Shawn,
does this answer your question?
http://www.spaceflightnow.com/news/n0610/03nobel/
NASA scientist John C. Mather wins 2006 Nobel physics prize
NASA NEWS RELEASE Posted: October 3, 2006
The Nobel Prize Committee announced Tuesday that NASA scientist and Goddard
Fellow Dr. John C. Mather is this year's recipient of the Nobel Prize for
Physics. Mather is currently serving as senior project scientist for NASA's
James Webb Space Telescope program.
Mather shares the prize with George Smoot of the Lawrence Berkeley National
Laboratory in Berkeley, Calif. They received the award for their work that
helped cement the Big Bang theory of the universe and deepened our
understanding of the origin of stars and galaxies.
"I was thrilled and amazed when I found out we won the Nobel Prize," Mather
said. "The dedicated and talented women and men of the COBE team
collaborated to produce the science results being recognized. This is truly
such a rare and special honor."
Mather and Smoot's work was based on measurements performed with NASA's
Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE) satellite, launched in 1989. Together,
the scientists could observe the universe in its early stages about 380,000
years after it was born. Ripples in the light they detected helped
demonstrate how galaxies came together over time.
NASA Administrator Michael Griffin said, "I am thrilled to hear that Dr.
John Mather has been selected to receive the Nobel Prize in Physics. John
would be a world-class scientist no matter where he had chosen to spend his
career, but we at NASA are enormously proud that he has chosen to spend it
with us."
Dr. Ed Weiler, the Director of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center,
Greenbelt, Md., added, "This is a tremendous accomplishment for John and
for the COBE team. It is also important to note that COBE was built
entirely 'in-house,' and the fact that a NASA civil servant has won the
biggest science award possible demonstrates that world-class research is
happening here at NASA."
COBE was built at Goddard to measure microwave and infrared light from the
early universe. COBE determined that the cosmic microwave background, which
is essentially the afterglow of the Big Bang, has a temperature of
approximately minus 455 degrees Fahrenheit. This observation matched the
predictions of the hot Big Bang theory and indicated that nearly all of the
radiant energy of the universe was released within the first year after the
Big Bang.
Also, COBE discovered slight temperature variations of approximately 10
parts per million in this relatively uniform light. These variations
pointed to density differences which, through gravity over the course of
billions of years, gave rise to the stars, galaxies and hierarchal
structure we see today.
Steven Hawking a decade ago, independent of the COBE team, called these
variations "the most important discovery of the century, if not of all
time."
Alfred Nobel, the wealthy Swedish industrialist who endowed the prizes,
left guidelines in his will for the selection committee which cited "the
prize should be given to those who shall have conferred the greatest
benefit on mankind" and "have made the most important discovery or
invention within the field of physics."
The 2006 Nobel Laureates will gather in Stockholm on Dec. 10 to receive
their Nobel Prize Medal, diploma and monetary award from King Carl Gustav
XVI of Sweden.
On Wed, 27 Sep 2006 12:46:41 -0700, Shawn Gordon <[log in to unmask]>
wrote:
>cool, I just posted, I don't hold a lot of hope of an answer though
>since no one has been able to answer it in 20 years of asking.
>
>At 12:26 PM 9/27/2006, Bruce Collins wrote:
>>Shawn Gordon wrote:
>>
>>>I remember a while back that I challenged you to
>>>provide certain data regarding human evolution,
>>>and you, like every magazine I've written and
>>>every newgroup I've posted to, were unable to
>>>provide such simple information. I'll repeat the
>>>challenge in case you don't remember:
>>
>>>* I want to see a global map that indicates how
>>>many intact skeletons of each pre-homo sapien has
>>>been found and where. I also want to see how
>>>many are based on partial skeletons and what it
>>>was, I've read reports of a partial jaw bone
>>>found 5 miles from a piece of arm and some
>>>declaring a whole new branch. I also want to see
>>>what dating method was used to verify the age
>>>since we all know that carbon dating is only good
>>>for between 30k and 70k years (depending on who
>>>you believe), but there is no empirical evidence
>>>of dating that goes more than about 5,000 years
>>>(as a scientist, this should really bug you).
>>
>>====
>>There's another article in Scientific American about "Lucy's Baby".
>>The key phrase in this abstract is "No other hominin of such
>>antiquity--including Lucy--is as complete as this one."
>>
>>The second link points to a blog where you can discuss this finding
>>and post any questions or comments that you might have regarding
>>such things as the completeness of the skeletal findings or your
>>perceived shortcomings in the dating process. So now's your chance
>>to get a response to your challenge from somebody in the field.
>>
>>======
>>
>>** SPECIAL REPORT: Lucy's Baby, an Extraordinary New Human Fossil
>>
>>The arid badlands of Ethiopia's Afar region have long been a favorite
>>hunting ground for paleoanthropologists. The area is perhaps best
>>known for having yielded "Lucy," the 3.2-million-year-old skeleton
>>of a human ancestor known as Australopithecus afarensis. Now
>>researchers have unveiled another incredible find, from a site
>>called Dikika, just four kilometers from where Lucy turned up. It
>>is the skeleton of an A. afarensis child who lived 3.3 million
>>years ago. No other hominin of such antiquity--including Lucy--is
>>as complete as this one. Moreover, as the earliest juvenile hominin
>>ever found, the Dikika fossil provides a rare opportunity to study
>>growth processes in our ancient relatives.
>>http://cl.exct.net/?ffcb10-fe631d707664057e7c17-fdf21573746702797613787c-
ff3310707762
>>
>>** BLOG: Lucy's Baby: Join the Discussion and Take Part in Our
>>Publishing Experiment
>>
>>Earlier this week we posted a special report on the 3.3 million-
>>year-old skeleton of a child found in Dikika, Ethiopia. A version
>>of this story will appear in an upcoming issue of the magazine.
>>Inspired by various wikis and other collaborative projects, we want
>>to get your input on what the print version should contain. Here's
>>how you can participate: just post your thoughts and questions about
>>the discovery in the comments section of this blog post. I'll answer
>>your questions to the best of my availability and I'll also be
>>inviting some experts in the field of paleoanthropology to contribute
>>their observations.
>>http://cl.exct.net/?ffcb10-fe621d707664057e7c10-fdf21573746702797613787c-
ff3310707762
>>
>>* To join/leave the list, search archives, change list settings, *
>>* etc., please visit http://raven.utc.edu/archives/hp3000-l.html *
>
>
>Regards,
>
>Shawn Gordon
>President
>theKompany.com
>www.thekompany.com
>www.mindawn.com
>949-713-3276
>
>* To join/leave the list, search archives, change list settings, *
>* etc., please visit http://raven.utc.edu/archives/hp3000-l.html *
>=========================================================================
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