IceCube: Relationship between science and technology

In the February 2011 issue of IEEE Spectrum, there is a report on the IceCube array by physicist Spencer Klein, (IceCube: The Polar Particle Hunter) that I find a very interesting case study in the relationship between science and technology.  IceCube is a project to build a neutrino detector deep in the ice near the South Pole.  The scientific objective is to detect very energetic neutrinos of cosmic origin and determine if they can be traced to a particular place in the cosmos, e.g., the galactic center, or if they are more uniform, e.g., 3 K blackbody radiation.

This project will instrument a cubic kilometer of ice between 1.5 and 2.5 km below the surface when completed later this year.  This project is the 3rd generation of Antarctic Ice neutrino detectors... Its predecessor, AMANDA placed photomultiplier detectors beneath the ice in the early 1990s using coaxial transmission technology and later redesigned their array with fiber optics in the late 1990s.  Each generation of technology reflects both deeper scientific understanding of the phenomenon they are detecting as well as improved drilling, detection, signal processing and communications technology.

I have two personal connections to this project.  On the scientific side, UW Madison physics Professor, Francis Halzen, whom I knew as a grad student in the 1970’s was one of the scientific leaders of AMANDA and lists himself as the principle investigator and co-spokesperson for IceCube on his CV.  I heard him talk about AMANDA in the early 1990’s at a special colloquium honoring my major professor, Marvin Ebel upon his retirement.  I was particularly interested in this project because AMANDA is a network with a survivability requirement.  My engineering connection is through Wayne Kachmar, an extraordinary fiber optic engineer who designed and produced custom FO cable for the second generation of AMANDA in the 1990s.  Wayne reported to me for many years at ADC.

The first generation of AMANDA learned that shallow ice had too many air bubbles to allow the array to act as a telescope, but that by going deeper, highly compressed ice, with no bubbles, could be found below 1400 meters.  The second generation of AMANDA determined that most of the neutrinos detected had their origin in the atmosphere, a product of energetic charged cosmic rays that have been steered through the cosmos by magnetic fields and have “forgotten” their points of origin.  The third generation, IceCube, will be able to distinguish between neutrinos of cosmic and atmospheric origin and will have sophisticated signal processing to screen events to reduce the quantity of data that is transmitted to the surface, relayed to the University of Wisconsin and ultimately analyzed to understand the nature and origin of cosmic neutrinos.  IceCube is a network of distributed processors in constant communication with their neighbors.

I encourage you to read this article and comment below.  I have learned that scientific and technical advancement go hand in hand and that great scientists are often great technologists and vice versa.  What’s your reaction to IceCube?