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Encyclopedia > George F. Smoot
George Smoot celebrating his Nobel Prize on October 3, 2006 at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
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George Smoot celebrating his Nobel Prize on October 3, 2006 at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

George Fitzgerald Smoot III (born February 20, 1945) is an American astrophysicist and cosmologist awarded the 2006 Nobel Prize in Physics with John C. Mather for "their discovery of the black body form and anisotropy of the cosmic microwave background radiation". The Berkeley Lab is perched on a hill overlooking the Berkeley central campus and San Francisco Bay. ... February 20 is the 51st day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar. ... 1945 (MCMVL) was a common year starting on Monday (the link is to a full 1945 calendar). ... Spiral Galaxy ESO 269-57 Astrophysics is the branch of astronomy that deals with the physics of the universe, including the physical properties (luminosity, density, temperature and chemical composition) of celestial objects such as stars, galaxies, and the interstellar medium, as well as their interactions. ... // Cosmology, from the Greek: κοσμολογία (cosmologia, κόσμος (cosmos) order + λογια (logia) discourse) is the study of the Universe in its totality, and by extension, humanitys place in it. ... 2006 (MMVI) is a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Hannes Alfvén (1908–1995) accepting the Nobel Prize for his work on magnetohydrodynamics [1]. List of Nobel Prize laureates in Physics from 1901 to the present day. ... John C. Mather at NASA John Cromwell Mather (b. ... As the temperature decreases, the peak of the black body radiation curve moves to lower intensities and longer wavelengths. ... Look up anisotropy in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... In cosmology, the cosmic microwave background radiation (most often abbreviated CMB but occasionally CMBR, CBR or MBR) is a form of electromagnetic radiation discovered in 1965 that fills the entire universe. ...


This work helped cement the big-bang theory of the universe using the COBE (Cosmic Background Explorer) satellite. According to the Nobel Prize committee, "the COBE-project can also be regarded as the starting point for cosmology as a precision science". [1] According to the Big Bang theory, the universe emerged from an extremely dense and hot state (bottom). ... The Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE), also referred to as Explorer 66, was the first satellite built dedicated to cosmology. ... // Cosmology, from the Greek: κοσμολογία (cosmologia, κόσμος (cosmos) order + λογια (logia) discourse) is the study of the Universe in its totality, and by extension, humanitys place in it. ...


He is a professor of physics at the University of California, Berkeley. In 2003 he was awarded the Einstein Medal. The University of California, Berkeley (also known as UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, and by other names, see below) is the oldest and flagship campus of the ten-campus University of California system. ... 2003 (MMIII) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... The Albert Einstein Medal is an award presented by the Albert Einstein Society in Bern. ...

Contents


Biography

Education

Smoot was born on 20 February 1945 in Yukon, Florida. He studied mathematics before switching to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where he obtained dual bachelor's degrees in mathematics and physics in 1966, and a doctorate in particle physics in 1970.[2] February 20 is the 51st day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar. ... 1945 (MCMVL) was a common year starting on Monday (the link is to a full 1945 calendar). ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... For other meanings of mathematics or math, see mathematics (disambiguation). ... The Massachusetts Institute of Technology, or MIT, is a private research university located in the city of Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA. Its mission and culture are guided by an emphasis on teaching and research grounded in practical applications of science and technology. ... The examples and perspective in this article or section may not represent a worldwide view. ... Particles explode from the collision point of two relativistic (100 GeV per nucleon) gold ions in the STAR detector of the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider. ...


Although Smoot attended MIT, he was not the same Smoot who was laid end to end to measure the Harvard Bridge between Cambridge and Boston[3][4]; this was his cousin[5] Oliver R. Smoot[6], an MIT alumnus who served as the chairman of the American National Standards Institute. The smoot is a nonstandard unit of length created as part of an MIT fraternity prank. ... The Harvard Bridge (also known locally as the MIT bridge or the Mass Ave bridge) is the longest bridge over the Charles River. ... Cambridge City Hall Settled: 1630 â€“ Incorporated: 1636 Zip Code(s): 02139 â€“ Area Code(s): 617 / 857 Official website: http://www. ... Nickname: City on a Hill, Beantown, The Hub of the Universe (The State House, according to Oliver Wendell Holmes, is the hub of the Solar System), Athens of America Location in Massachusetts Counties Suffolk County Mayor Thomas Menino (D) Area    - City 232. ... Oliver R. Smoot was Chairman of the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) from 2001 to 2002 and President of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) from 2003 to 2004. ... The American National Standards Institute or ANSI (pronounced an-see) is a nonprofit organization that oversees the development of standards for products, services, processes and systems in the United States. ...


Initial research

George Smoot then switched to cosmology, and went to Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory where he collaborated with Luis Walter Alvarez on the experiment HAPPE, a stratospheric balloon for the detection of antimatter in the upper atmosphere, which was predicted by the now obscure steady state theory of cosmology. The Berkeley Lab is perched on a hill overlooking the Berkeley central campus and San Francisco Bay. ... Luis Walter Alvarez (June 13, 1911 – September 1, 1988) of San Francisco, California, USA, was a famed physicist who worked at the University of California, Berkeley. ... Atmosphere diagram showing stratosphere The stratosphere is a layer of Earths atmosphere that is stratified in temperature, with warmer layers higher up and cooler layers farther down. ... Rawinsonde weather balloon just after launch. ... In particle physics, antimatter is matter that is composed of the antiparticles of those that constitute normal matter. ... Layers of Atmosphere (NOAA) Air redirects here. ... In cosmology, the steady state theory (also known as the Infinite Universe Theory or continuous creation) is a model developed in 1948 by Fred Hoyle, Thomas Gold, Hermann Bondi and others as an alternative to the Big Bang theory (known, usually, as the standard cosmological model). ... Cosmology, as a branch of astrophysics, is the study of the large-scale structure of the universe and is concerned with fundamental questions about its formation and evolution. ...


He then took up an interest in cosmic microwave background radiation (CMB), previously discovered by Arno Allan Penzias and Robert Woodrow Wilson. There were, at that time, several open questions about this, relating directly to fundamental questions about the structure of the universe. Certain models predicted the universe as a whole was rotating, which would have an effect on the CMB: its temperature depending on the direction of observation. With the help of Alvarez and Richard A. Muller, Smoot developed a differential radiometer which measured the difference in temperature of the CMB between two directions 60 degrees apart. The instrument, which was mounted on a Lockheed U-2 plane, made it possible to determine that the overall rotation of the universe was zero (within the limit of accuracy of the instrument). It did, however, detect a variation in the temperature of the CMB of a different sort. This dipole pattern (meaning that the CMB appears to be at a higher temperature on one side of the sky than on the opposite side) has been explained as a Doppler effect of the Earth's motion relative to the area of CMB emission, which is called the last scattering surface. Such a doppler effect arises because the Sun (and in fact the Milky Way as a whole) is not stationary, but rather is moving at nearly 600 km/s with respect to the last scattering surface. This is probably due to the gravitational attraction between our galaxy and a concentration of mass like the Great Attractor. Arno Allan Penzias (born April 26, 1933) is an American physicist and winner of the 1978 Nobel Prize in physics. ... Robert Woodrow Wilson Robert Woodrow Wilson (born January 10, 1936) is an American physicist. ... The deepest visible-light image of the cosmos, the Hubble Ultra Deep Field. ... A sphere rotating around its axis. ... In thermodynamics, temperature is the physical property of a system that underlies the common notions of hot and cold —something that is hotter has the greater temperature. ... Richard A. Muller(Born January 6, 1944) of San Francisco, California, USA, is a physicist who works at the University of California, Berkeley and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. ... A Radiometer is a device used to measure the radiant flux or power in Electromagnetic radiation. ... A degree (in full, a degree of arc, arc degree, or arcdegree), usually symbolized °, is a measurement of plane angle, representing 1/360 of a full rotation. ... The Lockheed U-2R/TR-1 in flight The U-2, nicknamed Dragon Lady, is a single-seat, single-engine, high-altitude surveillance aircraft flown by the United States Air Force. ... A source of waves moving to the left. ... The Sun is the name given to the star of our solar system. ... 360-degree photographic panorama of the entire galaxy. ... kilometre per second is an SI derived unit of both speed (scalar) and velocity (vector), signified by the symbol km/s or km s-1. ... Gravity is a force of attraction that acts between bodies that have mass. ... An image taken by the European Southern Observatory looking in the direction of the Great Attractor. ...


Participation in COBE

Map of the CMB fluctuations found by COBE.
Map of the CMB fluctuations found by COBE.

At that time, the CMB appeared to be perfectly uniform excluding the distortion caused by the Doppler effect as mentioned above. This result contradicted observations of the universe, with various structures (galaxies, galaxy clusters, etc.) that indicate that the universe was relatively inhomogenous on a small scale. However, these structures formed slowly. Thus, if the universe is inhomogenous today, it would be inhomogenous at the time of the emission of the CMB as well, observable today through weak variations in the temperature of the CMB. It was the detection of these anisotropies that Smoot was working on in the late 1970s. He then proposed to NASA a project involving a satellite equipped with a detector that was similar to the one mounted on the U-2, but was more sensitive and not influenced by air pollution. The proposal was accepted and gave rise to the satellite COBE, and cost US$ 160 million. COBE was launched on November 18, 1989, after a delay owing to the destruction of the Space Shuttle Challenger. After more than two years of observation and analysis, the COBE research team announced on 23 April 1992 that the satellite had detected tiny fluctuations in the CMB, a breakthrough in the study of the early universe. [7] Download high resolution version (1024x512, 380 KB)Cosmic microwave background temperature data were extracted from the released FITS files and then combined into two linear combinations. ... Download high resolution version (1024x512, 380 KB)Cosmic microwave background temperature data were extracted from the released FITS files and then combined into two linear combinations. ... NGC 4414, a typical spiral galaxy in the constellation Coma Berenices, is about 56,000 light years in diameter and approximately 60 million light years distant. ... Galaxy groups and clusters are super-structures in the spread of galaxies of the cosmos. ... Homogeneous is an adjective that has several meanings. ... The 1970s decade refers to the years from 1970 to 1979, inclusive. ... NASA logo Listen to this article · (info) This audio file was created from an article revision dated 2005-09-01, and does not reflect subsequent edits to the article. ... It has been suggested that Satellite orbit be merged into this article or section. ... Before flue gas desulfurization was installed, the emissions from this power plant in New Mexico contained excessive amounts of sulfur dioxide. ... The Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE), also referred to as Explorer 66, was the first satellite built dedicated to cosmology. ... November 18 is the 322nd day of the year (323rd in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar with 43 days remaining. ... 1989 (MCMLXXXIX) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Space Shuttle Challenger (NASA Orbiter Vehicle Designation: OV-099) was NASAs second Space Shuttle orbiter to be put into service, after Columbia. ... April 23 is the 113th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (114th in leap years). ... 1992 (MCMXCII) was a leap year starting on Wednesday. ...


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 CMB measured by COBE. George Smoot had main responsibility for measuring the small variations in the temperature of the radiation[8]. The Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE), also referred to as Explorer 66, was the first satellite built dedicated to cosmology. ...


Smoot collaborated with San Francisco Chronicle journalist Keay Davidson to write the general-audience book Wrinkles in Time [9], first published in 1994, that chronicled his team's efforts. The San Francisco Chronicle, the self-described Voice of the West, is Northern Californias largest newspaper. ...


Recent projects

After COBE, Smoot took part in another experiment involving a stratospheric balloon, MAXIMA, which was more precise than COBE, and refined the measurements of the anistrophies of the CMB. He is also a collaborator in SNAP, a satellite which is proposed to measured properties of dark energy, and data from the Spitzer Space Telescope in connection with far infrared background. The Supernova / Acceleration Probe (SNAP) Mission is expected to provide an understanding of the mechanism driving the acceleration of the universe. ... In physical cosmology, dark energy is a hypothetical form of energy which permeates all of space and has strong negative pressure. ... The Spitzer Space Telescope Facility launches from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida on Monday, Aug. ...


External references

The Berkeley Lab is perched on a hill overlooking the Berkeley central campus and San Francisco Bay. ...

External links

Spiral Galaxy ESO 269-57 Astrophysics is the branch of astronomy that deals with the physics of the universe, including the physical properties (luminosity, density, temperature and chemical composition) of celestial objects such as stars, galaxies, and the interstellar medium, as well as their interactions. ... // Cosmology, from the Greek: κοσμολογία (cosmologia, κόσμος (cosmos) order + λογια (logia) discourse) is the study of the Universe in its totality, and by extension, humanitys place in it. ... February 20 is the 51st day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar. ... 1945 (MCMVL) was a common year starting on Monday (the link is to a full 1945 calendar). ...

References

Original text translated from French language article.

  1. ^ Information for the public (PDF). The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences (2006-10-03). Retrieved on 2006-10-05.
  2. ^ MIT Press Office (2006-10-03). Nobelists' work supports big-bang theory. Press release. Retrieved on 2006-10-03.
  3. ^ George Smoot. The SMOOT as unit of Length. Retrieved on 2006-10-07.
  4. ^ Talk of the Nation (2006-10-06). Winning the Nobel Prize. National Public Radio. Retrieved on 2006-10-07.
  5. ^ Talk of the Nation (2006-10-06). Winning the Nobel Prize. National Public Radio. Retrieved on 2006-10-07.
  6. ^ All Things Considered (2005-12-07). Smoot, Namesake of a Unit of Length, Retires. National Public Radio. Retrieved on 2006-10-07.
  7. ^ Smoot, G. F et al., Structure in the COBE differential microwave radiometer first-year maps, Astrophysical Journal 396, L1 (1992)
  8. ^ Press release: Pictures of a newborn Universe
  9. ^ Wrinkles in Time by George Smoot and Keay Davidson, Harper Perennial, Reprint edition (October 1, 1994) ISBN 0380720442


 

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