George Smoot

George Smoot in 2009

George Fitzgerald Smoot III (born February 20, 1945) is an American astrophysicist, cosmologist, Nobel laureate, and $1 million TV quiz show prize winner. He won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2006 for his work on COBE with John C. Mather that led to the measurement "of the black body form and anisotropy of the cosmic microwave background radiation."

Quotes

• ... the Big Bang theory is the accepted theory of cosmology. You never prove anything completely, but it’s the accepted theory of cosmology. And we continue on, in my group, we continue on with balloon observations, and then there’s the WMAP and now we’re getting the Max Planck surveyor satellite ready with the European Space Agency, who is sponsoring that. So there’s a whole sequence. What it was, was that was the opening shot and saying OK, there’s some gold to be discovered in the hills, go looking for it.
  • transcript of telephone interview with George F. Smoot, 2006 Nobel Laureates in Physics; The interview occurred on October 3, 2006 immediately following the announcement of the 2006 Nobel Prize in Physics. The interviewer is Adam Smith, Editor-in-Chief of Nobelprize.org. nobelprize.org/prizes/physics/2006/smoot/interview/ (2006).

• But every day I go to work I'm making a bet that the universe is simple, symmetric, and aesthetically pleasing—a universe that we humans, with our limited perspective, will someday understand.
  • as quoted by Joel Achenbachin The God Particle, At the Heart of All Matter, National Geographic, March 2008.