Dr. Arthur McDonald – Nobel Prize in Physics
Metamorphosis in the particle world
The Nobel Prize in Physics 2015 recognises Takaaki Kajita in Japan and Arthur B. McDonald in Canada, for their key contributions to the experiments which demonstrated that neutrinos change identities. This metamorphosis requires that neutrinos have mass. The discovery has changed our understanding of the innermost workings of matter and can prove crucial to our view of the universe.
Around the turn of the millennium, Takaaki Kajita presented the discovery that neutrinos from the atmosphere switch between two identities on their way to the Super-Kamiokande detector in Japan.
Meanwhile, the research group in Canada led by Arthur B. McDonald could demonstrate that the neutrinos from the Sun were not disappearing on their way to Earth. Instead they were captured with a different identity when arriving to the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory.
“Thursday December 3, 2015 11:30 a.m – 12:30 p.m Grant Hall
Please join Principal Daniel Woolf and the Department of Physics, Engineering & Physics Astronomy for a Queen’s send-off to honour Dr. Arthur B. McDonald, as he leaves for Stockholm to receive his Nobel Prize. ”
It was a full house at Grant Hall this morning and the parting words of Dr. McDonald, in Sweden we party!
For more information from the Nobel Prize Committee itself, please see:
The Nobel Prize in Physics 2015 was awarded jointly to Takaaki Kajita and Arthur B. McDonald “for the discovery of neutrino oscillations, which shows that neutrinos have mass”
http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/2015/mcdonald-facts.html