The Neutrino Passoire

The 2015 Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded for the “discovery of neutrino oscillations”, recognising key contributions to experiments which demonstrated that neutrinos – the elusive particles in the Universe - change identities. This discovery changed our understanding of the innermost workings of matter!

The peculiar behaviour of the omnipresent neutrino, which passes through normal matter, the earth and our bodies, rarely interacting with them, is the inspiration for a new collaboration between University of Birmingham particle physicists and contemporary dancers Mairi Pardalaki and Fanny Travaglino.

The dancers will use the image of a colander (‘passoire’ in French) as a metaphor for the human body, through which neutrinos pass without realisation or memory of the event itself.

Presented by the Particle Physics Group as part of Arts & Science Festival 2016, a week-long celebration of ideas, research and collaboration across campus.