, or if it turned out a whole load of accepted physics were based on a faulty assumption.
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I would like to know why such an important telescope was named after an administrator, not a scientist.
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Anyway, this observatory doesn't just prove that neutrino exist, we already knew that as you mention, but it is also highly directional and can build a map of sources. The JWST is very noce, yes, but it only take *better* pictures than previously. This allows for an entirely new view on the universe, in the same groundbreaking way as the gravity wave detectors. A few years ago everything we knew abou
Re:Fundamental physics has never been more dead (Score:4, Insightful)
$300 million
Isn't that about the same amount of taxpayer dollars Trump spent promoting himself and the GOP, that he's now refusing to pay back? I'd wager this is a much better investment (though it's a very low bar to beat).
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The "preceding year" bit doesn't seem to get much respect either, because it takes longer than that to separate the wheat from the chaff.
Re:Fundamental physics has never been more dead (Score:5, Insightful)
As Sabine Hossenfelder accurately observed in her latest video
Quoting Sabine Hossenfelder as anything just outs you as anti-science. She has pivoted years ago to making videos that stir the pot of controversy, aiming at those who don't like "academics". If you want any proof of that claim, you can check out her video saying that Physicists are afraid of Eric Weinstein [google.com]. Eric Weinstein has a bulshit "geometric unity" theories thoroughly debunked, where it's not even that he can't get published: he doesn't *want* to get published, claims in his copyright notice for that paper that it's for "entertainment only" and requires his express permission to write any papers that build upon what he has written: so you technically can't publish a paper debunking without violating his copyright, if anyone actually *cared* to, because physicists that have looked at it like Sean Carroll pointed out his paper isn't rigorous enough to say anything testable.
She allies herself with quacks to get views, and you're falling for her bs.
Quick question (Score:2)
[Fundamental physics has never been more dead] As Sabine Hossenfelder accurately observed in her latest video
Quoting Sabine Hossenfelder as anything just outs you as anti-science.
Quick question: Is she wrong?
The previous post made a point, which you totally sidestepped.
I have no opinion on Sabing Hossenfelder either way, but I get the impression that physics has largely stalled over the last few decades.
So... I'm just wondering, Is she wrong?
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In the video linked by the GP:
3:47 - she asks where do the neutrinos come from? And then answers "we don't really know, we just know they exist, which we kind of knew that already". The implication is it didn't do anything new. This is incorrect. IceCube detects around 200M neutrinos per day. Because neutrinos travel in straight lines whereas cos
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Neutrinos are massless and have no charge, so they escape major astrologically active environments without interference.
Almost massless, surely? Also are "astrologically active environments" something to do with the age of Aquarius? Love will steer the stars, but not the neutrinos, apparently.
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I can't tell if you aren't smart enough to understand Sabine and Weinstein, simply don't understand the information available, or have been watching idiots like Sean Carrol
I can, however, tell you that you don't understand what science is, or how it functions.
String Theory is what has been debunked
It has not. In fact, the criticism against string theory is *precisely that it is pretty much impossible to debunk* because you've got so may parameters to mess with that you can make just about anything work with string theory. It's a bit like overfitting: if you want to find an equation that perfectly fits your 10,000 data points, you can certainly give a polynomial of order 9,999. Is that going to accurately model the
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Re:Fundamental physics has never been more dead (Score:4, Informative)
Same with IceCube. Virtually nothing in astrophysics has a direct return on investment. But IceCube did detect the high energy neutrinos and created a whole new view into the universe, it added to the depth of knowledge of the Standard Model, and created whole new maps of the Milky Way. So it did directly contribute to the broader scientific view.
But it also required new forms of data analysis, such as the HTCondor Software that runs massive parallel data analysis operations on thousands of GPUs; said software is now used by financial institutions, pharmaceutical development and CGI. THe pressure domes used to house the sensors, which experience roughly 240 atmospheres of pressure, created new manufacturing techniques now used by undersea drone production. Their drilling technique in the ice created the Enhanced Hot Water Drill, which is now used to study permafrost and track climate change as well as understand glacial formation.
So, no, IceCube did quite a lot. Often times the journey to do something really hard creates meaningful value in the effort to just take some steps.
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IceCube also said "fuck da police"
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Yeah, why should we spend $10 billion to send the James Webb Space Telescope into orbit around the sun? I mean, we already have Hubble and thousands of other telescopes.
Really???
By the way, the goal here wasn't to prove that neutrinos exist, but to be able to observe them more accurately and in more detail, regarding their direction and origins. You know, kind of like how JWST is able to observe the universe more accurately and in more detail, than telescopes that came before it.
Not ... (Score:2)
Logging the universe (Score:5, Insightful)
I love that the answer to "these particles almost never interact with anything" was basically "fine, we'll instrument a cubic kilometer of Antarctica." Imagine being the person who had to write that funding proposal. Then imagine actually making it work.
The interesting bit is being able to connect a particle arriving here with something that happened out there. Cosmic rays don't arrive with a reliable return address. Neutrinos give you a much better pointer, and other telescopes help check the connection. That's a pretty impressive payoff for watching ice in the dark.
Halzen deserves the recognition. I hope the engineers, drill crews, and people doing the calibration get some attention too. A clever detector design still needs thousands of sensors to behave as expected, somewhere you can't exactly pop down to fix a loose cable. Getting useful science out of that is a hell of an achievement.
Nobel Prizes (Score:4, Insightful)
UW-Madison (Score:2)