Berkeley Physicist to Share $500,000 Gruber Prize in Cosmology

Saul Perlmutter, a professor of physics at the University of California at Berkeley, was among those named on Tuesday as winners of the 2007 Gruber Prize in cosmology. Mr. Perlmutter and his research team, the Supernova Cosmology Project, will share the $500,000 prize with another group of researchers for discovering that the expansion of the universe is accelerating.

Sharing the prize are Brian P. Schmidt, a fellow at Australian National University’s Mount Stromlo Observatory, in Australia, and his research team, the High-Z Supernova Search Team.

Before both teams made their discovery, a majority of scientists believed that the expansion of the universe was slowing. In their race to determine the speed of that deceleration, though, both research groups determined that a force called “dark energy” was actually causing the universe to expand at an increasing pace.

That discovery “has radically changed our perception of cosmic evolution,” according to the official prize citation.

In addition to the cosmology prize, the Peter and Patricia Gruber Foundation awards prizes each year in recognition of achievement in genetics, justice, neuroscience, and women’s rights.

This year’s prize in genetics went to Maynard Olson, a professor of genome sciences and medicine at the University of Washington. The neuroscience prize went to Shigetada Nakanishi, director of the Osaka Bioscience Institute, in Japan. The international-justice prize went to three members of three judicial systems, in Argentina, Chile, and Peru. The prize in women’s rights is scheduled to be announced today.

More information about the prizes is available on the foundation’s Web site.

Background article from The Chronicle:

• U. of Washington Professor Wins $500,000 Gruber Prize in Genetics (7/10/2007)