Pembroke Fellow Joins UK Neutrino Researchers Sharing $3 Million Breakthrough Prize for Physics

Pembroke Fellow Professor Alfons Weber is part of a team of UK researchers who have been awarded the 2016 Breakthrough Prize for Fundamental Physics, which recognises individuals who have made profound contributions to human knowledge.

The recipients of this year’s prize are being celebrated for their crucial work in neutrino science at the T2K (in which Prof. Weber is involved) and Sudbury Neutrino Observatory (SNO) experiments.

Neutrinos are among the most fundamental and enigmatic particles in nature. They are produced in basic nuclear reactions, from which there are about a hundred billion neutrinos passing through an area the size of a thumbnail every second. Neutrinos interact with matter extremely weakly, which means they easily pass through the Earth, making them very difficult to detect. Yet, despite their ethereal nature, we know they are crucial to the very fabric of the universe.

Professor Weber, also the Oxford University Rokos-Clarendon Fellow in Physics, commented: ‘This is a fantastic recognition of the hard work of many people. We all feel proud to be part of this. But this is only the beginning. We are now preparing the next generation of experiments, which will unlock even more of the neutrino’s secrets. And who knows, we may find that neutrinos are the very reason that we exist’.

The Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics was founded by Russian entrepreneur and physicist Yuri Milner and is funded by high-profile individuals including Mark Zuckerberg. The $3 million prize money, shared by the SNO, T2K and a number of other experiments, was awarded on Monday at a ceremony at the NASA Ames Research Centre in California.