What Is Scientific Discovery Worth?
More than a decade ago, a team of scientists decided they wanted to shoot neutrinos from Fermilab outside Chicago to a target buried in an abandoned gold mine 810 miles away. It was a big idea, one that promised to finally answer decades-old questions about these vexing particles that flood our universe.
It would also take some big components: the most powerful neutrino beams ever created, 10,000 tons of ultra-pure liquid argon, and 800,000 tons of excavated rock. And $1.7 billion, to be provided mostly by the Department of Energy.
Neutrinos have defied definition for nearly 100 years.
After some haggling, the DOE signed on to $850 million, and with some adjustments—and external funding—the epic neutrino experiment now known as DUNE was born in 2015. Or at least began. Since then, there’s been lots of digging, lots of preparations at
