Smoot and Mather share physics Nobel Prize

John Mather of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., and George Smoot of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory at the University of California, Berkeley, won the Nobel in Physics for their work with a satellite that provided increased support for the Big Bang theory of the origin of the universe. The two will split the prize of 10 million Swedish kroners, about $1.37 million.

John Mather expressed gratitude to the team of hundreds of scientists and engineers for helping him and Smoot. He said, “Our team had 19 scientists and hundreds of engineers….In total there were 1,500 people, so it's a huge team effort that we're recognizing today.”
The two Americans’ work was based on measurements done with the help of NASA's Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE) satellite launched in 1989.

COBE’s measurements of the cosmic microwave background radiation spectrum to the unprecedented precision of a part in 100,000, shows that it matches the spectrum of a perfect blackbody. Furthermore, it provides evidence to the theory that the universe was born in a terrific explosion of space and time 14 billion years ago.

Dr. Smoot said, “What we have found is evidence for the birth of the universe and its evolution.” Referring to the map showing the splotchy seeds of galaxy formation, he said, “If you are religious, it is like looking at God.”

Indicating the importance of COBE, James Peebles, a Princeton cosmologist said, “COBE was deeply important: those two measurements set cosmology on the track to our present well-based theory of the expanding universe.”

The Nobel committee said, "The very detailed observations that the laureates have carried out from the COBE satellite have played a major role in the development of modern cosmology into a precise science."
A thrilled Smoot said, “The discovery was sort of fabulous. It was an incredible milestone. Now this is a great honor and recognition. It's amazing," he said.

Mather too was ecstatic and said, "I can't say I was completely surprised, because people have said we should be awarded, but this is just such a rare and special honor."