![]() ![]() launched in the early 1960s and finally completed in 2001. In this interview with astrophysicist John Bahcall, who died in August 2005 at age 70, hear about the career-long quest that he and Nobel Prize-winning chemist Raymond Davis Jr. The story of how many neutrinos the sun produces and how many reach the Earth is one of dogged persistence, the patience of Job, and a tight-knit collaboration between two researchers who steadfastly believed in their findings. ![]() Vindication for both men is a long time in coming. In the 1960s, they began their scientific adventure with a daring underground experiment that few believed could succeed. NOVA sits down with Professor John Bahcall and Nobel Prize winner Ray Davis, two men determined to solve one of the biggest puzzles in particle physics. They are an essential ingredient of the universe, and catching these neutrinos became the ultimate scientific quest (see Case of the Missing Particles). Yet every element vital to life, including carbon and oxygen, is made by a chain of nuclear reactions that would be impossible without neutrinos. Truly poltergeists among particles, they can pass directly through thousands of miles of solid matter without slowing down. Neutrinos have no electric charge, making them invisible to ordinary detecting equipment. It seemed to be an impossible investigation. The problem with this theory, however, was that there was no hard evidence of neutrinos' existence. Pauli suggested that an exquisitely tiny, previously unknown particle had to exist to account for the missing energy. The experts were puzzled by a missing bit of energy that could not be accounted for in their picture of how a radioactive atomic nucleus decays. The program first takes audiences back to 1930, when Austrian physicist Wolfgang Pauli wrote to his colleagues about the phenomenon of radioactive decay. Computer animation brings to life the neutrino particle, which is at once invisible and yet utterly essential to all life. NOVA accompanies scientists into the laboratory, revealing astonishing footage of bizarre experiments. Narrated by British actor Juliet Stevenson, "The Ghost Particle" is the story of a discovery that altered scientists' understanding of what the universe is made of and how it was first formed. This program explores the 70-year struggle so far to understand the most elusive of all elementary particles, the neutrino. Yet without them the sun wouldn't shine and the elements that make up our world wouldn't exist. Trillions of ghostly neutrinos move through our bodies every second without us noticing a thing. In this program, NOVA probes the secret ingredient of the cosmos: swarms of invisible particles that fill every cubic inch of space and just may explain how the universe was created. Original PBS Broadcast Date: February 21, 2006
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