Berkeley faculty win Nobel Prize
By Diana Whitaker
Oct. 3, 2006 9:00 p.m.
University of California faculty brought home the Nobel Prize in
physics for the 15th time on Tuesday.
George F. Smoot, UC Berkeley professor and experimental
astrophysicist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and UC
Berkeley alumnus John C. Mather of the NASA Goddard Space Flight
Center, won the award for their research on the origin of the
universe.
The two scientists conducted experiments in 1992 that
strengthened the Big Bang Theory, which proposes that the universe
was born during a single explosion of extremely hot, dense matter
about 13 billion years ago.
Their research eliminated an alternative theory that the
universe was in a steady state and would exist the same way
forever, said Robert Sanders, a UC Berkeley spokesman.
“The discovery was sort of fabulous,” Smoot said.
“It was an incredible milestone. Now this is a great honor
and recognition. It’s amazing.”
According to the Big Bang Theory, the universe should be filled
with cosmic microwave background radiation, the remnant heat left
over from the Big Bang explosion.
“There had been a lot of attempts (to prove the Big Bang
Theory) using experiments on balloons and rockets, but to really
answer the question, they had to get something totally above the
atmosphere ““ a satellite,” Sanders said. “They
were the first ones to build a satellite that could look at the
cosmic microwave background and answer those questions.”
Mather coordinated the satellite and had primary responsibility
for the experiment that revealed the blackbody spectrum, a type of
energy emission scientists had expected the Big Bang to
produce.
Smoot’s experiments looked at the temperature fluctuations
in the cosmic microwave background radiation, Sanders said.
These tiny fluctuations in the temperature indicated the
structure of the universe from 400,000 years after the Big Bang to
the point at which it formed into galaxies and clusters of
galaxies, he said.
The scientists’ findings changed the study of the early
universe from intangible theories to a field of quantifiable
observation and measurement.
“It’s just a really, really difficult experimental
measurement to make. … It’s the farthest out we can see in
the universe and it’s the farthest back in time,” said
Phillip F. Schewe, a spokesman for the American Institute of
Physics.
Smoot has now turned his attention to other areas. He is
attempting to bring concrete proof to the field of string theory,
which currently lacks concrete experimental data.
String theory postulates that the fundamental constituent of all
matter in the universe is not elementary particles such as
electrons or quarks, but vibrating strings. Each vibration
corresponds to a different type of elementary particle and
determines its mass and charge. This theory currently lacks
experimental evidence because of the infinitesimally small scale of
the theoretical strings. Sanders said Smoot is now interested in
finding proof for these theoretical strings by looking in the sky.
Smoot and Mather will be awarded the prizes, which include a $1.4
million check, a gold medal and a diploma, on Dec. 10.
With reports from Bruin wire services.
