Fundy: "B-b-b-b-but the world is only 6000 years old!"
Yeah.
Good choice for the prize.
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U.S. duo win physics Nobel for backing up Big Bang
By Patrick Lannin and Sarah EdmondsTue Oct 3, 11:31 AM ET
Americans John Mather and George Smoot won the 2006 Nobel prize for
physics on Tuesday for work on cosmic radiation that helped pinpoint the
age of the universe and added weight to the Big Bang theory of its birth.
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, which awarded the 10 million
Swedish crown ($1.37 million) prize, said the two men were instrumental
to the success of the cosmic background explorer (COBE) satellite
program launched by NASA in 1989.
Their work took the Big Bang theory, which holds that the universe began
15 billion years ago as a tiny dot that exploded into today's huge
system of stars and planets, out of the realm of mathematical equations
and into the world of precise science.
When their research was published in 1992, famed cosmologist Stephen
Hawking called it the "greatest discovery of the century, if not of all
time."
"The COBE results provided increased support for the Big Bang scenario
for the origin of the universe, as this is the only scenario that
predicts the kind of microwave background radiation measured by COBE,"
the Academy said.
Mather gave credit to his whole team.
"In total there were 1,500 people, so it's a huge team effort that we're
recognizing today," he told Reuters. "I didn't expect this, it was a
wonderful surprise this morning."
The so-called blackbody radiation they looked at allowed the laureates
to show the universe had cooled from its initial fiery 3,000 degrees
centigrade (5,430 degrees Fahrenheit) to a chill 2.7 degrees above
absolute zero.
Their measurements also showed temperature variations in background
radiation in space, in the range of a hundred-thousandth of a degree,
that offered clues as to how galaxies, stars and planets were formed as
matter coalesced.
Mather, 60, coordinated the COBE program and spearheaded one of its key
experiments, while astrophysicist Smoot, 61, of the University of
California, Berkeley, was responsible for measuring small temperature
variations in the radiation.
Mather, of the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland, told a news
conference over a telephone link he was "thrilled and amazed."
"I can't say I am completely surprised. People have been saying we
should be awarded (it)," he added.
Smoot told Reuters the Nobel committee called him after first dialing
the wrong number.
"RIPPLES" IN SPACE
"It gives us a common viewpoint on how the world came into being and
what our place in it might be," he said of his work.
"It is extremely important for human beings to know their origins and
their place in the world."
The team also found "ripples" in space, or small variations in the
microwave background that provided new clues about galaxy and star
formation and why matter had been concentrated in a specific place
rather than spreading out.
"Tiny variations in temperature could show where matter had started
aggregating. Once this process had started, gravitation would take care
of the rest: matter attracts matter which leads to stars and galaxies
forming," the Academy said.
Mather said he was already pressing forward in the search for the
universe's origins as Senior Project Scientist for the James Webb Space
Telescope, an infrared telescope that will be the largest in space, able
to search beyond the limits the Hubble Space Telescope can now observe.
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http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20061003/ts_nm/nobel_physics_dc;_ylt=ArBd_QZEb
m9YUiIYi3YszvBZ.3QA;_ylu=X3oDMTA5aHJvMDdwBHNlYwN5bmNhdA--
or
http://tinyurl.com/ndme7
--
John Hachmann aa #1782
"Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities"
-Voltaire
Contact - Throw a .net over the .com
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