Dan Hooper is the director at the Wisconsin IceCube Particle Astrophysics Center, or WIPAC. On Oct. 6, he had the honor to introduce his colleague, Francis Halzen, as the newest winner of the Nobel Prize in physics.
“We often talk about scientists as visionaries," Hooper said. "In Francis’s case, he’s the very embodiment of that word.”
Halzen's work has helped to decode the lives of neutrinos, some of the smallest known particles in the universe, which were once thought of as impossible to detect.
Halzen's project is based at the IceCube Neutrino Observatory in Antarctica. That’s where a telescope is lodged about a mile into the ice. His idea was to use glacial ice to learn more about neutrinos, also called “ghost particles” for the way they pass right through solid matter.
"We finally managed to use the ice to see neutrinos…it was just incredible," Halzen recalls of his early breakthroughs. "It was the fact that we could make this work, that was the [greatest] reward."
This research has helped scientists understand black holes, galaxies and other objects in the universe.
Halzen was born in Belgium and has been working on neutrino research since the late '80s. His work has been honored with almost a dozen prestigious awards. He’s the sixth physicist from UW-Madison to win the Nobel Prize. This is the 23rd time someone from the university has won the award.
"It couldn’t have happened anywhere else," he said. "Wisconsin is a place where unconventional, I would say dangerous ideas can thrive."
When asked about the future of IceCube, Halzen wouldn’t give an answer, only saying: “What this will bring is impossible to predict, but we get the first glimpses now of what’s out there in the sky.”
