WENDY: Welcome back to Neutrinowatch on Tuesday, April 16, 2024... It's Eggs Benedict Day. JOHN WELLES: Hello, and welcome back. I'm your host as ever John Welles. I want to say right at the top, I'm sorry this episode is coming out late. Life kind of got in the way - in this case life being the communication array that links the lab here in Antarctica with the rest of civilization. We've been getting some very, very strange signals through the peripheral systems, and it's stopped the neutrino detection data uploading automatically. It's also stopped the automated upload of the podcast, so it's taken me some time to sort out this problem problems. I'm now doing them manually, so hopefully, we won't get any more glitches and you'll get a podcast every day. And we'll be able to get back into the science. So do tune in next time, and don't forget to rate the podcast and review it and give it lots of stars on apple iTunes. And I'll be back tomorrow with a bit more science. WENDY: Welcome back to Neutrinowatch on Wednesday, April 17, 2024. JOHN WELLES: Welcome back everyone. I can't believe it's April. I've been here almost a year. When there's a communications blackout like we had recently, it just reminds me that I'm out here on my own in Antarctica. I mean, that wouldn't have always been the case. The station was built to have two or three people who would rotate out. In the past there was a more robust neutrino observation and detection network around the world, multiple staffed stations, all looking for these neutrinos that are of scientific interest. But during the Clinton Administration, it was felt that we didn't need multiple staff stations. We didn't need such a a large-scale system. So the other stations now are automated and this is the only staffed one. It's just me and I, I haven't been rotated out for while, I've been here for.. nearly a year. So that's... a bit of an insight into some of the decisions and the policy behind the science! And tomorrow let's get back to neutrino watching. And I will let you know if I see one! WENDY: Welcome back to Neutrinowatch on Thursday, April 18, 2024. JOHN WELLES: Hello, welcome back to the show. It's an exciting day because I've received an email. Initially I hoped that might be from a listener, but it turns out we don't have very many listeners - it's from my boss. Thank you, Professor. They say, "Hi, John. Can you PLEASE [all caps] explain who that voice is over the theme song of the podcast?! P.S. if you can make a go of this podcast and bump up the listener figures a little bit, maybe we can take that into account when we consider your transfer request." So focusing on that first part of the email - yeah, I can explain who that voice is - that's Wendy. It's an automated timestamp. And it's, Wendy is the artificial intelligence that analyzes the data that comes out of the neutrino detector. Wendy's full name is the "West Antarctic Ice Sheet Neutrino Observation Artificial Intelligence Data Processing Unit. But I can't call her "Waisoaidpu". So I call her Wendy. It's her job to process the data, to check that it's genuine data and not a false positive. We don't want to don't want scientists working on junk data. We don't want to warn people about potential electromagnetic storms when it's just a glitch with a system. And it was Wendy's job to also upload that data every day. As I said, those ghosts in the machine have screwed that up, so it's me doing that, but don't blame Wendy. It's not a Wendy's fault. No. If you've got questions about the facility here or Wendy or about me please do write to me, at neutrinowatchshow@gmail.com. I can't promise you'll get a reply from Wendy. But I certainly have plenty of time on my hands. WENDY: Welcome back to Neutrinowatch on Friday, April 19, 2024. JOHN WELLES: Another exciting piece of news today, we saw a neutrino. As you know, we don't see many neutrinos because they interact very, very weakly with matter. In the last, year or so we've seen about 26 neutrinos, I think is the number. 27 if you include this one, slightly more than I've received emails. So that is very exciting. So hopefully this is a bit of news that will push us up the iTunes chart, tell your friends about it, let's give Brian Cox, a bit of a run for his money and let's get neutrino observatories into the spotlight. This is important work that's happening out here. That will reflect well on the work that we do, me and Wendy, and next time there's a round of funding cuts, maybe they will reconsider, maybe they'll put a couple of scientists in this location rather just the one, or swap them out a little more frequently. So I hope that's exciting for you as a listener to hear... you're the first people to hear about this, of course, because I'm uploading the data right now. I'm uploading it manually. So it's going up at basically the same time as the podcast. So you hear about it even before those scientists back at home. So that's really... because of these signal problems that have been plaguing us. Anyway, so, yeah, I'll be back tomorrow with another episode of neutrinowatch. WENDY: Welcome back to Neutrinowatch on Saturday, April 20, 2024. JOHN WELLES: So some good news and some bad news. The good news is we uploaded the data from yesterday's event. And my, my calculations seem to show it was a real neutrino event. Wendy agreed. And the scientists back at base agreed that the data is consistent with a neutrino event. So that's great. The bad news is that it wasn't registered on any other detector. Now I think it's a genuine event. I think what's happened is perhaps the sort of strange signals that have been messing up our communications arrays and our peripheral systems are affecting those automated locations, maybe automated data upload is broken in those sites too. Looking on the bright side, that meant we were the only people to see that neutrino. It's our discovery. And, and because I uploaded the data at the same time as the podcast, you heard about it first. So that's exciting. Sometimes science is not about being the best it's about being the first or at least being the only people on the scene. But yeah, don't be the only people on scene - share with your friends and tell them about neutrinowatch and like us rate us and review us on all of your favorite podcast platforms and I'll be back tomorrow. WENDY: Welcome back to Neutrinowatch on Sunday, April 21, 2024. JOHN WELLES: [date echoes and distorts] Quite a strange event late last night. I'd love to believe this was a real neutrino burst. That would be exciting, but probably that's not what's happening. It's probably just a problem with you equipment. Anyway. Uh, do rate and review the podcast, and I'll be back tomorrow with more news on that. WENDY: Welcome back to Neutrinowatch on Monday, April 22, 2024... It's International Take Your Kids To Work Day. JOHN WELLES: Well, Wendy's analysis suggests that yesterday's event was genuine. It was a neutrino burst from a supernova. I've been very busy trying to deal with uh, electrical problems we've had around the site. I haven't done a full analysis, but my preliminary impressions are, yes, it was a real event, despite what I said yesterday. Now... I've reported neutrino events in the past that I thought were supernovae. I'll hold my hand up and say, "I wasn't always right about that". And some corners of the scientific community would have you believe that John Welles will share "supernova" every time they see a blip on their computer, never mind the fact that I spent four years in a salt mine in Siberia, getting my PhD in neutrino physics. Apparently that counts for nothing. Now the automated sites, the other neutrino detection sites are not reporting any detection events. I can see that from my systems. So it would be just my claim that there's a supernova. So I'm gonna make sure I do the analysis correctly before I upload that data and I pass my findings on to my colleagues. So, uh, isn't that exciting? It's sort of a bit of a mystery there - is there? Isn't there? It's a bit like Serial, but without the murdered teenagers. Great opportunity to get your friends involved, get them on board, the neutrinowatch roller coaster, and I'll be back tomorrow with the results of my analysis. So yeah, I'll see you then! WENDY: Welcome back to Neutrinowatch on Tuesday, April 23, 2024. JOHN WELLES: Having done some more analysis on that data from two days ago, the neutrino burst event, it almost exactly matches the profile of a scenario that I actually, outlined in my PhD, in a theoretical chapter. That burst of neutrinos is a sign that in a few days there will be another burst - this time of what I, what I described as "subatomic debris" from a cosmic event. Now this particular neutrino profile is a sign of subatomic debris that will only disrupt communications for short period, probably a few hours, but has the capacity to wipe storage - media hard drives and things like that. I doubt it will affect the army and the Navy and power stations, they're under thick concrete, and they're designed to be protected from some of these sorts of disruptions, but people's homes will be affected, commercial servers, especially media, TV and film, and I guess podcasts as well. I haven't communicated this back to base yet, because if I'm wrong, this could cause so much disruption and it's not going to do wonders for my reputation either - as my boss is fond of saying: "Don't get it wrong again, John!". But, in the meantime, yeah, I'm going to build a Faraday cage for my own data. Put my stuff in there. Uh, the event is four days away, that gives them plenty of time. And also, you know, if I change my mind about this, if I'm sure this is real, there's still time for people to respond. So I'm going to build that Friday occasion and do a little bit more analysis. I'm going to, I'm going to make sure that... I can't help thinking about all of the people who make music and film and podcasts who don't have a Faraday cage. I mean, does Joe Rogan have a Faraday.... yeah, well, Joe Rogan probably does have a Faraday Cage. All right, I'm going to go make my Faraday cage, I'll be back tomorrow to tell you more. WENDY: Welcome back to Neutrinowatch on Wednesday, April 24, 2024. JOHN WELLES: So a little bit of news, I guess. The Faraday cage is going really well. Turns out it's I've got everything I need here to build it. So that's great news. I'm going to be able to protect all my stuff. The other news is I have come to the decision not to share my findings with a home base. Now - I mean, of course they could just listen to this podcast. If they listened to this podcast, they would have heard everything. I mean, in retrospect it wasn't, it wasn't a great decision to live, broadcast my results, but they'd have to listen to the podcast. I don't think they do. I don't think my boss listens. I don't think even... I don't think even the neutrino physics community listen. I don't think anyone listens to this podcast. So you might think that a decision not to communicate my results is grossly responsible and professional, and you'd be wrong. And I'll tell you why. We're the only site to have detected these neutrinos - none of the automated sites have communicated any results. The hypothetical scenario is one for my PhD thesis that even my thesis examiners described as "wildly back of the envelope calculations". And I don't want there to be a huge panic. I don't want Amazon to be burying their hard drives in the Utah desert. And I really don't want to have to deal with the fallout if I'm wrong. On the flip side if I'm wrong, eventually those podcasts will come back. There'll be backup somewhere. There'll be someone's, you know, a hard drive in the basement. But, for short amount of time, after the apple podcast servers have spun back up again, it's basically a desert. I'll be able to upload my podcast. My podcast will have been in a Faraday cage, it'll be the only podcast. The ONLY podcast on, on apple podcasts - I'll have the only podcast in the world. And then people will have no choice but to listen to neutrinowatch. And as someone who is passionate about communicating science, I can't think of a better Impact of my work. That's, that's where we're at. It feels like a win-win situation to me. So hang on in there and I'll let you know how the Faraday cage construction goes when I come back tomorrow, welcome back to neutrino. WENDY: Welcome back to Neutrinowatch on Thursday, April 25, 2024. JOHN WELLES: The Faraday cage is complete - that's exciting. The calculations which were so disdained by my university examiners say the event is two days away. But I'm not going to be hubristic about the margin of error on that. I'm going to get all of the hard drives and all of that data into the Faraday cage after I finish recording this, now that it's finished. There's no point to take any risks. So I'll probably take a day break of about three or four days just to be on the safe side, and then I'll be back. Fingers crossed those were just a weird signals in the wires and it will be back to business as usual, but on the other hand if there was a global subatomic debris event, then this will be the only podcast in the iTunes chart. So please do remember to like rate and review. The best podcast, the only podcast on the internet, neutrinowatch... --- Shownotes: Physicist John Welles shares his latest neutrino detection research news in this daily podcast. [Made by Martin Austwick with help from Jeff Emtman Find us at neutrino.watch and @neutrinowatch on twitter --- Neutrinowatch is generated daily, so this text will change every day. This version was generated on Friday, 26 April 2024, at 00:04 UTC/GMT