local guy wins Nobel Physics prize

:D


Johns Hopkins professor shares Nobel Prize in physics

A phone ringing at 5:30 a.m. can rattle anyone, even a professor immersed in the universe's mysterious dark energy. Adam Riess, an astronomy professor at Johns Hopkins University, learned in an early morning call from Stockholm Tuesday that he was one of three scientists to share the 2011 Nobel Prize in physics.

Riess, a 41-year-old astronomy professor at the university in Baltimore, shares the $1.49 million prize with fellow American Saul Perlmutter and U.S.-Australian citizen Brian Schmidt. The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences selected the three scientists "for the discovery of the accelerating expansion of the universe through observations of distant supernovae," according to the announcement.

The academy, established in 1901, recognized Riess for his leadership in the High-z Team's 1998 discovery that the expansion rate of the universe is accelerating, a phenomenon attributed to a mysterious dark energy, according to a release from Hopkins. His High-z teammate Schmidt, head of the Supernova Search Team at the Australian National University and Perlmutter, who oversees the Supernova Cosmology Project at the University of California, will join Reiss in December in Stockholm to receive what many consider the world's most prestigious prize.

More at http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/bs-md-nobel-physics-riess-20111004,0,6854937.story