Oct 14, 2026 · 29 min · 13 segments
Stu, Linden and Chris break down this years science Nobel Prizes: the Physics Prize for the IceCube neutrino observatory; the Physiology & Medicine Prize for controlling nerve cells with light via…
Nobels have been ringing out across the world.
That's all right.
Physics always likes to go first.
Doesn't
physics say that
It can go first.
Hey, you said that, not me.
Yeah, and the physics prize this year was awarded to Dr. Francis Halson for his work on, well, the ice cube neutrino detector.
In Antarctica.
Basically, yeah, it's a big detector for neutrinos, as the name suggests.
Do you guys know what a neutrino is?
It's the latest trino.
very good it is it is a subatomic particle it is a neutral particle um neutrinos they're kind of uh in the nobel announcement they call them ghostly messengers because they're these particles that um are very light like they have almost zero mass and they very rarely interact with anything else they don't have any charge that's why they're called neutrinos um they only interact through the weak nuclear force they're kind of Usually they were discovered due to their being given off in radioactive decay, a form of radioactive decay called beta decay.
And yeah, so there's these kind of like ghostly particles that can basically pass through anything pretty much because they don't interact much.
So yeah, Francis Halston had the idea back in 1988 that you could use ice to capture neutrinos, essentially like that.
So essentially the idea is if you have enough ice... then the intruder is going to occasionally one of them will hit an atom an atomic nucleus and interact and give off another particle and then you can detect the particle that is given off that is the plan and yeah like I said that was 1988 and then they eventually built this thing called the ice cube detector so cool because as I said it's made of ice It's at the South Pole and it uses a cubic kilometre of ice to detect neutrinos.
You heard that right.
A cubic kilometre of ice.
How does that even work? Like, is the detector under a kilometre of ice or?
Yes, essentially.
It's within a kilometre of ice.
So I think the ice is a couple of kilometres thick there.
Nobels have been ringing out across the world.
That's all right.
Physics always likes to go first.
Doesn't
physics say that
It can go first.
Hey, you said that, not me.
Yeah, and the physics prize this year was awarded to Dr. Francis Halson for his work on, well, the ice cube neutrino detector.
In Antarctica.
Basically, yeah, it's a big detector for neutrinos, as the name suggests.
Do you guys know what a neutrino is?
It's the latest trino.
very good it is it is a subatomic particle it is a neutral particle um neutrinos they're kind of uh in the nobel announcement they call them ghostly messengers because they're these particles that um are very light like they have almost zero mass and they very rarely interact with anything else they don't have any charge that's why they're called neutrinos um they only interact through the weak nuclear force they're kind of Usually they were discovered due to their being given off in radioactive decay, a form of radioactive decay called beta decay.
And yeah, so there's these kind of like ghostly particles that can basically pass through anything pretty much because they don't interact much.
So yeah, Francis Halston had the idea back in 1988 that you could use ice to capture neutrinos, essentially like that.
So essentially the idea is if you have enough ice... then the intruder is going to occasionally one of them will hit an atom an atomic nucleus and interact and give off another particle and then you can detect the particle that is given off that is the plan and yeah like I said that was 1988 and then they eventually built this thing called the ice cube detector so cool because as I said it's made of ice It's at the South Pole and it uses a cubic kilometre of ice to detect neutrinos.
You heard that right.
A cubic kilometre of ice.
How does that even work? Like, is the detector under a kilometre of ice or?
Yes, essentially.
It's within a kilometre of ice.
So I think the ice is a couple of kilometres thick there.
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