Frederick Reines

“The neutrino is a tiny, elusive particle, a wisp of reality.”

“The world of the very small is a strange and wonderful place.”

“It seemed to us... that we should attempt this seemingly impossible task.”

“I’m going to tell you the story of the neutrino. It’s a story in which I’ve been intimately involved for the better part of my life.”

“Why did we want to detect the free neutrino? Because everybody said, you couldn't do it.”

“So the universe is not quite as simple as we thought.”

“We had found what we were looking for. A result like that is a thing of beauty, a joy forever.”

“But seeing the neutrino is not everything. There is also the question of what neutrinos can tell us.”

“It was a crazy idea, but it was just crazy enough to be right.”