Why you should listen
Astrophysicist, cosmologist and Nobel Prize winner George Smoot studied the cosmic microwave background radiation, the afterglow of the Big Bang. His pioneering research into deep space and time helped reveal the structure of the universe itself.
Smoot looked into the farthest reaches of space to the oldest objects in the known universe: fluctuations in the remnants of creation. Using data collected from satellites such as COBE and WMAP, he probed the shape of the universe. In 1992, he and his team at University of California at Berkeley discovered that the universe, once thought to be smooth and uniform at the largest scale, is actually anisotropic — or varied and lumpy. Smoot went on to investigate the structure of the universe, mapping billions of galaxies and filaments of dark matter in hopes of uncovering the secrets of the universe's origins.
Smoot looked into the farthest reaches of space to the oldest objects in the known universe: fluctuations in the remnants of creation. Using data collected from satellites such as COBE and WMAP, he probed the shape of the universe. In 1992, he and his team at University of California at Berkeley discovered that the universe, once thought to be smooth and uniform at the largest scale, is actually anisotropic — or varied and lumpy. Smoot went on to investigate the structure of the universe, mapping billions of galaxies and filaments of dark matter in hopes of uncovering the secrets of the universe's origins.
What others say
The very detailed observations that the Laureates have carried out from the COBE satellite have played a major role in the development of modern cosmology into a precise science.
