Nikhef’s research program into the properties and sources of neutrinos plays a role in two newly published booklets, both from the stable of New Scientist. Both books are available in Dutch only.
KM3Net PhD student Rasa Muller is one of 26 female scientists interviewed by New Scientist editor-in-chief Jim Jansen in the booklet Promovenda tot Z. “Neutrinos are fat particles precisely because they are so elusive,” she says.
In his satirical commentary accompanying each interview, Jim’s brother Dolf Jansen mainly wonders in this context why the Italian lines in KM3NeT are 500 meters longer than the French ones. “Does Italy have more space?”
Neutrinos are also the subject of a new volume in the New Scientist pocket science series: Spookdeeltjes, written by science journalist Dorine Schenk. The booklet provides an introduction to ghost particles, which fly almost straight through everything and their puzzling physical properties.
Schenk sailed along on a ship dropping lines for the KM3NeT detector in the Mediterranean Sea, and also discusses, for example, Nikhef’s Ptolemy project, which hopes to search for neutrinos that sprang from the Big Bang.
Nikhef PhD student Kelly Weerman compares the particles (which, according to Majorana’s theory, could be their own antiparticle) to people who are extroverted in an extroverted environment, and introverted at home. Although measurements have yet to show that.