Professor George Smoot


George Smoot was co-awarded the 2006 Nobel Prize in Physics "for discovery of the blackbody form and anisotropy of the cosmic microwave background radiation.”

Smoot received Bachelor degrees (1966) in Mathematics and Physics and a Ph.D. (1970) in Physics from MIT. Smoot has been at the University of California Berkeley and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory since 1970.

In April 1992, George Smoot made the announcement that the team he led had detected the long sought variations in the early Universe that had been observed by the COBE DMR. NASA's COBE (Cosmic Background Explorer) satellite mapped the intensity of the radiation from the early Big Bang and found variations so small they had to be the seeds on which gravity worked to grow the galaxies, clusters of galaxies, and clusters of clusters that are observed in the universe today. These variations are also relics of creation.

Professor Smoot is an author of more than 200 science papers and is also co-author (with Keay Davidson) of the popularized scientific book Wrinkles in Time (Harper, 1994) that elucidates cosmology and the COBE discovery. Another essay entitled “My Einstein Suspenders” appears in My Einstein: Essays by Twenty-four of the World's Leading Thinkers on the Man, His Work, and His Legacy (Ed. John Brockman, Pantheon, 2006).

Currently, Professor Smoot conducts research in astrophysics and observational cosmology, and is most famous for his research on the cosmic background radiation. This radiation is thought to be the relic of the intense heat of the early Big Bang.

Smoot continues research in cosmology and is currently involved in the Planck and SNAP missions. The Planck mission is the third generation mission to exploit the CMB fluctuations discovered by COBE DMR. SNAP is a mission to understand the Dark Energy causing the current expansion of the Universe to accelerate.

Address: Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, 1 Cyclotron Road, MS 50R-5005, Berkeley, CA 94720

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Nobel Biography

CV

CV with publications and conference papers

Short Biography

Press release bio and COBE discovery

FAQs

Nobel Prize photo gallery

The Search for the Seeds of Cosmic Structure

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Design of the Universe with Dr. Smoot
TED Partner Series - 2008 Art Center Design Conference

 

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Professor Smoot is associated with several different institutions:

LBL (Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory)
UC Berkeley Physics Department
INPA (Institute for Nuclear and Particle Astrophysics at LBL)
SSL (Space Sciences Laboratory of the University of California)

Dr. Smoot's publications can be found at:

Astrophysical Data System (ADS)

Preprint server listing

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Nobel Prize funds will be donated to Fellowships:

Berkeley Nobel laureates donate prize money to charity  SF Gate

New Nobel Laureate Donates Prize Money to Local Charity
The Daily Californian
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Many have interpreted my research work as having something to say about religion, proof of God, and creation1 / creation2.

The Way We Will Be 50 Years From Today Essay

Photo archive / B&W photos

Biography - From April 1994 CURRENT BIOGRAPHY

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Questions from the Edge - scroll down to see Dr. Smoot's response to the question: What are you optimistic about?

OMNI Magazine Interview 1994

"The Fingerprint of Creation"
Discover Magazine Article 1992

 

 

 

 


Dr. Smoot, left, receives the Nobel Prize from King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden December 2006

 


An early map of the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation

 

 

George Smoot Named Director of Korean Cosmology Institute