The Physics Post

The 2017 Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to Rainer Weiss, Barry Clark Barish, and Kip Thorne for their groundbreaking work in the discovery of gravitational waves through the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) experiment. In this blog post, we will delve into the principles behind LIGO and the profound implications of its findings.  The Origin of the Laser Interferometer Experiment:  To appreciate the significance of LIGO's breakthrough, it is essential to revisit the origins of the laser interferometer concept. In 1887, renowned scientists Albert A. Michelson and Edward W. Morley designed an ingenious experiment to investigate the existence of an "ether." At that time, researchers believed that light, a fundamental electromagnetic wave, propagated through the hypothetical "ether" medium.  The Michelson-Morley experiment involved a light source emitting a coherent beam of light, which passed through a beam splitter at the center. This ...

The groundbreaking discoveries made by Takaaki Kajita and Arthur B. McDonald earned them the prestigious Nobel Prize in Physics in 2015. Their contributions led to a paradigm shift in our understanding of neutrino oscillation, a phenomenon that transformed the field of particle physics. This blog post aims to explore the historical context, delve into the physics underlying neutrino oscillation, and examine the experimental principles employed in the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory (SNO) and Super-Kamiokande.  The Solar Neutrino Problem:  In the mid-1960s, physicist Raymond Davis Jr. embarked on a series of experiments aimed at detecting solar neutrinos—neutrinos emitted from the Sun. Employing an underground detector filled with an abundance of chlorine, Davis Jr. sought to capture the elusive interactions between neutrinos and chlorine atoms. However, the outcome of his experiments consistently revealed a strikingly lower count of observed neutrinos compared to the theoretical ...