Smith Lecture, Thursday, April 12, 2007
Traces of Creation: The Big Bang, COBE, and the Relic Radiation George F. Smoot

Lawrence Berkeley Lab and UC Berkeley

2006 Nobel Laureate in Physics

This is the golden age of cosmology. We have achieved an intellectual understanding of the Universe in a manner that is well-tested by observations and by reason. We have a straight forward model of cosmic history which spans all cultures. Berkeley physicist George Smoot won the 2006 Physics Nobel Prize, together with John Mather of NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, for "the discovery of the blackbody form and anisotropy of the cosmic microwave background radiation." The anisotropy is small variations in the map of the early universe. According to an April 1992 interview in The Times of London, the English physicist Stephen Hawking said that the COBE results were "the greatest discovery of the century, if not of all times." This research looks back into the infant Universe and provides a better understanding of the origin of galaxies and stars. The cosmic background radiation is a tool to understand the history of the Universe and the structure of space-time These observations have provided increased support for the Big Bang Theory of the Universe's origin. The Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE) NASA satellite launched in 1989 carried instruments that measured various aspects of cosmic microwave background radiation, and produced the data for these compelling scientific results which opened up a field that continues very actively into the present.

Professor Smoot's Web Site

8:00 p.m., 131 Hitchcock Hall