NEUTRINOS
The fate of the Universe is governed by invisible particles.
The fate of our societies is governed by invisible communities.
I heard about neutrinos for the first time during a visit as a scientist to the Fermilab outside Chicago in 2017. It was right after the first election of Donald Trump. Neutrinos are the most abundant and primordial particles in the Universe. They penetrate through matter without interacting with it. Neutrinos are almost weightless, yet they tip the scales between matter and anti-matter towards the material existence of our world. In simple words, neutrinos defined the fate of the Universe.
Although the existence of neutrinos was postulated over a hundred years ago, It was only in 1956 that a lab in New Mexico proved their existence. Still, even today, neutrinos are known as ghost particles since scientifically we know they exist, but their true nature remains an enigma.
The DUNE experiment - due to be performed in 2028 - is trying to discover more information about these elusive particles and answer fundamental questions regarding the origin and the nature of our Universe. To achieve this, an artificial neutrino beam will be sent underground from the Fermilab outside Chicago to the Sanford Underground Research Facility, 1300 km away, in South Dakota.
Similar to the way the invisible presence of neutrinos governs the fate of the universe, the result of the recent US election illuminates the fate of American society governed by previously invisible, (often rural) communities. Using the DUNE beam line as an axis, I have spent the last seven years documenting communities in Iowa and South Dakota, learning how they live and building relationships based on mutual curiosity rather than politics. The work explores this significant moment in history, blending science and documentary to draw analogies between the macrocosmos of society and the microcosmos of particle physics.
© VASSILIS TRIANTIS
Neutrinos are created in many processes and everywhere in nature; in the sun and the explosions of stars, or particle decays on Earth. Even a banana emits neutrinos.
About a trillion solar neutrinos pass through our bodies every second and we don’t realise it. They are almost invisible!
Neutrinos may be their own antiparticles which would mean as well that neutrinos are the only particles that can co-exist with their opposites without annihilating each other.
Neutrinos have been compared to "ghosts slipping through the night," because they're so insubstantial and seem to barely interact with the rest of the physical world.
