Dark matter might not be hot, but it’s certainly cool (laugh if you’re a geek): I am starting to hear about it more and more, even on TV! When I joined the field, there was little mention of it outside of papers in the field. Now the field exploded, there are tons of tangential papers, and it gets regularly mentioned in the more popular journals (e.g. Nature) and magazines (e.g. Discover). But the best is certainly the most surprising – we now get regularly mentioned on TV. That is thanks to “The Big Bang Theory”, in which the main characters (Leonard and Sheldon) occasionally dabble in Dark Matter experiments and theory. Some highlights (including links):
- Leonard is “examining the radiation levels” of PMTs for a DM experiment [S02E15] – I have done that too!
- A whole episode about Dark Matter, with a list of direct detection experiments behind Sheldon, including XENON10! [S03E04]
- DAMA gets mentioned – although only a few people would get that [S02E15]
- Determining Leff at low energies for Xe detectors – ok, even less people would get that. It’s only a scribble on the whiteoard on the background, but someone caught that and put it on their presentation on the subject. [S04E04]
I am still surprised that the show is such a hit – who would think a show that constantly makes jokes that only a handful of people in the world understands would be so successful?
Update 1 – The episode for the Leff is S04E04 – thanks Carlos!
Update 2 – It turns out it’s Dark Matter Awareness Week! Were you aware?
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