The observation that neutrinos have mass, which led to the 2015 Nobel Prize for Physics being awarded jointly to Japan’s Takaaki Kajita Japan and Canada’s Arthur McDonald, is important for two key reasons. First, it provides a deeper knowledge of the fundamental tenets of nature. Second, as with any discovery, it comes with innovation in science and technology.
While we know of the existence of neutrinos, not much is known about them. Neutrinos exist in huge numbers in the universe. That is why understanding neutrinos is directly relevant to our knowledge of the universe.
Now that it has been established that neutrinos have mass, we have a key to better understanding how mass is distributed in the universe. Neutrinos may also contribute to understanding why the universe is continuously expanding.
It sits on the similar scale as the discovery of the Higgs boson at the Large Hadron Collider at European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), and the future discoveries expected from the Square Kilometer Array (SKA) project.
Any discovery in experimental science is the result of titanic efforts to overcome technological difficulties and challenges. When the neutrino was first postulated in 1930, many thought that it would be mission impossible to detect them, let alone to study its properties—such as its mass.
The relentless need to understand nature better forces scientists to innovate with which to push the boundaries of science and technology. The efforts exerted to demonstrate that neutrinos contain mass have bolstered science and technology in Canada and Japan. South Africa’s support of projects at CERN, the SKA, and other efforts already have a similar effect.
Boosting science and technology via large scientific projects brings the added value of human capacity development in high technology that South Africa is in so much need of.
What Are Neutrinos?
Before answering this question we need to backtrack a bit. Matter is made of atoms. Atoms are made of positively charged nuclei and negatively charged electrons traveling very fast around the nuclei.
The electromagnetic force holds the electrons in orbit around the nuclei because opposite electric charges attract each other. Nuclei are very heavy compared to electrons and are composed of protons and neutrons.
Neutrinos can be thought of cousins of the electrons, only neutral. Neutrinos share some of the properties of the electrons—for instance, the spin. There is one type of neutrino coupled to the electron, which is called electron neutrino. The electron has an antiparticle, the positron, which has positive electric charge. There is also an electron antineutrino.
