A Primer for Today's Nobel Prize in Physics

 

1930	Pauli proposes the existence of an undiscovered subatomic particle to save the conservation laws (certain subatomic reaction appear to violate conservation of momentum and energy)
1930	Photomultiplier tube is invented.  Allows for the detection of single photons via the photoelectric effect and a cascade of accelerating potentials for subsequent generations of electrons which produces an electrical signal big enough to detect a single photon event.
1932 1938	Fermi names Pauli’s proposed particle a “neutrino” to distinguish it from the nucleon “neutron” which has just been discovered. Fermi wins Nobel Prize.
1934	Cherenkov discovers the radiation released by a faster-than-light particle (peaks in the blue).  Note: this is father-than-local light, not light-in-a-vacuum speed (which cannot be surpassed; light in media travels slower than light in a vacuum).  Cherenkov radiation is like a sonic boom but for light rather than sound.
1945	Pauli wins Nobel Prize
1956	Neutrinos are discovered experimentally (with photomultiplier tubes detecting gamma rays released when neutrinos collide with a proton in a water molecule)
1970’s	Neutrinos are adopted into the Standard Model as a fundamental particle (not a composite particle) alongside quarks, electrons, and photons.
1988 2010	Halzen proposes building the IceCube detector where compressed ice in Antarctica is used instead of water.  A cubic kilometer is necessary to detect these high energy cosmic neutrinos. Drilling the array of boreholes with photomultiplier tubes embedded in Antarctica is finished.  Neutrinos are detected by photomultipliers responding to the Cherenkov radiation emitted by faster-than-light subatomic particles produced by neutrino-proton collisions.
2026	Nobel Prize in Physics awarded to Halzen “for decisive contributions to the IceCube Neutrino Observatory and the discovery of high-energy neutrinos of astrophysical origin”

For more:

https://icecube.wisc.edu/