George Smoot
George Fitzgerald Smoot III ( born February 20, 1945 in Yukon, Florida) is an American astrophysicist and Nobel Prize winners.
Life
Smoot was born on 20 February 1945 as the older of two children of a teacher and a hydrologist in the Yukon in the U.S. state of Florida. In 1966, he earned at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with a Bachelor of Science in Mathematics and Physics, and completed in 1970 his doctoral thesis in the field of particle physics on the decay of subatomic elementary particles. As in the field of particle physics at that time, many scientists investigated, he decided to less frequented area of research in cosmology to change. In the same year he joined the working group of Nobel laureate Luis Alvarez W. to the University of California at Berkeley. There he worked at the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory at the NASA project HAPPE (High -Altitude Particle Physics Experiment, experiment on particle physics at high altitude ) with the aim to design an experiment that can provide evidence for the Big Bang theory.
COBE
1976 NASA decided to design a satellite that should be able to measure the cosmic background radiation of the universe. Among the scientists who contributed to this project, was also George F. Smoot, the (micro wave radiometer, DMR differential ) developed with his team a detector, a Differential Microwave Radiometer, the anisotropies was able to measure in the microwave background. On 18 November 1989, the COBE satellite, equipped with this detector, and with instruments of the working groups by John C. Mather and Mike Hauser, with a Delta rocket was fired into the orbit of the Earth.
The DMR of Smoot collected about four years data for anisotropy of the cosmic background radiation in the microwave range, so that it was possible to create a complete map of this phenomenon ( see picture). This microwave background radiation is currently considered a kind of echo of the Big Bang. The intensity variations allow us to draw conclusions about density fluctuations shortly after the creation of the universe. It is believed that it is this density fluctuations cause of the current appearance of the universe, with its clusters of galaxies and vast regions are vast emptiness.
Smoot was founded in 2006 along with John C. Mather Nobel Prize in Physics for the confirmation that the spectrum of the background radiation obeys the Planck's law of radiation of a black body and the discovery of the anisotropy of the cosmic microwave background ( For their discovery of the blackbody form and anisotropy of the cosmic microwave background radiation ) excellent.
Smoot occurs as a critic of creationism and intelligent design and is committed to a better placement of evolution in schools.
Trivia
Smoot had in 2009, he allegedly received a guest appearance on the popular U.S. comedy series The Big Bang Theory ( episode 2.17) as a fan of the series on their own initiative.
On September 18, 2009 Smoot was a candidate in the U.S. game show Are you smarter than a 5th grader? and won a million dollars. He was the second candidate, featured on the list.