Dark energy (discovery)

Back to the ideas wall
Who

Saul Perlmutter and Adam Riess, American astrophysicists from Jewish families, who led two of the teams that made the discovery (alongside Brian Schmidt).

When

1998

Where

Berkeley, California / Baltimore, Maryland, USA

In 1998 two teams observing distant supernovae found that the universe's expansion is accelerating, driven by an unknown 'dark energy.' The teams were led by Saul Perlmutter and Adam Riess, both from Jewish families, who shared the 2011 Nobel Prize in Physics with Brian Schmidt for the finding.

Part of “The Gifts of the Jews” — verified Jewish contributions to the world, with sources.