{"id":7515,"date":"2011-10-04T08:56:47","date_gmt":"2011-10-04T15:56:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.discovermagazine.com\/cosmicvariance\/?p=7515"},"modified":"2014-11-06T15:48:47","modified_gmt":"2014-11-06T23:48:47","slug":"nobel-prize-for-the-accelerating-universe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/2011\/10\/04\/nobel-prize-for-the-accelerating-universe\/","title":{"rendered":"Nobel Prize for the Accelerating Universe"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Sometimes it&#8217;s not that hard to predict the future &#8212; everyone paying attention (including <a href=\"https:\/\/www.preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/2006\/05\/24\/future-cosmology-nobels\/\">me<\/a>) knew that one of the most Nobel-worthy discoveries out there was the 1998 announcement that our universe is accelerating. Now the achievement has been officially honored, with this year&#8217;s Physics Prize going to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/science-environment-15165371\">Saul Perlmutter, Adam Riess, and Brian Schmidt<\/a>.  (Great quotes and coverage at the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.guardian.co.uk\/science\/blog\/2011\/oct\/04\/nobel-prize-physics\"><em>Guardian<\/em><\/a>.) Congrats to three extremely deserving scientists!<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2011\/10\/05\/science\/space\/05nobel.html?_r=2&amp;hp\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/blogs.discovermagazine.com\/cosmicvariance\/files\/2011\/10\/nobel-u.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"599\" height=\"359\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-7516\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Like regular people with major historical events, most physicists can remember where they were when they first heard that the universe is accelerating. That&#8217;s how big this discovery was.  It was just the right combination of &#8220;startling&#8221; &#8212; very few people really thought the universe was accelerating, and if they did they certainly weren&#8217;t proclaiming that belief very loudly &#8212; and &#8220;believable&#8221; &#8212; we all knew it was possible, and as soon as the data came in people realized that it solved a bunch of problems at once.  There was a healthy amount of skepticism, but in a very short period of time it became difficult to get a Ph.D. as a cosmologist without working on this problem in one way or another &#8212; either verifying the result observationally, or trying to come up with a theoretical explanation.<\/p>\n<p>The leading explanation by far, of course, is the existence of a smooth and persistent source of energy known as <a href=\"http:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/writings\/skytel-mar05.pdf\">dark energy<\/a>, of which Einstein&#8217;s cosmological constant is the simplest and most compelling example. If that&#8217;s the right answer, we&#8217;re talking about 73% or so of the universe.  Something to tell your grandkids that you helped discover, eh?  A small sampling of what this discovery has wrought, just taken from this here blog:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/2009\/10\/09\/the-dark-energy-song\/\">Songs<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/2009\/08\/28\/dark-energy-still-a-puzzle\/\">Frantic attempts to wriggle out<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/2006\/11\/16\/dark-energy-has-long-been-dark-energy-like\/\">Amazing cosmological measurements<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/2005\/10\/17\/escape-from-the-clutches-of-the-dark-sector\/\">More frantic attempts<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/2007\/04\/19\/dark-energy-fundamentalism-simon-white-lays-the-smackdown\/\">Complaints about fundamentalism<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/2006\/01\/26\/the-future-of-the-universe\/\">A much better idea what will happen to the universe in the future<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.discovermagazine.com\/cosmicvariance\/2007\/10\/31\/dark-energy-it-stinx-but-it-rocks\/\">Plant nutrient formulae<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.discovermagazine.com\/cosmicvariance\/2009\/02\/10\/the-dark-side-in-aspen\/\">Conferences<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.discovermagazine.com\/cosmicvariance\/2006\/05\/18\/dark-energy-task-force-report\/\">Task forces<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/2007\/09\/05\/national-academy-dark-energy-first-maybe-lisa-second\/\">Plans for future satellites<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"hhttps:\/\/www.preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/2006\/06\/26\/shaw-prize-for-the-accelerating-universe\/\">Prizes galore<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/2005\/08\/18\/congratulations-to-vikram\/\">New theories of gravity<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/2010\/04\/20\/from-eternity-to-book-club-chapters-fifteen-and-sixteen\/\">New scenarios for the origin of the universe<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.discovermagazine.com\/cosmicvariance\/2005\/07\/21\/dont-be-fooled-by-w\/\">Better theoretical understanding<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.discovermagazine.com\/cosmicvariance\/2005\/08\/02\/how-are-we-to-make-progress-with-w\/\">Better observational strategies<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/2007\/12\/10\/a-dark-misleading-force\/\">Confused vocabulary<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.discovermagazine.com\/cosmicvariance\/2007\/10\/29\/dark-energy-what-the\/\">Confused cosmologists<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/2008\/12\/16\/dark-energy-no-longer-a-surprise\/\">Multiple confirmations<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Not a bad result, I would say.<\/p>\n<p>You don&#8217;t think I&#8217;m going to leave this without mentioning that Brian Schmidt was <a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.scientificamerican.com\/cocktail-party-physics\/2011\/10\/04\/nobel-dreams-2011-physics-prize-honors-accelerating-universe\/\">my office mate<\/a> in grad school, do you?  Taught the young man all he knows (about inflation and field theory).  Adam Riess was a fellow classmate of ours, both of them studying under Bob Kirshner.  I even got to collaborate on <a href=\"http:\/\/iopscience.iop.org\/0004-637X\/509\/1\/74\/\">a follow-up paper<\/a> with these upstanding gentlemen. Saul Perlmutter was already at Lawrence Berkeley Labs thinking about supernovae and the expansion of the universe, so I can&#8217;t claim to have influenced him, but we did chat on the phone several times about what different observational outcomes would imply for theory.  This is the first Nobel Prize where I was friends with all the winners before they won.<\/p>\n<p>In this day and age, of course, much good science is done by teams, not by individuals.  This is certainly an example; Brian has already said that he&#8217;ll be <a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/#!\/iansample\/status\/121212430150926336\">bringing his team to Stockholm<\/a>.  Congratulations again to everyone involved in this discovery, truly one of the historic events in science.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sometimes it&#8217;s not that hard to predict the future &#8212; everyone paying attention (including me) knew that one of the most Nobel-worthy discoveries out there was the 1998 announcement that our universe is accelerating. Now the achievement has been officially honored, with this year&#8217;s Physics Prize going to Saul Perlmutter, Adam Riess, and Brian Schmidt. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7515","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-science"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7515","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7515"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7515\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12255,"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7515\/revisions\/12255"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7515"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7515"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7515"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}