The
Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided
to award the Nobel Prize in Physics for 2006 jointly to
John C. Mather
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD, USA,
and
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD, USA,
and
George F. Smoot
University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA
"for their discovery of the blackbody form and anisotropy of the cosmic microwave background radiation".
University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA
"for their discovery of the blackbody form and anisotropy of the cosmic microwave background radiation".
Pictures of a newborn Universe
This year the Physics Prize is awarded for work that looks back into
the infancy of the Universe and attempts to gain some understanding of
the origin of galaxies and stars. It is based on measurements made with
the help of the COBE satellite launched by NASA in 1989.
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 cosmic microwave background radiation measured
by COBE. These measurements also marked the inception of cosmology as a
precise science. It was not long before it was followed up, for
instance by the WMAP satellite, which yielded even clearer images of the
background radiation. Very soon the European Planck satellite will be
launched in order to study the radiation in even greater detail.
According to the Big Bang scenario, the cosmic microwave background
radiation is a relic of the earliest phase of the Universe. Immediately
after the big bang itself, the Universe can be compared to a glowing
"body emitting radiation in which the distribution across different
wavelengths depends solely on its temperature. The shape of the spectrum
of this kind of radiation has a special form known as blackbody
radiation. When it was emitted the temperature of the Universe was
almost 3,000 degrees Centigrade. Since then, according to the Big Bang
scenario, the radiation has gradually cooled as the Universe has
expanded. The background radiation we can measure today corresponds to a
temperature that is barely 2.7 degrees above absolute zero. The
Laureates were able to calculate this temperature thanks to the
blackbody spectrum revealed by the COBE measurements.
COBE also had the task of seeking small variations of temperature in
different directions (which is what the term 'anisotropy' refers to).
Extremely small differences of this kind in the temperature of the
cosmic background radiation – in the range of a hundred-thousandth of a
degree – offer an important clue to how the galaxies came into being.
The variations in temperature show us how the matter in the Universe
began to "aggregate". This was necessary if the galaxies, stars and
ultimately life like us were to be able to develop. Without this
mechanism matter would have taken a completely different form, spread
evenly throughout the Universe.
COBE was launched using its own rocket on 18 November 1989. The
first results were received after nine minutes of observations: COBE had
registered a perfect blackbody spectrum. When the curve was later shown
at an astronomy conference the results received a standing ovation.
The success of COBE was the outcome of prodigious team work
involving more than 1,000 researchers, engineers and other participants.
John Mather coordinated the entire process and also
had primary responsibility for the experiment that revealed the
blackbody form of the microwave background radiation measured by COBE. George
Smoot had main responsibility for measuring the small
variations in the temperature of the radiation.
| Read more about this year's prize | |
| Information for the Public (pdf) | |
| Scientific Background (pdf) | |
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| Links and Further Reading | |
John C. Mather, born 1946 (60), (US citizen).
PhD in Physics in 1974 from the University of California at Berkeley,
CA, USA. Senior Astrophysicist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight
Center, Greenbelt, MD, USA.
George F. Smoot, born 1945 (61) in Yukon, FL, USA,
(US citizen). PhD in Physics in 1970 from MIT, Cambridge, MA, USA.
Professor of Physics at the University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA.
Prize amount: SEK 10 million to be shared equally between the Laureates
Contact persons:
Prize amount: SEK 10 million to be shared equally between the Laureates
Contact persons:
Malin Lindgren, Information Officer, Phone
+46 8 673 95 22, +46 709 88 60 04, malin@kva.se
Ulrika Björkstén, Scientific Editor, Phone +46 8 673 95 00, +46 702 06 67 50, ulrika.bjorksten@kva.se
Ulrika Björkstén, Scientific Editor, Phone +46 8 673 95 00, +46 702 06 67 50, ulrika.bjorksten@kva.se
