Reacción a "Nobel Prize in Physics Awarded to Francis Halzen for the discovery of high-energy neutrinos of astrophysical origin and for his “decisive contributions” to the IceCube Observatory"

I’m focused on other things now, so this has really been quite unexpected—a tremendous surprise and a huge joy. What’s more, it’s been very special that they awarded it solely to Francis Halzen; it’s the first Nobel Prize in Physics in several decades to be awarded to a single person—at least since the 1990s. 

It’s recognition of that somewhat crazy idea to build a large telescope at the South Pole. He himself, when they called him today, admitted that he didn’t expect people to support him. He was a visionary with a very special basic science project. Imagine all the work involved in working there under those conditions—drilling 2.5 kilometers through the ice. He had the vision—and also the good fortune—that it would work: just two years after construction was completed, they already had initial indications, and over the past ten years, they’ve been able to confirm the results of that detection of astrophysical neutrinos, in addition to the whole new range of possibilities that’s opening up—the new eyes we now have.  

An expansion has already been approved and has been under construction during this latest campaign, and there is also a proposal—which has not yet been approved—to expand and improve the central section in order to detect more neutrinos and collect more data; so Halzen hopes this will help push for the approval of that expansion.