Wait, you were at Harvard during that time rooming with Brian? I was working with Kirshner on a related project, and visited twice. Weird; we must’ve met then at some point. Did you go to the Friday wine tasting I attended? Hmmmm.

It is great to see that the physics Nobel prize is recognizing the contribution of astronomers. It has always struck me as odd that to date, only observations of the microwave sky “counted” as physics, especially considering the missed opportunity to honor Hubble himself. Everyone agrees that the detection of dark matter particles – should that ever occur – would warrant a Nobel prize. So why not a Nobel prize for Vera Rubin and Albert Bosma, whose observations did so much to motivate the current search for dark matter?

“On any clear night, the chances are that your roof will be struck by evidence falling from the sky which, if you only knew what to look for and how, would win you the Nobel prize.” — David Deutsch — The Beginning of Infinity.

Well, this just proves it. Congratulations to Perlmutter, Riess and Schmidt!

Congratulations to all the new winners. I was at the AAS meeting where the two teams gave invited talks about their findings, with Perlmutter giving one and Bob Kirshner the other. I thought at the time that talking in “competition” with Kirshner was a thankless task.
Now, if there was a solution to the Nobel three-body problem, optical astronomy might win another Nobel.

Innocent question: How come Alan Guth hasn’t won a Nobel prize? Did he hurt somebody’s feelings?

Alan Guth has no Nobel because it’s not really clear that inflation has been “discovered” yet. The Nobel committee seems to really prefer giving prizes for concrete discoveries; note that they’re particular that this year’s is for “acceleration”, and NOT for “dark energy”.

Good call by Sean “master of the universe” Carroll five years ago:

If I were in charge of the universe I might give 50% of the prize to Perlmutter and 25% each to Schmidt and Riess, and feel really bad about not including Kirshner. But the discovery is clearly worthy of a Nobel, and I likely won’t complain with whatever way they choose to divvy up the award.

Sean—don’t go over to the Dark Side! If I had won the prize, my first words into the international microphones would have been “Let’s all stop using the airhead term “dark energy”.”

As you yourself have pointed out, essentially everything has energy and lots of things are dark. “Dark energy” is just a stupid “marketing” term which is all style and no substance, all presentation and no content, something from a spin doctor or an add agency. Scientists should promote understanding the universe, not trying to sound cool.

As to whether we need a deeper understanding of “what” the cosmological constant “is”: do we need a deeper understanding of what gravitation “is”, i.e. “why” it exists, or is it enough that GR describes it well?

Nobel originally specified “invention or discovery”, so there is no problem that all the details are not understood. In fact, discoveries which are difficult to understand are more interesting.

Note also that Hubble came to believe that the expansion of the universe was not real, though of course he discovered the relation between apparent magnitude and redshift.

Calm down guys! There is no such thing as a Nobel Prize well deserved unless you assume Nobel means the best, which has never been the case. The only thing can be said about Nobel Prize is that those results are important and can last longer than a decade without been proven wrong. In most cases one just need to be lucky to discover things that are interesting enough to alert the Nobel committee. Most of the Nobel Prize winners are neither any smarter nor harder working than their peers (I happened to think Bob Kirshner is in a much better scientist than the three winners, but that does not matter to Nobel committee). Nobel prize became famous because of great people such as Einstein, but Einstein did not get his fame because of the Nobel Prize he received for photoelectric effect. Many won Nobel because their research sort of “vindicates” GR, but Einstein never got a prize for GR. In short, Nobel prize is over valued, and serious scientists should ignore it.

SUPERLUMINELLE
– James Ph. Kotsybar

The Universe is expanding,
Faster than the limit of light,
Beyond common understanding.

Cosmology is demanding.
Its study is by no means slight.
The Universe is expanding.

Physics’ heroes, quite outstanding,
Have applied their full mental might
Beyond common understanding.

There’s no point in reprimanding,
As we gaze out into the night,
The Universe is expanding.

The truth of fact is commanding.
Whatever is has to be right,
Beyond common understanding.

Einstein’s physics notwithstanding,
Much quicker than what we call bright,
The Universe is expanding
Beyond common understanding.