American Scientists make big bang on Stockholm Nobel stage

Stan Beer
Tuesday, 03 October 2006 20:29

IT Industry - Market

John Mather from NASA Goddard Space Flight Center and George Smoot from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory won the prize for discovering the nature of blackbody radiation, the background cosmic radiation that is thought to be a byproduct of the time when the universe was created in the Big Bang.

The work of the two scientists stemmed from observations made using the NSA Cobe satellite which was launched in 1989. The COBE satellite was developed to measure infrared and microwave radiation from the early universe. The satellite enabled the two scientists to observe the universe as it was about 380,000 years after the Big Bang creation.

While the work done by the two scientists does not prove the Big Bang theory, which postulates that the universe was created up to 20 billion years ago in an explosion from single infinitely dense point that threw matter apart in all directions. They were able to demonstrate from their measurements of ripples in light how galaxies were formed, adding further weight to the theory.

Both scientists when contacted with the news of their win, which comes with a US$1.4 million cheque, reportedly were genuinely taken aback with surprise.

The Nobel prize, long considered the highest honour that can be conferred in science and the arts, stemmed from the will of Alfred Nobel. The inventor of dynamite and wealthy industrialist bequeathed a large portion of his estate to the creation of a prize for scientists,  literary artists and philanthropists adjudged to have made the most outstanding contribution to their fields.
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