A Scientist Working on the ‘IceCube’ Neutrino Detector Explains the Nobel Prize–Winning Technology

Juan Carlos Díaz Vélez works at the Wisconsin IceCube Particle Astrophysics Center at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. The new Nobel laureate is his boss.

“When I arrived at the WIPAC offices, everyone was smiling and congratulating one another,” Díaz Vélez says. “We gathered in the conference room to watch the press conference with Francis Halzen, who was in Italy at the time attending a conference. We’ll wait for his return to celebrate, and in the meantime, we’ll keep working on the neutrino study, because this work never ends.”

That work is detecting an elusive particle using detectors inside a big block of ice.

“Neutrinos are subatomic particles that participate in reactions within the nuclei of atoms,” Díaz Vélez explains. “They are produced by radioactivity on Earth—and even in watermelons and bananas, due to their potassium-40 content—as well as in our own bodies.”