The New (and Cheaper) Physics

The curiosity about the world around us is a big part of what makes us human. It’s the drive to seek answers to how nature works and understanding our own place within it that’s allowed us to have a good quality of life over a period of time. 

One of the reasons that neutrino physics is becoming more and more popular and attractive is that it is, relatively speaking, cheaper than big accelerator physics compared to the cost of, for example, the Large Hadron Collider. The cost of building Ice Cube – the cubic kilometer of ice near the South Pole that’s been turned into a neutrino catching device – is significantly cheaper.

And yet it allows us to probe very, very interesting and in some ways weird sectors of physics that aren’t otherwise accessible.  And therefore, neutrinos have the attraction of being relatively cheap to study but are also connected to such a diverse range of phenomena, both out there in space but even down here on Earth. 

In Their Own Words is recorded in Big Think’s studio.

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