Two scientists, one Japanese and the other Canadian, are sharing this year’s Nobel Prize for Physics. Their combined research helped confirm that neutrinos — the tiny, invisible particles that abound throughout the universe — have mass.
Takaaki Kajita and Arthur McDonald’s breakthrough was the discovery of a phenomenon called neutrino oscillation that has upended scientific thinking and promises to change understanding about the history and future fate of the cosmos.
“It is a discovery that will change the books in physics, so it is really major discovery,” Barbro Asman, a Nobel committee member and professor of physics at Stockholm University, told Reuters.
In awarding the prize, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said the finding had “changed our understanding of the innermost workings of matter and can prove crucial to our view of the universe”.
Neutrino research is not a new topic for this blog. Because of interference from much of the world’s electronic technology, scientists go deep below ground to research the nature of neutrinos. Here in Northern Minnesota, a major laboratory exists on the 27th level of the Soudan Underground Mine. There, scientists assess particles transmitted to and from another lab in Chicago.
Two years ago, other scientists won an award for neutrino research. I feel the need to blog about these topics as they happen to provide foreshadowing in the event of any sort of “Godzilla” situation. Believe me, you’ll want the subtle warnings of nature’s wrath before you experience it first hand.
