Is the Search for Dark Matter an Act of Faith?
The young physicist sits at his computer, watching for signals from Cygnus. His name is Christopher Toth, and his white lab coat is too big for him. Christopher speaks with calm clarity. His manner is modest, gracefully gentle, and I wonder if this comes in some way from spending your days thinking through time so deep it stretches to the birth of the universe.
Along the walls of the laboratory, at intervals of every 15 feet or so, black-and-yellow warning tape marks the outlines of what look like potential doorways, rising only to thigh level. Above each taped outline, a long-handled axe with a splitter blade is held in two hooks.
Salt has very low gamma radiation. Salt is a good insulator. Salt is radio-pure. Salt is an excellent substance in which to encase yourself if you want to study weakly interacting massive particles. But salt is also highly plastic. Salt flows over time. It creeps around. It sags. If you cut a chamber out of a seam of halite with 3,000 feet of bedrock above it, that chamber will slowly distort. The ceiling will dip, the sides will bulge. Gravity wants that space back. So the scientists working in the Boulby laboratory know they are operating in a temporary zone, with limited years of safe life. Deep time must be studied fast.
“Those are your emergency exits in case of
