Some cool Nobel Prize stuff

Today the Nobel Prize in Physics was announced.

The 2011 winners were Saul Perlmutter, Brian Schmidt and Adam Riess for discovering the accelerating expansion of the universe through the study of supernovae.

Each year Sixty Symbols tries to make videos about the announcement.

This year was easy because some of our Nottingham-based astronomers actually knew the winners.

In fact, our own Mike Merrifield is on quite good terms with co-winner Brian Schmidt.

In our video, Mike sheepishly admits he has doubted an aspect of Brian's work and the two have a long-standing bet about it.

With the Nobel Prize committee's verdict now pubic, Mike concedes he owes his old friend a bottle of whisky.



But there's another fascinating link with today's prize and Sixty Symbols.

Another of our regular contributors and fan favourites - Professor Ed Copeland - was cited in the Nobel Prize committee's announcement (see image).


Unfortunately Ed was not in Nottingham today so I couldn't interview him - but I'll try to catch him soon and find out what it's all about!