Page 11 - EUREKA! Fall 2017

That doesn’t deter Sinclair, an internationally renowned
particle physicist and a distinguished research professor at
Carleton University. He’s focused on what the Cryopit could
soon contain: the cutting-edge nEXO experiment, a detector
that will use five tonnes of enriched xenon in an attempt to
measure the exact mass of neutrinos and determine wheth-
er the elusive elementary particles are their own antiparti-
cles. Sinclair is also thinking about the past. He’s reminiscing
about the mid-1980s, when he was a young faculty member
at the University of Oxford — before the Sudbury Neutrino
Observatory (SNO) experiment was built and helped a
Canadian win the Nobel Prize in Physics, before the federal
government decided to double down on its initial invest-
ment and fund the construction of SNOLAB, before his Car-
leton colleague Mark Boulay began the DEAP-3600 project
in the adjacent cavern to search for an unobserved form of
matter that comprises most of the mass in the universe —
and all of this was solid rock.
Although he is always careful to share credit and stresses
that it takes a lot of people to make a project of this scale
feasible, Sinclair made a crucial decision while at Oxford
that ultimately begat the SNO experiment and the thriv-
ing research legacy that followed. There had been talk in
Canada’s particle physics community about the possibility
of an underground lab in the Sudbury area, with hundreds of
metres of norite “overburden” shielding sensitive detection
systems from the cosmic radiation that bombards the plan-
et. Sinclair was excited about the idea — and the opportu-
nity to probe fundamental questions about the nature of the
universe on home turf — but knew it would never proceed
if people only discussed it over coffee and chipped away at
the concept while concentrating on their day jobs. He had a
sabbatical leave coming up in 1984-85 and planned to spend Mil mossus. Ro elliquis qui volessitaes doluptaquas expernatum si destrum sit omnimuscia iusdae. Am nos aut ma voloribus et optatia
denderro berit facimag niminci liquae nonsequ atemperspit exerruntenis quid quam qui abor minctor eperfero eseniaesti
it working in Australia, an appealing adventure for an ex-pat
Canadian and his family. denly, the lustrous silvery-white metal could be cost-effec-
“I was free to go anywhere in the world and do anything tively extracted from the Earth and used to make valuable
that I wanted,” recalls Sinclair, looking up at the domed ceil- alloys such as stainless steel. Sudbury’s nickel mining indus- zil-based mining company that purchased Inco). “We can’t
ing of the Cryopit. “But what the SNO project needed was try boomed, and Canada became one of the world’s leading do anything that impedes the mining,” Sinclair says about
somebody with a year of free time to take on the feasibility producers of the metal. the positive relationship with the operators of Canada’s
study. So I called up my wife and said, ‘We’re not going to In part because of this history, Inco — a Canadian mining deepest mine. “That’s the top priority. But because we work
Australia after all — we’re going back to Canada.’ And I’ve company and the top global producer of nickel for much in that way, they’re very supportive.” Space for quote here
been working on this ever since.” of the 20th century — was always supportive of scientific Funded by a collection of agencies, including Cana- from text on this spread
efforts, says Sinclair. Not long after arriving at Carleton for da’s Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council
Without scientific research, Sudbury would never have a faculty position in 1989, he told Inco’s vice-president of (NSERC) and National Research Council, Industry Canada, if something stands out,
developed into the Nickel City. Starting around 11,000 years research, Sandy Bell, about the ambitious experiments the the Northern Ontario Heritage Fund Corporation, the U.S.
ago, the region’s Indigenous peoples dug copper out of university’s physics department had in mind. Sinclair then Department of Energy and the U.K. Particle Physics and otherwise I can remove and
open pits and used the metal to make tools, weapons and showed Bell his cramped lab beside the loading bay in the Astronomy Research Council, the SNO Institute was formed
jewelry. In the late 1800s, commercial copper mining began Herzberg Building, where he was doing preliminary work on in 1990. About 100 scientists from Canada, the U.S. and the just add some white space
in the area, but it was difficult to separate “contaminant” a water purification system that would eventually play a key U.K. comprised the team; its director was Queen’s physicist
nickel ore from the copper ore, and companies struggled role at SNO. Inco helped fund a major addition to Herzberg, Art McDonald — who would go on to win the 2015 Nobel
to survive. The carbonyl process changed everything. The and as the planning for SNO took shape, the company Prize — and Sinclair served as one of his deputies. Excava-
technique, created in a lab by German chemist Ludwig agreed to let researchers build their facility at its Creighton tion began in March 1990 and was completed just over three
Mond in 1890, converts nickel oxides into pure nickel. Sud- Mine (which since 2006 has been operated by Vale, the Bra- years later. Sticking to the $73 million budget was a chal-

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