What do you think?
Rate this book
The Neutrino Hunters - The Chase for the Ghost Particle and the Secrets of the Universe
Before the Higgs boson, there was a maddening search for another particle – the ghostly neutrino. First detected in 1956, its fleeting appearances have teased answers to many mysteries: How did the Big Bang happen? Why is antimatter so rare? What might dark matter be made of? And could faster-than-light travel be possible, overturning Einstein’s theory of special relativity?
But the quest for the neutrino also encompasses adventure, from Cold War defections and extra dimensions to mile-deep holes in the Antarctic ice and a troubled genius who disappeared without a trace. With 'The Neutrino Hunters', renowned astrophysicist Ray Jayawardhana delivers a thrilling detective story of revolutionary science.
But the quest for the neutrino also encompasses adventure, from Cold War defections and extra dimensions to mile-deep holes in the Antarctic ice and a troubled genius who disappeared without a trace. With 'The Neutrino Hunters', renowned astrophysicist Ray Jayawardhana delivers a thrilling detective story of revolutionary science.
256 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2013
47 people are currently reading
1307 people want to read
About the author
Ray Jayawardhana
5 books27 followersRay Jayawardhana is a professor and the Canada Research Chair in Observational Astrophysics at the University of Toronto. Originally from Sri Lanka, he is a graduate of Yale and Harvard. He is the co-author of more than one hundred papers in scientific journals. His discoveries have made headlines worldwide, including in The Times, The Economist, Sydney Morning Herald, and BBC News, and have led to numerous accolades such as the Steacie Prize, the McLean Award, the Rutherford Medal, and the Radcliffe Felllowship. He is an award-winning writer whose articles have appeared in the New Scientist, Times Higher Education, and others. He is the author of Strange New Worlds.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 94 reviews
August 6, 2023
Of all the expository discoveries of theoretical physics, I find neutrinos the hardest to conceptualize. Imagine, if you can, a particle that has calculable mass and yet can pass directly through entire planets unhindered and (mostly) unaffected. Neutrinos are so elusive, so hard to detect, that scientists have placed incrediblyy expensive arrays of electronic equipment in the most inhospitable places on earth (e.g. the bottom of the ocean, beneath polar ice, etc.) just to capture minuscule traces of their passing; and yet, about 100 trillion neutrinos pass through your body every second of every day.
The Neutrino Hunters, first published in 2014, is so well written that it should have done for theoretical and experimental physicists what “Indiana Jones” did for archeologists. It didn’t. Unfortunately for science, that was the same year Kanye West and Kim Kardashian got married. Americans, true to form, had other priorities.
“Two things are infinite, as far as we know – the universe and human stupidity; and I’m not sure about the universe.”*
___________________________________
*NOTE: that quote is commonly attributed to Albert Einstein but it was probably Fritz Perls, a German psychiatrist, who first said it.
The Neutrino Hunters, first published in 2014, is so well written that it should have done for theoretical and experimental physicists what “Indiana Jones” did for archeologists. It didn’t. Unfortunately for science, that was the same year Kanye West and Kim Kardashian got married. Americans, true to form, had other priorities.
“Two things are infinite, as far as we know – the universe and human stupidity; and I’m not sure about the universe.”*
___________________________________
*NOTE: that quote is commonly attributed to Albert Einstein but it was probably Fritz Perls, a German psychiatrist, who first said it.
March 2, 2016
If you are not already in love with the neutrino hunters who are spread all around the globe, trying to understand how matter came into existence, after this book, you will be. You won't be able to help falling in love with:
- The simple way in which Jayawardhana walks you through the science
- The wonderful history he provides of a few scientists (see end of review for his history of Paul Dirac**)
- His EXCELLENT explanations of the experiments going on right now (and making news!)
- And his ability to convey the implication of all of it -- the history, the science, the testing.
Neutrinos themselves might hold the answer to how everything we see today, every last bit of matter, might have come into existence. Neutrinos might have been the key regulator to ensure that you exist today to read this book. Often the articles, even the short blurbs from PopSci sites, require the reader to have at least some education in physics. Jayawardhana will give you all the prerequisite education you need to understand the new and exciting experiments that have been making the news as of late. I will post links to articles below.
**One of my favorite asides in the book was Jayawardhana's depiction of Paul Dirac, who won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1933, but was so shy, he tried to refuse the award so he didn't have to go the ceremony. He hated personal attention that much.
Physicists seemed to appreciate his physics but were often annoyed because when they met with him in person, he would barely say anything. Colleagues coined the term "the Dirac" to define the fewest number of words a person could mutter per hour while still taking part in the conversation.
Loved this book!
Some supplemental material that is quite helpful in really emerging yourself in the world of neutrinos:
Articles:
http://www.symmetrymagazine.org/artic...
http://discovermagazine.com/2014/sept...
Video explaining the Nobel Prize:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p034j...
Video explaining matter / antimatter imbalance (symmetry):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fjkLj...
- The simple way in which Jayawardhana walks you through the science
- The wonderful history he provides of a few scientists (see end of review for his history of Paul Dirac**)
- His EXCELLENT explanations of the experiments going on right now (and making news!)
- And his ability to convey the implication of all of it -- the history, the science, the testing.
Neutrinos themselves might hold the answer to how everything we see today, every last bit of matter, might have come into existence. Neutrinos might have been the key regulator to ensure that you exist today to read this book. Often the articles, even the short blurbs from PopSci sites, require the reader to have at least some education in physics. Jayawardhana will give you all the prerequisite education you need to understand the new and exciting experiments that have been making the news as of late. I will post links to articles below.
**One of my favorite asides in the book was Jayawardhana's depiction of Paul Dirac, who won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1933, but was so shy, he tried to refuse the award so he didn't have to go the ceremony. He hated personal attention that much.
Physicists seemed to appreciate his physics but were often annoyed because when they met with him in person, he would barely say anything. Colleagues coined the term "the Dirac" to define the fewest number of words a person could mutter per hour while still taking part in the conversation.
Loved this book!
Some supplemental material that is quite helpful in really emerging yourself in the world of neutrinos:
Articles:
http://www.symmetrymagazine.org/artic...
http://discovermagazine.com/2014/sept...
Video explaining the Nobel Prize:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p034j...
Video explaining matter / antimatter imbalance (symmetry):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fjkLj...
June 17, 2019
This is a non-mathematical book written for the general population. It is concerned with the development of our understanding of the neutrino, from its proposition in the 1930's up to modern experiments (as of 2013). The author is an active physics researcher, but his writing style is easy to read. He covers a lot of material, and many of his topics could be books by themselves. In places, I think his treatment is too thin, but he generally hits a good balance of accuracy without excessive detail.
If you want to understand what a neutrino is and why it is important, but you don't want to get involved with dense mathematics, this is a good book to read.
If you want to understand what a neutrino is and why it is important, but you don't want to get involved with dense mathematics, this is a good book to read.
June 5, 2016
Only a few years back, a storm of protests broke out in the Indian state of Kerala over the proposed construction of a neutrino observatory on the state’s border with Tamil Nadu. Politicians, including the then opposition leader of the state – who was uneducated – came on the scene amid much fanfare, extolling the dangers caused by neutrinos! Though the protests petered out in a few weeks, it was the first time ever in the world that neutrinos became controversial. It was projected out of all proportions by a section of the ignorant media who had no idea what they were talking about. ‘The Neutrino Hunters’ is a fine book that will alleviate all concerns a thinking person may normally have on what a neutrino is, and why it is incumbent on the scientific world to detect it. We are familiar with several byproducts of the research on nuclear physics that eventually made people’s lives better. Neutrino research is still in its infancy, but exciting possibilities abound for its further development. Ray Jayawardhana was born and raised in Sri Lanka. After receiving his PhD from Harvard, he is now Dean of the Faculty of Science at York University. He has bagged many awards and authored several books on popular science. His primary research areas include the formation and early evolution of stars, brown dwarfs and planets.
The atom’s nucleus is a storehouse of mysterious operations taking place spontaneously as if by magic. But don’t be mistaken – all the activities are catalogued in fine detail by the rules of quantum mechanics. Neutrons in the nucleus are generally stable, but they sometimes undergo a transformation to change into a proton, which is also a constituent of the nucleus. In this process, a proton is thus formed, in addition to an electron, which is a beta ray. This process is called beta decay. When this phenomenon was discovered in the early-20th century, scientists found an anomaly, which was perplexing. If you tally the amounts of energies involved with the constituents which underwent change against the new particles which were formed, there was a minuscule shortage in the latter quantity. This is an apparent violation of the law of conservation of energy, which in physics is akin to blasphemy in a theocracy. Some scientists however, took the risk of claiming that beta decay doesn’t obey the sacrosanct rule of nature. Wolfgang Pauli, of the Exclusion Principle fame, suggested a way out of this dilemma. He postulated that the missing energy may be of the form of a new kind of particle, having no charge, but a very small mass. Since the term ‘neutron’ was already around to denote a different particle, this new particle was named ‘neutrino’, or ‘little neutron’ in the Italian language. The mass of the neutrino being very, very small, and having no charge, Pauli hazarded a guess that it may not be physically possible to detect a neutrino in the lab. Science is an avenue where challenges are met with gusto, by pioneers in search. Immediately after the identification of the particle, the academic community started the search for it.
The search party was successful in the mid-1950s when nuclear reactors became a craze for developed countries. Fred Reines and Clyde Cowan were triumphant in detecting neutrinos emerging from nuclear test explosions and ordinary nuclear reactors. It was evident for scholars that neutrinos being very light, it passes through the earth without colliding with another corpuscle. Massive detectors are required to trap such particles. An ingenious way was developed to address this issue. When neutrinos hit a particle of water or carbon tetrachloride or any such material, a neutron is converted into a proton, along with release of a photon. This photon produces visible light of a light blue shade. So, if large number of phototubes is arranged over a gigantic collection of such liquid, researchers may be able to detect the light flashes occurring rarely enough, even though trillions of neutrinos pass through the earth and each one of us every second. Scientists built massive detectors in mines, hundreds of meters down from the ground level, in order to avoid unwanted noise from neutrinos generated by atmospheric gases being hit by cosmic rays. Apart from this, the sun is the most abundant neutrino source on account of the nuclear reactions taking place in its core. John Bahcall made an estimate of the neutrinos produced normally in the sun which can be detected on earth. Another physicist, Ray Davis, set up a detector in Homestake gold mine in the U.S. Davis found only a third of the neutrinos predicted by Bahcall’s theory. A controversy raged on the soundness of the theory and the methods of detection. Later, researchers showed that neutrinos come in three varieties or flavours as they are called – electron neutrino, muon neutrino and tau neutrino – which oscillate between the states midflight on its journey to earth. As the detector was able to trap only one kind of neutrinos, the count appeared to be one-third of the total predicted by theory. This shows the commendable level of understanding we have reached on what happens in the sun’s core.
Neutrino bursts precede appearance of supernova events in the sky. Study of neutrinos is very relevant for understanding the processes going on inside stars during its origin, midlife, and end. In 1987, a supernova was seen suddenly on a cold February night in the Large Magellanic Cloud galaxy. Even though supernovae occur very frequently, one that can be seen by the naked eye is rare and was last observed way back in 1604. Naturally, astronomers were delighted to observe this phenomenon. It was also the time for neutrino hunters to jump in and take credit for their findings. Theory predicted that a neutrino stream generated in the supernova should have struck earth even before its visible light reached us. Don’t think that neutrinos travel faster than light – it is only that visible light may be obstructed by gas or dust clouds, but neutrinos pierce through them with ease. All the world’s leading neutrino detectors poured over their records and found that exactly such a stream had hit their instruments three hours before the celestial flare lit up the night sky.
Jayawardhana reserves the last chapter of the book to desperately enumerate the practical applications of neutrinos that are helpful to humanity. Even though we can wax eloquent at the dearth of funding insensitive politicians earmark for scientific research out of public funds, there is no denying that scientists have to show some benefits anticipated out of the new area of research for which money is being sought. Studying neutrinos is immensely helpful in learning more about the origin of the universe in its earliest seconds, the death throes of stars which spread the heavy elements essential for life in a supernova explosion and the processes going on inside the earth that maintains the temperature of its core. Moreover, as neutrinos are not hampered by any obstacles in its path, faster communication links can be developed out of an intense beam. The author’s arguments are earnest, but seem to be a little too farfetched, considering the still early stage of the neutrino theory.
The book is nicely written, with scientific ideas conveyed in an accessible manner to all classes of readers. Jayawadhana’s description of the ‘IceCube’ detector in Antarctica provides an exciting introduction to the narrative that follows. Also, his firsthand experience in visiting the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory (SNO) in Canada, by going more than a mile underground in a mine elevator is a fine example of the author’s power to rivet the attention of the reader. The book includes extensive Notes for follow up reading and a helpful Index. A neat timeline of major events associated with neutrinos and an impressive glossary adds much utility to the book. A few monochrome photographs are also included, but lack correlation with the text. The book follows the standard pattern of including short biographical sketches of scientists mentioned in the text. If you are already familiar with them from other books, this may appear a bit dull.
The book is highly recommended.
The atom’s nucleus is a storehouse of mysterious operations taking place spontaneously as if by magic. But don’t be mistaken – all the activities are catalogued in fine detail by the rules of quantum mechanics. Neutrons in the nucleus are generally stable, but they sometimes undergo a transformation to change into a proton, which is also a constituent of the nucleus. In this process, a proton is thus formed, in addition to an electron, which is a beta ray. This process is called beta decay. When this phenomenon was discovered in the early-20th century, scientists found an anomaly, which was perplexing. If you tally the amounts of energies involved with the constituents which underwent change against the new particles which were formed, there was a minuscule shortage in the latter quantity. This is an apparent violation of the law of conservation of energy, which in physics is akin to blasphemy in a theocracy. Some scientists however, took the risk of claiming that beta decay doesn’t obey the sacrosanct rule of nature. Wolfgang Pauli, of the Exclusion Principle fame, suggested a way out of this dilemma. He postulated that the missing energy may be of the form of a new kind of particle, having no charge, but a very small mass. Since the term ‘neutron’ was already around to denote a different particle, this new particle was named ‘neutrino’, or ‘little neutron’ in the Italian language. The mass of the neutrino being very, very small, and having no charge, Pauli hazarded a guess that it may not be physically possible to detect a neutrino in the lab. Science is an avenue where challenges are met with gusto, by pioneers in search. Immediately after the identification of the particle, the academic community started the search for it.
The search party was successful in the mid-1950s when nuclear reactors became a craze for developed countries. Fred Reines and Clyde Cowan were triumphant in detecting neutrinos emerging from nuclear test explosions and ordinary nuclear reactors. It was evident for scholars that neutrinos being very light, it passes through the earth without colliding with another corpuscle. Massive detectors are required to trap such particles. An ingenious way was developed to address this issue. When neutrinos hit a particle of water or carbon tetrachloride or any such material, a neutron is converted into a proton, along with release of a photon. This photon produces visible light of a light blue shade. So, if large number of phototubes is arranged over a gigantic collection of such liquid, researchers may be able to detect the light flashes occurring rarely enough, even though trillions of neutrinos pass through the earth and each one of us every second. Scientists built massive detectors in mines, hundreds of meters down from the ground level, in order to avoid unwanted noise from neutrinos generated by atmospheric gases being hit by cosmic rays. Apart from this, the sun is the most abundant neutrino source on account of the nuclear reactions taking place in its core. John Bahcall made an estimate of the neutrinos produced normally in the sun which can be detected on earth. Another physicist, Ray Davis, set up a detector in Homestake gold mine in the U.S. Davis found only a third of the neutrinos predicted by Bahcall’s theory. A controversy raged on the soundness of the theory and the methods of detection. Later, researchers showed that neutrinos come in three varieties or flavours as they are called – electron neutrino, muon neutrino and tau neutrino – which oscillate between the states midflight on its journey to earth. As the detector was able to trap only one kind of neutrinos, the count appeared to be one-third of the total predicted by theory. This shows the commendable level of understanding we have reached on what happens in the sun’s core.
Neutrino bursts precede appearance of supernova events in the sky. Study of neutrinos is very relevant for understanding the processes going on inside stars during its origin, midlife, and end. In 1987, a supernova was seen suddenly on a cold February night in the Large Magellanic Cloud galaxy. Even though supernovae occur very frequently, one that can be seen by the naked eye is rare and was last observed way back in 1604. Naturally, astronomers were delighted to observe this phenomenon. It was also the time for neutrino hunters to jump in and take credit for their findings. Theory predicted that a neutrino stream generated in the supernova should have struck earth even before its visible light reached us. Don’t think that neutrinos travel faster than light – it is only that visible light may be obstructed by gas or dust clouds, but neutrinos pierce through them with ease. All the world’s leading neutrino detectors poured over their records and found that exactly such a stream had hit their instruments three hours before the celestial flare lit up the night sky.
Jayawardhana reserves the last chapter of the book to desperately enumerate the practical applications of neutrinos that are helpful to humanity. Even though we can wax eloquent at the dearth of funding insensitive politicians earmark for scientific research out of public funds, there is no denying that scientists have to show some benefits anticipated out of the new area of research for which money is being sought. Studying neutrinos is immensely helpful in learning more about the origin of the universe in its earliest seconds, the death throes of stars which spread the heavy elements essential for life in a supernova explosion and the processes going on inside the earth that maintains the temperature of its core. Moreover, as neutrinos are not hampered by any obstacles in its path, faster communication links can be developed out of an intense beam. The author’s arguments are earnest, but seem to be a little too farfetched, considering the still early stage of the neutrino theory.
The book is nicely written, with scientific ideas conveyed in an accessible manner to all classes of readers. Jayawadhana’s description of the ‘IceCube’ detector in Antarctica provides an exciting introduction to the narrative that follows. Also, his firsthand experience in visiting the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory (SNO) in Canada, by going more than a mile underground in a mine elevator is a fine example of the author’s power to rivet the attention of the reader. The book includes extensive Notes for follow up reading and a helpful Index. A neat timeline of major events associated with neutrinos and an impressive glossary adds much utility to the book. A few monochrome photographs are also included, but lack correlation with the text. The book follows the standard pattern of including short biographical sketches of scientists mentioned in the text. If you are already familiar with them from other books, this may appear a bit dull.
The book is highly recommended.
September 27, 2019
felt like the book was too much biography and too little science, but that's okay. it still gave me a fairly decent recap of some particle physics, which is all i could ask for really.
it mentioned the big bang theory (the tv show) twice in the first chapter so that instantly rang some alarm bells. fortunately, there were no more references to the tv show beyond that, but the author did praise feynman's hilarious antics - another move guaranteed to put me in a bad mood.
the final chapter was also a bit boring. the author kept going on about how more research should be done on neutrinos. he mentioned how cheap researching them in comparison to trying to the price of trying to find the higgs boson, before then saying that perhaps it would be better to research them in space. hm. i just found his argument to be too weak and too broad, with some of his points a bit contradictory.
anyway, it's not necessarily a bad book and it certainly reignited my dwindling interest in particle physics.
it mentioned the big bang theory (the tv show) twice in the first chapter so that instantly rang some alarm bells. fortunately, there were no more references to the tv show beyond that, but the author did praise feynman's hilarious antics - another move guaranteed to put me in a bad mood.
the final chapter was also a bit boring. the author kept going on about how more research should be done on neutrinos. he mentioned how cheap researching them in comparison to trying to the price of trying to find the higgs boson, before then saying that perhaps it would be better to research them in space. hm. i just found his argument to be too weak and too broad, with some of his points a bit contradictory.
anyway, it's not necessarily a bad book and it certainly reignited my dwindling interest in particle physics.
December 18, 2021
Ray Jayawardhana recounts the hunt for the elusive neutrino in Neutrino Hunters. The book is recent enough for it to be practical. On the other hand, it is eight years old as of this review, so I don't know how fast that field moves.
There isn't much more to say about the book. Thanks for reading my review, and see you next time.
There isn't much more to say about the book. Thanks for reading my review, and see you next time.
September 3, 2014
and the bartender says, we don't serve your kind in here!
....
a neutrino walks into a bar.
UPDATE at the halfway point:
So far I have to say that, while I am enjoying this and whizzing through it quickly, I could do with a lot more particle physics and a lot less anecdotal and biographical detail. Does this person not have an editor to tell him that it's neither necessary nor acceptable to add every random bit of information about everything as a subordinate clause? On the writing style more generally, Ray and I are going to have to agree to disagree (so. many. adjectives. OH GOD, the adjectives. Please make it stop.)
Maybe it's just me, maybe this is a strategy to make the physics accessible and entertaining for people, but I don't care which physicist wanted to be a rabbi as a boy, or whether or not they played stickball in the street. I don't care what the author was wearing in Antarctica (I hear it's like really cold there?) and I don't need to know that he yawned to clear his ears while descending a mile underground to visit a particle detector (so I'm guessing a mile underground is like really really deep?).
I would have liked a bit more explanation of what the different flavors of neutrino ARE, how they can be "associated with" another particle (what does that mean, associated with? are the other particles present? if not, then what? I don't get it, and I don't think it's because of me) and yet also change identity (and, apparently, mass, though this is not clear), what it means for them to oscillate, how their having mass changes the oscillation picture, and so on, you get the drift.
I guess I'm saying I want my neutrino book to be about neutrinos.
Does popular science writing really have to take out a bunch of the science in its effort to appeal to a lay audience?
FINAL UPDATE:
Okay, while I still love neutrinos, in fact, I love them more than ever, this was not a great book. The descriptions of the science are sloppy, especially for a physicist, and the last chapter appears to be a weird sour grapes rant against the LHC and the Higgs Boson team which suggests he doesn't really even support research in particle physics unless it's about neutrinos. I have no idea what's up with this, but I'm thinking it merits a one star docking in and of itself.
....
a neutrino walks into a bar.
UPDATE at the halfway point:
So far I have to say that, while I am enjoying this and whizzing through it quickly, I could do with a lot more particle physics and a lot less anecdotal and biographical detail. Does this person not have an editor to tell him that it's neither necessary nor acceptable to add every random bit of information about everything as a subordinate clause? On the writing style more generally, Ray and I are going to have to agree to disagree (so. many. adjectives. OH GOD, the adjectives. Please make it stop.)
Maybe it's just me, maybe this is a strategy to make the physics accessible and entertaining for people, but I don't care which physicist wanted to be a rabbi as a boy, or whether or not they played stickball in the street. I don't care what the author was wearing in Antarctica (I hear it's like really cold there?) and I don't need to know that he yawned to clear his ears while descending a mile underground to visit a particle detector (so I'm guessing a mile underground is like really really deep?).
I would have liked a bit more explanation of what the different flavors of neutrino ARE, how they can be "associated with" another particle (what does that mean, associated with? are the other particles present? if not, then what? I don't get it, and I don't think it's because of me) and yet also change identity (and, apparently, mass, though this is not clear), what it means for them to oscillate, how their having mass changes the oscillation picture, and so on, you get the drift.
I guess I'm saying I want my neutrino book to be about neutrinos.
Does popular science writing really have to take out a bunch of the science in its effort to appeal to a lay audience?
FINAL UPDATE:
Okay, while I still love neutrinos, in fact, I love them more than ever, this was not a great book. The descriptions of the science are sloppy, especially for a physicist, and the last chapter appears to be a weird sour grapes rant against the LHC and the Higgs Boson team which suggests he doesn't really even support research in particle physics unless it's about neutrinos. I have no idea what's up with this, but I'm thinking it merits a one star docking in and of itself.
September 19, 2022
A neutrino is a tiny electrically neutral particle with a very small mass that travels at nearly the speed of light yet interacts only weakly with normal matter. The fun fact that is often repeated with respect to neutrinos is that “a light-year of lead (six trillion miles thick) would only stop half of the neutrinos passing through it”. Their elusive nature has led to their being nicknamed ‘the ghost particle’ even though they are by far the most abundant particles with mass in the universe.
Although 100 trillion neutrinos pass through your body every second without any effects whatsoever, neutrinos are actually quite important. They are believed to play a key role in the process that causes a star to go supernova. Because heavy elements (like those that make up the Earth and our bodies) are formed and dispersed when large stars explode, we may owe our very existence to the humble neutrino.
Neutrinos were first proposed in 1930 by the Austrian-Swiss physicist Wolfgang Pauli as a way to account for a small bit of missing energy during beta decay. He recognized the problematic nature of his idea writing “I have done a terrible thing: I have postulated a particle that cannot be detected.”
As their existence became gradually accepted, scientists began a series of experiments to determine whether they exist (often locating their equipment deep underground to prevent interference from radiation and cosmic rays). These experiments continue to this day as scientists seek to determine their mass, spin, how they interact with different types of atoms, whether there are more than 3 types, whether neutrinos are their own antiparticles, whether neutrinos violate charge parity (CP) symmetry and whether “sterile” neutrinos exist that interact with other particles only via gravity (which would make these hypothetical particles a candidate for dark matter).
Neutrino Hunters by Ray Jayawardhana, Professor of Astronomy at Cornell University, is a nice overview of everything having to do with neutrinos. I have to say it’s one of the better popular books about physics that I’ve read in a while. That’s because unlike other cutting edge theories such as ‘strings’ or ‘branes’ or the ‘multiverse’, it’s an idea that can be tested and has been shown to actually exist. As George Carlin said with regards to becoming a sun worshipper “First of all, I can see the sun, okay? Unlike some other gods I could mention, I can actually see the sun. I’m big on that. If I can see something, I don’t know, it kind of helps the credibility along, you know?”
Although 100 trillion neutrinos pass through your body every second without any effects whatsoever, neutrinos are actually quite important. They are believed to play a key role in the process that causes a star to go supernova. Because heavy elements (like those that make up the Earth and our bodies) are formed and dispersed when large stars explode, we may owe our very existence to the humble neutrino.
Neutrinos were first proposed in 1930 by the Austrian-Swiss physicist Wolfgang Pauli as a way to account for a small bit of missing energy during beta decay. He recognized the problematic nature of his idea writing “I have done a terrible thing: I have postulated a particle that cannot be detected.”
As their existence became gradually accepted, scientists began a series of experiments to determine whether they exist (often locating their equipment deep underground to prevent interference from radiation and cosmic rays). These experiments continue to this day as scientists seek to determine their mass, spin, how they interact with different types of atoms, whether there are more than 3 types, whether neutrinos are their own antiparticles, whether neutrinos violate charge parity (CP) symmetry and whether “sterile” neutrinos exist that interact with other particles only via gravity (which would make these hypothetical particles a candidate for dark matter).
Neutrino Hunters by Ray Jayawardhana, Professor of Astronomy at Cornell University, is a nice overview of everything having to do with neutrinos. I have to say it’s one of the better popular books about physics that I’ve read in a while. That’s because unlike other cutting edge theories such as ‘strings’ or ‘branes’ or the ‘multiverse’, it’s an idea that can be tested and has been shown to actually exist. As George Carlin said with regards to becoming a sun worshipper “First of all, I can see the sun, okay? Unlike some other gods I could mention, I can actually see the sun. I’m big on that. If I can see something, I don’t know, it kind of helps the credibility along, you know?”
December 5, 2020
I was so excited to pick up this book: an entire pop-sci text dedicated to neutrino experiments? Just what I was looking for!
Unfortunately I found the book very unbalanced.
The opening chapter, covering the inception of the IceCube Neutrino Observatory in Antartica was well done and really imparted the awesome scale and ambition of the experiment. I think this is probably the best chapter of the book.
Unfortunately things start taking a turn when the book starts writing lengthy biographies of tangential characters. I'm pretty sure I know what happened here. Jayawardhana wanted to give a sense of history and context to the neutrino discussion so he branched out. But goodness does every physics pop-sci need a section on Emmy Noether? Does this book need an extensive biography of Paul Dirac or Bruno Pontecorvo?
For its excesses in these topics it also ends up skimping on the subtleties. I doubt the average reader would have come away from this understanding any more about the theoretical grounding of these particles than they entered. Something I was looking forward to - a pop-sci explanation of oscillation and mass eigenstates - was reduced to a Napolitano ice cream analogy and dispensed with in a few lines.
Towards the end of the book a lot more time is spent on astrophysics and stellar evolution which isn't something I've heard a lot about since undergraduate and I decided this book might end on a high note.
My rating though reflects my experiences with the last chapter and ultimately the impression i came away from this book with. It's a long list of all the things Jayawardhana wanted to talk about and ran out of time for. Or couldn't fit into the main text.
For that the book dropped from a 3-star read to a 2.5.
Sad to not have enjoyed this.
Learn more about IceCube here: https://icecube.wisc.edu/about/overview
Unfortunately I found the book very unbalanced.
The opening chapter, covering the inception of the IceCube Neutrino Observatory in Antartica was well done and really imparted the awesome scale and ambition of the experiment. I think this is probably the best chapter of the book.
Unfortunately things start taking a turn when the book starts writing lengthy biographies of tangential characters. I'm pretty sure I know what happened here. Jayawardhana wanted to give a sense of history and context to the neutrino discussion so he branched out. But goodness does every physics pop-sci need a section on Emmy Noether? Does this book need an extensive biography of Paul Dirac or Bruno Pontecorvo?
For its excesses in these topics it also ends up skimping on the subtleties. I doubt the average reader would have come away from this understanding any more about the theoretical grounding of these particles than they entered. Something I was looking forward to - a pop-sci explanation of oscillation and mass eigenstates - was reduced to a Napolitano ice cream analogy and dispensed with in a few lines.
Towards the end of the book a lot more time is spent on astrophysics and stellar evolution which isn't something I've heard a lot about since undergraduate and I decided this book might end on a high note.
My rating though reflects my experiences with the last chapter and ultimately the impression i came away from this book with. It's a long list of all the things Jayawardhana wanted to talk about and ran out of time for. Or couldn't fit into the main text.
For that the book dropped from a 3-star read to a 2.5.
Sad to not have enjoyed this.
Learn more about IceCube here: https://icecube.wisc.edu/about/overview
Read
November 5, 2025I listened to an audio version of this book, read by Bronson Pinchot, of all people! Thinking about Balkie cheekily explaining complex concepts was pretty distracting but I multitask-listened through this fairly quickly, way faster than if I tried to read it myself.
I guess it was pretty interesting but there wasn't much style to it, or what we modern people call a "through line." Ultimately it just felt like an extended Wikipedia article, a good summation of a topic but nothing deeper or really fulfilling.
I don't get the people on here complaining about the biographical details on scientists- they do realize the book is called Neutrino HUNTERS, right?
I guess it was pretty interesting but there wasn't much style to it, or what we modern people call a "through line." Ultimately it just felt like an extended Wikipedia article, a good summation of a topic but nothing deeper or really fulfilling.
I don't get the people on here complaining about the biographical details on scientists- they do realize the book is called Neutrino HUNTERS, right?
April 19, 2022
Μια πολύ κατατοπιστική και πυκνή περιγραφή όλης της πορείας σύλληψης, ανακάλυψης και έρευνας των νετρίνων. Παρά τις πολλές πληροφορίες, η διήγηση έχει εντυπωσιακή ροή και όλα εξηγούνται με πολύ ευχάριστο και απλό τρόπο! ❤️
November 9, 2015
Published in 2013, this book grabbed my attention because of the recent 2015 Nobel Prize in Physics having been awarded jointly to a Japanese (Takaaki Kajita) and an Ontario-Canadian (Arthur B. McDonald) physicist for work that validated the oscillation theory of neutrinos, revealing neutrinos have mass, requiring some serious revisions to the Standard Model of particle physics.
The book is well written as the author takes the reader on an adventure of the Neutrino's history and all the scientific efforts being made to detect this elusive rarely-interacting particle. The particle – which has virtually no mass – may be "pathologically shy", he says, but it is also happens to be of immense importance to science for "whenever anything cool happens in the universe, neutrinos are usually involved". Today we use them to study supernovae and the births of black holes and to understand how matter first formed in the universe. Our past reliance on electromagnetic radiation – from radio waves to light to gamma rays – to study the heavens is now being supplemented by neutrino astronomy.
The trick, of course, is to find ways to detect these elusive little entities, which – given the rarity of their interactions with normal matter – is not an easy business. Indeed, researchers have had to go to great pains to pinpoint neutrinos, constructing detectors deep underground so that spurious signals triggered by cosmic rays – which constantly batter Earth's atmosphere – do not produce false readings in their instruments.
The end result has been the creation of an array of extraordinary devices in some of the planet's most remote places: IceCube, which is made up of several thousand photo-detectors buried a mile beneath the south pole; the Super-Kamiokande observatory, which consists of a tank of 50,000 tonnes of ultra-pure water built beneath Mount Kamioka in Japan; and the Sudbury neutrino observatory, which is situated more than a mile underground in Creighton mine, operated by Vale, in Sudbury, Ontario, Canada.
To date, these detectors have spotted only modest numbers of neutrinos. Nevertheless, these observations have been of enormous importance, showing that when huge stars erupt as supernovae, they emit vast amounts of neutrinos in ways that have precisely confirmed astronomers' theories about the nuclear reactions involved in these stellar explosions. Future observations should provide further insights.
The neutrino was originally postulated, in 1931, almost as "a form of scientific witchcraft", says Jayawardhana. "When scientists couldn't account for energy that went missing during radioactive decay, one theorist found it necessary to invent a new particle to account for that missing energy," he adds. The theorist was the physicist Wolfgang Pauli.
Many other scientists were dubious – including the Nobel laureate Paul Dirac and British astronomer Sir Arthur Eddington – because every effort to detect neutrinos invariably produced negative results. Then in 1953, two US scientists, Frederick Reines and Clyde Cowan, showed – in an experiment they dubbed Project Poltergeist – that gamma ray bursts observed by their instruments must have been caused by neutrinos colliding with atoms inside their detectors. The neutrino had been uncovered. Reines was eventually given a Nobel prize in 1995. Cowan had died 21 years earlier.
It is an intriguing story, deftly told by Jayawardhana with commendable brevity and clarity. The Neutrino Hunters is comprehensive without being overburdened with detail or weighed down with too much theory, while the book's neat pen portraits of the men and women who tracked down the poltergeist particle give it added depth. Think of this as a great ghost story and a thumping good piece of science writing rolled into one.
The author Ray Jayawardhana is a professor and the Canada Research Chair in Observational Astrophysics at the University of Toronto.
The book is well written as the author takes the reader on an adventure of the Neutrino's history and all the scientific efforts being made to detect this elusive rarely-interacting particle. The particle – which has virtually no mass – may be "pathologically shy", he says, but it is also happens to be of immense importance to science for "whenever anything cool happens in the universe, neutrinos are usually involved". Today we use them to study supernovae and the births of black holes and to understand how matter first formed in the universe. Our past reliance on electromagnetic radiation – from radio waves to light to gamma rays – to study the heavens is now being supplemented by neutrino astronomy.
The trick, of course, is to find ways to detect these elusive little entities, which – given the rarity of their interactions with normal matter – is not an easy business. Indeed, researchers have had to go to great pains to pinpoint neutrinos, constructing detectors deep underground so that spurious signals triggered by cosmic rays – which constantly batter Earth's atmosphere – do not produce false readings in their instruments.
The end result has been the creation of an array of extraordinary devices in some of the planet's most remote places: IceCube, which is made up of several thousand photo-detectors buried a mile beneath the south pole; the Super-Kamiokande observatory, which consists of a tank of 50,000 tonnes of ultra-pure water built beneath Mount Kamioka in Japan; and the Sudbury neutrino observatory, which is situated more than a mile underground in Creighton mine, operated by Vale, in Sudbury, Ontario, Canada.
To date, these detectors have spotted only modest numbers of neutrinos. Nevertheless, these observations have been of enormous importance, showing that when huge stars erupt as supernovae, they emit vast amounts of neutrinos in ways that have precisely confirmed astronomers' theories about the nuclear reactions involved in these stellar explosions. Future observations should provide further insights.
The neutrino was originally postulated, in 1931, almost as "a form of scientific witchcraft", says Jayawardhana. "When scientists couldn't account for energy that went missing during radioactive decay, one theorist found it necessary to invent a new particle to account for that missing energy," he adds. The theorist was the physicist Wolfgang Pauli.
Many other scientists were dubious – including the Nobel laureate Paul Dirac and British astronomer Sir Arthur Eddington – because every effort to detect neutrinos invariably produced negative results. Then in 1953, two US scientists, Frederick Reines and Clyde Cowan, showed – in an experiment they dubbed Project Poltergeist – that gamma ray bursts observed by their instruments must have been caused by neutrinos colliding with atoms inside their detectors. The neutrino had been uncovered. Reines was eventually given a Nobel prize in 1995. Cowan had died 21 years earlier.
It is an intriguing story, deftly told by Jayawardhana with commendable brevity and clarity. The Neutrino Hunters is comprehensive without being overburdened with detail or weighed down with too much theory, while the book's neat pen portraits of the men and women who tracked down the poltergeist particle give it added depth. Think of this as a great ghost story and a thumping good piece of science writing rolled into one.
The author Ray Jayawardhana is a professor and the Canada Research Chair in Observational Astrophysics at the University of Toronto.
May 14, 2020
Physics in 1930 had reached a small crisis, one that began with the 1896 serendipitous discovery of radioactivity by French physicist Henri Becqueral. In a process called beta-decay some of the energy seemed to vanish when a radioactive atom shot out an electron. For physicists this discrepancy was more than troubling, it pointed to a fundamental flaw in their understanding of the world. The problem was so severe that Niels Bohr, ‘elder statesman of quantum physics’, proposed that the hallowed law of energy conservation may not apply in the quantum realm. Fortunately an alternative was proposed by the brilliant and scathingly critical physicist Wolfgang Pauli - he suggested the energy was carried away by an unseen, tiny electrically neutral particle. Initially called the ‘neutron’ by Pauli, the name (the Italian equivalent of “little neutral one”) was jokingly coined by Edoardo Amaldi during a conversation with Enrico Fermi at the Institute of Physics in Rome, in order to distinguish this light neutral particle from Chadwick’s heavy neutron. It is legendary though, and well recounted by Jayawardhana, that Pauli made the suggestion in his own witty style. Spurning an important physics conference in Turgingen to attend a winter Ball in Zurich, Pauli sent a letter to his colleagues addressed “Dear Radioactive Ladies and Gentlemen”. So begins the chronological story of “the neutrino hunters”.
In The neutrino hunters astrophysicist and popular science writer Ray Jayawardhana delivers an intriguing story - written in a pacy detective thriller type style - of revolutionary science from early twentieth century dawn of quantum physics and relativity through to present day and then onwards into future science. Jayawardhana’s book is well researched and engagingly written. I have some minor historical quibbles; for example Jayawardhana claims incorrectly it was Fermi who coined the term ‘neutrino’ and that Dirac was awarded the Nobel Prize for his prediction of the positron. These are minor, overall the book is a rewarding mix of science story and biographical color that brings a rewarding humanity to the practice of science.
Jayawardhana deftly cover a sweeping panorama of science: from the first hints of the neutrino in the 1930s; to cold war intrigues and defections; its final 1953 detection, or discovery, by Clyde Cowan and Frederick Reines in “Project poltergeist”; the experiments that hinted, unconvincingly in the end, at faster-than-light travel; to modern day detectors built deep in mines and kilometre-deep holes in the Antarctic ice. As Jayawardhana elaborates, the science of the neutrino is still little understood and it is this knowledge gap that leads it to be implicated in many of the unsolved questions - I dislike the use of the word ‘mystery’ - in modern physics: How did the Big Bang happen? Why is antimatter so rare? What might dark matter be made of? The final chapter in the book is perhaps the weakest, a somewhat gushing preview of the future, courtesy of neutrino physics. This vista of possible futures does point to one very fascinating point - neutrinos are strange - that they have mass flies in the face of ‘the standard model’ of fundamental physics; that neutrinos can oscillate between different types and that neutrinos may be their own anti-particles all point to new physics. Jayawardhana deftly points out that these experiments need not involve the spiraling increase in energy and cost required by particle physics since the 1950s. This is a very good popular science book, rewarding for both its style and content. Jayawardhana provides the reader with an enjoyable and captivating ride through some fascinating physics, in the company of some intriguing physicists.
This review was first posted here: https://dragonlaughing.tumblr.com/pos...
In The neutrino hunters astrophysicist and popular science writer Ray Jayawardhana delivers an intriguing story - written in a pacy detective thriller type style - of revolutionary science from early twentieth century dawn of quantum physics and relativity through to present day and then onwards into future science. Jayawardhana’s book is well researched and engagingly written. I have some minor historical quibbles; for example Jayawardhana claims incorrectly it was Fermi who coined the term ‘neutrino’ and that Dirac was awarded the Nobel Prize for his prediction of the positron. These are minor, overall the book is a rewarding mix of science story and biographical color that brings a rewarding humanity to the practice of science.
Jayawardhana deftly cover a sweeping panorama of science: from the first hints of the neutrino in the 1930s; to cold war intrigues and defections; its final 1953 detection, or discovery, by Clyde Cowan and Frederick Reines in “Project poltergeist”; the experiments that hinted, unconvincingly in the end, at faster-than-light travel; to modern day detectors built deep in mines and kilometre-deep holes in the Antarctic ice. As Jayawardhana elaborates, the science of the neutrino is still little understood and it is this knowledge gap that leads it to be implicated in many of the unsolved questions - I dislike the use of the word ‘mystery’ - in modern physics: How did the Big Bang happen? Why is antimatter so rare? What might dark matter be made of? The final chapter in the book is perhaps the weakest, a somewhat gushing preview of the future, courtesy of neutrino physics. This vista of possible futures does point to one very fascinating point - neutrinos are strange - that they have mass flies in the face of ‘the standard model’ of fundamental physics; that neutrinos can oscillate between different types and that neutrinos may be their own anti-particles all point to new physics. Jayawardhana deftly points out that these experiments need not involve the spiraling increase in energy and cost required by particle physics since the 1950s. This is a very good popular science book, rewarding for both its style and content. Jayawardhana provides the reader with an enjoyable and captivating ride through some fascinating physics, in the company of some intriguing physicists.
This review was first posted here: https://dragonlaughing.tumblr.com/pos...
July 21, 2014
Does a really impressive job distilling a complex concept into a readable text. Three favorite parts:
1) there's an undercurrent of resentment toward the big and expensive collider projects, which clearly get more money. Jayawardhana repeatedly talks about how much cheaper neturino hunting can be and how what they find is actually useful compared to CERN and things like that.
2) There's apparently a neutrino detection system at almost the South Pole, which consists of tubes buried really deep underground into essentially untapped water to try and measure neutrinos as they move through an area that's not disturbed by cosmic rays and other things.
3) I forget the country (Italy maybe?) but some scientists helped cover the excavation costs of this massive ship that went down a long time ago because some of the metal it was carrying that was lead that has decayed enough to not give off any particles that would mess up neutrino detection.
1) there's an undercurrent of resentment toward the big and expensive collider projects, which clearly get more money. Jayawardhana repeatedly talks about how much cheaper neturino hunting can be and how what they find is actually useful compared to CERN and things like that.
2) There's apparently a neutrino detection system at almost the South Pole, which consists of tubes buried really deep underground into essentially untapped water to try and measure neutrinos as they move through an area that's not disturbed by cosmic rays and other things.
3) I forget the country (Italy maybe?) but some scientists helped cover the excavation costs of this massive ship that went down a long time ago because some of the metal it was carrying that was lead that has decayed enough to not give off any particles that would mess up neutrino detection.
January 1, 2014
I liked this book more for its up to date information (it was published at the end of 2013 and covers the latest developments) than for its explanations of some of the experiments. I understand that this is a book targeted at the layman, but sometimes a bit of detail will help in understanding some of the ideas. For instance, saying that an experiment will be improved by adding a bit of gadolinium without, at least, hinting at how this will be an improvement, is of limited use: you have some information, but remain without knowledge. Probably the best part of the book is the Notes chapter: it contains a large collection of text notes and web links that are useful in locating content mentioned in the book. In short, read it for the coverage of recent events. I must confess that I still prefer Frank Close's Neutrino, regarding the historical background.
January 26, 2015
This was a GoodReads giveaway.
I was not sure I really wanted to read this. I had my own struggles getting through college physics. Was I going to find this unpleasant? Well, it turned out that I quite enjoyed this telling. Of course modern physics is vastly different then, than it is today. And subatomic physics even more so. There is a great history of the development of subatomic theory that I was never really aware of. That's the problem when you study physics versus studying the history of physics. This story does not delve into heavy theory. But it does a good job of the developing chase. Perhaps I should have been a student of history instead of science?
Anyway, have a GoodReads.
I was not sure I really wanted to read this. I had my own struggles getting through college physics. Was I going to find this unpleasant? Well, it turned out that I quite enjoyed this telling. Of course modern physics is vastly different then, than it is today. And subatomic physics even more so. There is a great history of the development of subatomic theory that I was never really aware of. That's the problem when you study physics versus studying the history of physics. This story does not delve into heavy theory. But it does a good job of the developing chase. Perhaps I should have been a student of history instead of science?
Anyway, have a GoodReads.
August 1, 2017
This book is a great popular science introduction to the topic of neutrinos, written with the general public in mind, clearly written, with more terms and concepts explained than one might see in books written for a professional physics audience, but not watered down or oversimplified. If only my undergrad physics courses had been this informative and interesting, I might have finished a physics degree after all. I did feel motivated after reading this book to participate in a citizen science project, helping hunt for supernovas (since those are neutrino sources and I liked the idea of being able to watch the neutrino signature of a supernova).
April 15, 2014
Excellent, lucid, engaging. The neutrino story is inherently fascinating to particle-physicist-manqué-me but the way Ray Jayawardhana handles the rhythms of the various theories, experiments and missteps -- not to mention his perfect pitch for just the most illuminating/winning anecdotes and quotations to share from a colourful cast of physicists -- should make this appeal to a much wider audience.
February 16, 2014
This is a great history of science book about the experimental hunt to detect neutrinos. It follows from the first detection experiments, to the solar neutrino problem, and its eventual solution. I felt like it ended abruptly with some post-free-model speculation.
January 10, 2014
I received this book from a Goodreads Giveaway. This isn't just a Science book! It manages to weave in human stories about Scientists with an interesting scientific narrative to make an absorbing read.
January 24, 2024
XXXXX
MOVE OVER "GOD" PARTICLE AND MAKE ROOM FOR THE--"GHOST" PARTICLE
XXXXX
"[The theoretical physicist Wolfgang] Pauli [1900 to 1958] composed a now-famous letter and addressed it: 'Dear Radioactive Ladies and Gentlemen.' In it, Pauli declared that he had 'hit upon a desperate remedy to salvage the law of energy conservation [which says energy in = energy out] in beta decay [a type of radioactivity].
He proposed that electically neutral particles exist in the [atom's] nucleus, and referred to them as 'neutrons.'
Pauli elaborated: 'The continuous beta spectrum would then be understandable on the assumption that in beta decay, along with the electron, a neutron is emmitted as well, in such a way that the sum of energies of the neutron and the electron is constant."
The above quote (in italics) comes from this fascinating and surprisingly easy-to-read book by Ray Jayawardhana. He is an astronomer at the University of Toronto (in Ontario, Canada) and he holds a Canada Research Chair in observational astrophysics. Jayawardhana is also an award-winning science writer.
The quote above is what started the hunt for the ghostly particles called neutrinos. Note that the great physicist Enrico Fermi (1901 to 1954) coined the word "neutrino" (meaning "little neutral one" in Italian) to distinguish it from Pauli's hypothesized neutron.
It's all here. Everything you wantd to know about neutrinos and the intrepid scientists determined to find them. And all of it is presented in an easy-to-read format.
Along the way, the reader will encounter such things as the "solar neutrino problem" (which remained unsolved for three decades), supernovas (exploding stars), and the matter/antimatter inequality problem.
This book concludes with possible practical applications of neutrinos.
Finally, at the end of the book, separate from the main narrative, is a "Time Line" or, more specifically , a Neutrino Time Line (beginning in the year 1896 and concluding in 2013) that basically sums up the entire book. There is also a helpful glossary.
In conclusion, remember that "Whenever anything cool happens in the universe, neutrinos are usually involved." To understand why, you must read this book!!
XXXXX
(2013; 8 chapters; main narrative 190 pages; time line; glossary; notes; acknowledgements; index; about the author)
XXXXX
MOVE OVER "GOD" PARTICLE AND MAKE ROOM FOR THE--"GHOST" PARTICLE
XXXXX
"[The theoretical physicist Wolfgang] Pauli [1900 to 1958] composed a now-famous letter and addressed it: 'Dear Radioactive Ladies and Gentlemen.' In it, Pauli declared that he had 'hit upon a desperate remedy to salvage the law of energy conservation [which says energy in = energy out] in beta decay [a type of radioactivity].
He proposed that electically neutral particles exist in the [atom's] nucleus, and referred to them as 'neutrons.'
Pauli elaborated: 'The continuous beta spectrum would then be understandable on the assumption that in beta decay, along with the electron, a neutron is emmitted as well, in such a way that the sum of energies of the neutron and the electron is constant."
The above quote (in italics) comes from this fascinating and surprisingly easy-to-read book by Ray Jayawardhana. He is an astronomer at the University of Toronto (in Ontario, Canada) and he holds a Canada Research Chair in observational astrophysics. Jayawardhana is also an award-winning science writer.
The quote above is what started the hunt for the ghostly particles called neutrinos. Note that the great physicist Enrico Fermi (1901 to 1954) coined the word "neutrino" (meaning "little neutral one" in Italian) to distinguish it from Pauli's hypothesized neutron.
It's all here. Everything you wantd to know about neutrinos and the intrepid scientists determined to find them. And all of it is presented in an easy-to-read format.
Along the way, the reader will encounter such things as the "solar neutrino problem" (which remained unsolved for three decades), supernovas (exploding stars), and the matter/antimatter inequality problem.
This book concludes with possible practical applications of neutrinos.
Finally, at the end of the book, separate from the main narrative, is a "Time Line" or, more specifically , a Neutrino Time Line (beginning in the year 1896 and concluding in 2013) that basically sums up the entire book. There is also a helpful glossary.
In conclusion, remember that "Whenever anything cool happens in the universe, neutrinos are usually involved." To understand why, you must read this book!!
XXXXX
(2013; 8 chapters; main narrative 190 pages; time line; glossary; notes; acknowledgements; index; about the author)
XXXXX
September 10, 2017
I thought it would be good to know a little more about neutrinos, the elementary particles that pass through our bodies at a rate of billions per second and through the earth as if it wasn’t even there. I knew a little about neutrinos (and antineutrinos) from college physics (they originate when a proton transforms to a neutron or vice versa during beta decay or nuclear fusion and solve the problem of why energy didn’t seem to be conserved in that process; they were postulated by Wolfgang Pauli and named rather charmingly by Enrico Fermi as ‘little neutrals’), but this nicely written and accessible book does an excellent job of explaining why they are among the most abundant particles in the universe, the history of their prediction and discovery (hard to discover since they rarely interact with matter, so how do you detect them?), and some fascinating recent advances which indicate that neutrinos have ‘flavor’ and therefore must have mass.
The many neutrino detectors now present throughout the world today are part of the well-told story, and how they each approach neutrino detection and analysis differently is presented (from the massive ‘Ice Cube’ detector in Antarctica to mile-deep caves in different countries to the KATRIN neutrino spectrometer in Karlsruhe Germany (see the photo on page 173 for this two-story alien-looking structure being squeezed between houses at the end of a 2000 mile sea journey when it was built only 250 miles away!). In short, this book presents the neutrino and its significance very engagingly, with no equations and few diagrams (I wouldn’t have minded a little more of each) and with a nice historical perspective. Highly recommended for its timeliness and significance to modern day particle physics.
The many neutrino detectors now present throughout the world today are part of the well-told story, and how they each approach neutrino detection and analysis differently is presented (from the massive ‘Ice Cube’ detector in Antarctica to mile-deep caves in different countries to the KATRIN neutrino spectrometer in Karlsruhe Germany (see the photo on page 173 for this two-story alien-looking structure being squeezed between houses at the end of a 2000 mile sea journey when it was built only 250 miles away!). In short, this book presents the neutrino and its significance very engagingly, with no equations and few diagrams (I wouldn’t have minded a little more of each) and with a nice historical perspective. Highly recommended for its timeliness and significance to modern day particle physics.
November 13, 2020
Neutrinos are funny little things, so tiny that they largely escape the notice of non-physicists. They were once thought to have no mass, but now is is established that that do have mass. It's just tiny -- on the order of a million times smaller than an electron, which is itself far far smaller than a proton or neutron. There are so many neutrinos that they were once considered as candidates for dark matter, but they are so small that even though they are very numerous their total mass throughout the universe isn't enough to account for the gravitational effects of dark matter. Then there is the weird thing about how they spontaneously change their character from one type of neutrino to another and the unresolved controversy over whether there are three or four different neutrino flavors.
Scientists have found clever ways to use neutrinos to find out about other things, including the deep interiors of the sun and earth, new properties of supernovas and whether sneaky countries are using reactors to make plutonium in violation of nuclear non-proliferation treaties. Curiouser and curiouser.
It was fun to read, and I learned a lot more than I expected from this book.
Scientists have found clever ways to use neutrinos to find out about other things, including the deep interiors of the sun and earth, new properties of supernovas and whether sneaky countries are using reactors to make plutonium in violation of nuclear non-proliferation treaties. Curiouser and curiouser.
It was fun to read, and I learned a lot more than I expected from this book.
November 17, 2020
The Neutrino Hunters is a fantastic place to start for anyone who wants to know what neutrinos are, what experiments were conducted to detect them, and what kinds of neutrinos there are. It will be good to complement this with Frank Close's Neutrino, which focuses mainly on solar neutrinos, and specifically Ray Davis' quest.
There's a peculiar thing in this book. Whenever any major physicist comes up, Dr. Jayawardhana always talks about the scientist's childhood, and the events that influenced them to become physicists. It's really inspiring, and I'm very enthusiastic now to start to limit my choices so I can focus on a big project.
The book was written in 2015, and it's already VERY outdated, which only goes to show how advanced Neutrino physics is today. And I will anticipate future editions.
I will present this book today at the Sheikh Abdullah Al-Salem cultural centre, and I'm happy to have picked this book since it's easy for the readers but very informative and helpful.
There's a peculiar thing in this book. Whenever any major physicist comes up, Dr. Jayawardhana always talks about the scientist's childhood, and the events that influenced them to become physicists. It's really inspiring, and I'm very enthusiastic now to start to limit my choices so I can focus on a big project.
The book was written in 2015, and it's already VERY outdated, which only goes to show how advanced Neutrino physics is today. And I will anticipate future editions.
I will present this book today at the Sheikh Abdullah Al-Salem cultural centre, and I'm happy to have picked this book since it's easy for the readers but very informative and helpful.
January 26, 2024
I listened to the audio book and it is outstanding. I loved learning about the history of the neutrino, how it was first identified, and more about physics too and the anti-neutrino, positrons, etc.
I especially loved learning more about many of the scientists mentioned in the book, Enrico Fermi, Hans Bethe, Isaac Newton, Albert Einstein, Max Planck, Ernest Rutherford and some of the newer scientists of which I was unfamiliar until reading this book.
I got goose bumps regarding the story about the 1987a Supernova and I'm getting goose bumps while writing this as I remember the story well and reading that there are scientists, astronomers and astrophysicists that saw it with their naked eye while researching the night sky is incredible and I wish I had been that lucky.
If you are a fellow science geek I believe you will enjoy this book and I highly recommend it.
I especially loved learning more about many of the scientists mentioned in the book, Enrico Fermi, Hans Bethe, Isaac Newton, Albert Einstein, Max Planck, Ernest Rutherford and some of the newer scientists of which I was unfamiliar until reading this book.
I got goose bumps regarding the story about the 1987a Supernova and I'm getting goose bumps while writing this as I remember the story well and reading that there are scientists, astronomers and astrophysicists that saw it with their naked eye while researching the night sky is incredible and I wish I had been that lucky.
If you are a fellow science geek I believe you will enjoy this book and I highly recommend it.
February 10, 2020
Although I have a strong STEM background and interest, I have not been familiar with neurons. This book (which I listened to as an audio book) served its purpose in giving me a clear and concise overview of neutrinos. A historical perspective and how neutrinos fit into the picture, first as a theoretical phenomenon and the efforts to detect these difficult to detect particles. The narrative presents concepts very clearly on where neutrinos are generated, their behavior and how they might be measured, depending on the source. The who, where and how were all clearly defined. There was also an explanation of why - how they are useful and how general principles might need to be tweaked in order to accommodate new information about neutrinos.
July 30, 2019
Neutrinos, or 'little neutrons', started out as a last-ditch theory from physicists to resolve an apparent non-conservation of momentum observed in a particle decay. Today, neutrino physics is one of the hottest topics and may hold clues to the mystery of why matter exists in this universe instead of annihilating with antimatter. Ray brings us through fantastic accounts of physicists battling funding and technical setbacks to build giant neutrino detectors in Canada, Japan, and even the South Pole. His layman explanations of particle physics are easy to understand, and led readers to uncover an amazing story of how have we come so far in understanding the universe.
October 7, 2025
The start of the book is disorienting if you don't know much about Neutrino's, as the author doesn't really start with any explanations and just gets into some of the nitty gritty. But by chapter 2-3, he actually goes back and gives you the prerequisite info you need to follow along with the book. I just find the beginning structure really odd, how it didn't just start from the beginning so you could keep up, but it does get better as you go, and it is an incredibly fascinating look at some really cutting edge science.
March 15, 2019
Great book! Easy to follow because it goes through the history of chasing neutrinos and catch you right from the beginning like a mistery to be solved. The context around the lives of those involved in the history are also fascinating. I definitely recommend this book for those passionate for the particles in the universe, the standard model and its modernization.
March 26, 2017
Great for someone with a basic understanding of chemistry or physics who wants to go a bit deeper. A little dry at time because of the level of detail but overall a good read and great introduction to "quirky" science.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 94 reviews