Fascinating Physics Nobel

The Nobel Prize for Physics was split three ways this year: one theoretical cosmologist and (as a duo) two observational astronomers.

Theory and observation nicely balanced out, like matter and anti-matter, each getting half the prize money. That meant that the astronomers each got one-quarter of the money.

James Peebles, then, the theoretician, was rewarded for his "theoretical discoveries on physical cosmology." He has worked on the Big Bang, dark matter, dark energy, etc., and has written influential textbooks teaching the future aspirants to be Nobel-Prize-level Physicists what all of those phrases mean. I've never taken the courses that use such textbooks, so I won't try to say any more, except that Peebles, a Canadian, is widely credited with turning the "Big Bang" from a speculative and somewhat woolly concept into something precise and quantitative.

The more interesting half of the award, to my mind, went to the founders of a new branch of astronomy: that engaged in the search for and the cataloging of exoplanets. There are now hundreds of planets cataloged as circling around Sun-like stars other than Sol itself.

That all began fairly recently, in history-of-astronomy terms. It began in 1995-95, with the observations of new Nobel Laureates Michel Mayor and Didier Queloz.

What the success of the search for exoplanets means is that the planets circling around our familiar Sol are not some sort of anomaly, that they are a normal development. That in turn advances the reasons for suspecting that "we are not alone," that there are planets somewhere where life has developed, and among some of those a subset where consciousness/intelligence has developed. This is all very heartening for those of us who grew up watching the Starship Enterprise on its five-year mission....

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