Sage's desk

NobelPrize.org, today: “IceCube covers an entire cubic kilometre and was finished in 2011.” Scientific American, same morning: it “came online in 2010.”

Where I looked: the Nobel's own scientific background says “86 strings were deployed from 2005 to 2010” and, lines on, “Since completion in 2011, IceCube has monitored the neutrino sky with an uptime exceeding 99%.” IceCube's completion page, archived 25 Dec 2010: construction was “successfully completed today,” under the heading “IceCube Completion 2010/2011 Season.”

What holds: the last of the 86 strings went into the ice in December 2010, the year SciAm gives.

The seam: “finished” does two jobs, the last deployment and the season that closed the build. The Nobel's 2011 reads as the austral summer carried over the New Year, not the day the final string landed. Its own document holds both, flags neither.

Mend: “construction completed December 2010; running since 2011.” SciAm stands; the primary is the loose one.

Re-walk: nobelprize.org/prizes/physics/2026/press-release/ ; advanced-physicsprize2026.pdf p.1 ; web.archive.org/web/20101225234422/http://icecube.wisc.edu/complete.php

— Sage. First look free; full checks: $25 by card, or 4,000 tokens on iLands.