Saul Perlmutter
Saul Perlmutter
Saul Perlmutteris an American astrophysicist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and a professor of physics at the University of California, Berkeley. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, and was elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2003. He is also a member of the National Academy of Sciences. Perlmutter shared the 2006 Shaw Prize in Astronomy, the 2011 Nobel Prize in Physics, and the 2015 Breakthrough Prize...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionScientist
CountryUnited States of America
If you ask almost any of them, 'Do you stand behind your theory? Is this the answer?' I think almost everyone would say, 'No, no, no. I'm just trying to expand the range of possibilities.' We really don't know what's going on
It's interesting to wake up at 3 in the morning by someone saying they're a reporter and they want to know how you feel. I felt fine, but I said, 'Well, why do you ask?'
We have a remarkably complete picture in many ways - and it could be that we're not accounting for something that's almost three-quarters of the entire universe
Nobody really expects a Nobel Prize call
I will say that growing up as a kid in an urban environment and having lived in cities all my life, the one achievement that everyone can look forward to is getting the perfect parking spot
So it's possible that someday, by understanding a little bit more about how the world works, it will come back to help us in some other way that will be surprising
From our point of view, the most exciting thing would be if we discovered something really fundamental in our understanding was just off a bit - and that now we have a chance to revisit it
You want your mind to be boggled. That is a pleasure in and of itself. And it's more a pleasure if it's boggled by something that you can then demonstrate is really, really true
I was one of those kids who always thought that we should know how the world works around us
Astronomers ought to be able to ask fundamental questions without accelerators
It's an unusual opportunity, a chance for so many people to share in the excitement and the fun of the fact that we may be on to hints as to what the Universe is made out of. I guess the whole point of a prize like this is to be able to get that out into the community
Your job as a scientist is to figure out how you're fooling yourself.