The Universe is Expanding and These 3 Men Have the Nobel Prize to Prove It

Three researchers, who discovered that the expansion of our Universe is accelerating, have been awarded this year’s Nobel prize for physics The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awarded the prize to Adam Riess, an astronomy and physics professor at Johns Hopkins University, American Saul Perlmutter who heads the Supernova Cosmology Project at the University of California, and U.S.-Australian citizen Brian Schmidt, the head of the High-z Supernova Search Team at the Australian National University in Weston Creek, Australia. The trio’s findings overturned conventional wisdom, and they were honored for “the discovery of the accelerating expansion of the universe through observations of distant supernovae.’ The award winners studied what are called Type 1a supernovae, determining that more distant objects seem to move faster. Sir Peter Knight, president of the Institute of Physics in the U.K., said the award is important because these men are at the frontier of modern astrophysics and have triggered an enormous amount of research on dark energy. The properties and nature of dark energy remain a mystery, but the theory is that dark energy makes up ¾ of the universe, and it may explain the rising expansion. Prof. Schmidt told the Nobel committee during the ceremony that it felt like the day his children were born, and he felt ‘weak at the knees,’ ‘excited,’ and ‘somewhat amazed.’ Riess was awarded half of the $1.5 million prize; Perlmutter and Schmidt will share the other half. The Nobel prizes have been given out annually since 1901, covering the fields of literature, peace, chemistry, medicine, and of course, physics.