Nobel physicist imparts Big Bang discoveries

Elysia Glover Assistant News Editor

The Nobel Prize-winning physicist whose graduate school dissertation led him to a career investigating the Big Bang theory of the origin of the universe shared his discoveries with the Vassar community this past Monday, Oct. 29. Hosted by the Department of Physics and Astronomy, Dr. John Mather, leader of the first team to measure the microwave radiation linked to the formation of the universe, delivered his Matthew Vassar lecture to an eager audience that crowded the Sanders Physics lecture hall.

After an introduction by Professor of Astronomy Debra Elmegreen, Mather shared an eclectic and at times humorous overview of his past with the standing-room only crowd and present research in a talk entitled ‘From the Big Bang to the Nobel Prize and on to the James Webb Space Telescope’.

Briefly covering the development of cosmology and the origins of the Big Bang theory, his talk then moved through the creative beginnings of his own science career in a makeshift laboratory in a New Jersey cattle barn. With the aid of comical illustrations and slides that he lightly introduced as “the entire history of the universe in one chart,” Mather made every effort to place a theory that has been widely misunderstood since its introduction in the early 20th century into context.

“The idea of the Big Bang is something that is in the culture now,” said Professor of Astronomy Fred Chromey. “People have various conceptions and misconceptions of what this really means, and this was an opportunity to see exactly what this means in a very concrete way: That is how somebody went about making measurements to conclude that the Big Bang actually happened.”

Mather himself comes from a liberal arts education. After graduating from Swarthmore College in 1968, Mather went on to earn his Ph.D. in physics at the University of California, Berkeley. Following his graduate studies, Mather became a National Research Council postdoctoral fellow at the Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York City. There, he focused on the development of what he had started as a graduate student at Berkeley, the Far IR Absolute Spectophotometer (FIRAS). Leading the initial proposal efforts for the project for over a decade and coordinating a team of more than 1,000 researchers and engineers, Mather, along with partner George Smoot, led an investigation that revealed the blackbody form of the microwave background radiation measured by the Cosmic Background Explorer satellite.

In 1990, Mather and his team presented the first nine minutes of observations gathered by the COBE to a meeting of the American Astronomical Society. The data they presented was met with a standing ovation by the audience, a significant event given the astronomical debate over whether the universe was expanding or contracting.

Mather and Smoot received the Gruber Cosmology Prize in Prague in Summer 2006 in honor of their research. Later that year, Mather and Smoot were awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics for their discovery of the blackbody form and irregularities in the distribution of cosmic microwave background radiation.

When asked to comment on how he felt he had benefitted from his small college beginnings, Mather pointed to the accessibility of his professors at Swarthmore as a significant factor in his decision to pursue physics at an undergraduate institution.

“I think what I gained from a small school was personal attention. I don’t know whether I would have had personal attention at a big school,” said Mather. “Swarthmore guaranteed that I would have a complete education in physics. I enjoyed being surrounded by people who studied the arts, and so that is part of the culture of a small college, it’s not all technical.”

He went on to say that liberal arts graduates shouldn’t shy from carrying on research. “Go for it!” he said. “If you like doing it, give it a try. Those people who have come through a liberal arts school, have a tremendous advantage because much more of science is about explaining what you’ve done and what you plan to do than people might imagine.”