诺奖官网对2015年诺贝尔物理学奖得主阿瑟·麦克唐纳的采访

Interview with Arthur B. McDonald

[Arthur McDonald] Hello.

[Adam Smith] Oh, hello, my name’s Adam Smith, I’m calling from Nobelprize.org, the official website of the Nobel Prize in Stockholm. Congratulations on the award of the Nobel Prize.

[Arthur McDonald] Thank you very much. 

[Adam Smith] May I first ask, how did you hear the news?

[Arthur McDonald] Well, I received the phone call shortly after 5 O’clock my time, this morning, and was awoken to the wonderful news, and it was very surprising but very gratifying as well.

[Adam Smith] How extraordinary! What was your first reaction, what was the first think you did upon hearing the news?

[Arthur McDonald] I gave my wife a hug. She was awakened by the same phone call.

[Adam Smith] What is it about neutrinos that has kept you all so engaged all these years, what is it that makes them so very fascinating?

[Arthur McDonald] Well, they are, along with electrons and quarks, fundamental particles that we do not know how to subdivide further, and therefore they make up a very fundamental part of the laws of physics at the most microscopic level, and therefore their properties are extremely important in terms of being able to understand our world in great detail. But they’re very difficult to detect and therefore their properties, for many years, were difficult to know, even the question of whether they have a mass that is greater than zero. We were presented with an opportunity to make a measurement, which, if we were able to accomplish it, if we were able to reduce the radioactivity levels to a lowest level possible and build a detector the size of a ten-story building two kilometres underground in a mine, that it was possible to make the measurement. And low and behold in 2002 we had an extremely clear result that showed that neutrinos do change from one type to the other.

[Adam Smith] What a lovely result, and it also must be enormous fun to play with such kit that you’ve described.

[Arthur McDonald] It’s fun, once you get there.

[Adam Smith] Yes.

[Arthur McDonald] Once you have the detector in operation and you’re sitting there observing a burst of light represented on your display screen you have the ability to observe particles that come directly from the core of the sun. They’re telling you what’s happing there right now in terms of the nuclear reactions that are powering it, you are able to make measurements of the fundamental properties of the neutrinos themselves and it’s a great experience to look at this data and realise that you are seeing things that are extremely fundamental in their nature.

[Adam Smith] That’s an extremely vivid and exciting image, yes, that neutrinos allow you to look into the core of the sun, which of course you can’t do with photons.

[Arthur McDonald] Oh, that’s right, and it’s ironic that in order to observe the sun you have to go two kilometres underground. It’s not what you would expect, that that’s the best place to look into the core of the sun, but low and behold it is. And the ability to understand how the sun burns is one other aspect of the measurements that is very interesting science as well and that we were able to contribute to in a basic way.

[Adam Smith] Wonderful, well, happily we’ll have the chance to speak about this more when you come to Stockholm in December to receive your Nobel Prize.

[Arthur McDonald] Thank you.

[Adam Smith] It’s been a real pleasure to speak to you, thank you, I hope you have a most marvellous day.

[Arthur McDonald] Thank you so much.

[Adam Smith] OK, bye bye.

[Arthur McDonald] Goodbye.