• Question: how long did it take you to make the water thing with the round things to represent the partcles or whatever??

    Asked by begua004 to Ben on 22 Nov 2011.
    • Photo: Ben Still

      Ben Still answered on 22 Nov 2011:

      Super Kamiokande took 3 years to build, from underground cavern to particle physics detector. After an accident in 2001, where half of the light sensitive electronics imploded, it was shut in 2006 for reconstruction. The work was completed in 2007 and returned Super-K to it’s former glory – plus some extra protection for the electronics 😉

      It contains 50,000 tonnes of ultra pure water (that’s over 33 Olympic sized swimming pools) and has over 12,000 electronic eyes (the light sensitive electronics I mentioned earlier) look into the water for flashes of light – a signal that a particle has interacted with the water.

      Some nice pictures of construction here http://www-sk.icrr.u-tokyo.ac.jp/sk/gallery/index-e.html#sk-const-high

Comments