George Smoot

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Lore & Background

Smoot was born in Yukon, Florida, on February 20, 1945. His father was a hydrologist for the US Geological Survey, and his mother was a teacher and school principal. He graduated from Upper Arlington High School in Upper Arlington, Ohio, in 1962. At MIT, he obtained dual bachelor's degrees in mathematics and physics in 1966, then a PhD in particle physics in 1970. A distant relative, Oliver R. Smoot, was the MIT student who was used as the unit of measure known as the smoot. Smoot switched to cosmology and began work at Berkeley, collaborating with Luis Walter Alvarez on the High Altitude Particle Physics Experiment, a stratospheric weather balloon designed to detect antimatter. He then developed a differential radiometer mounted on a Lockheed U-2 plane to measure the difference in temperature of the CMB between two directions 60 degrees apart. The instrument determined that the overall rotation of the universe was zero, but detected a dipole pattern explained as a Doppler effect of the Earth's motion relative to the last scattering surface. Smoot later proposed a satellite project to NASA, which became the Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE), launched on November 18, 1989, after a delay owing to the destruction of the Space Shuttle Challenger. On April 23, 1992, the team announced detection of tiny fluctuations in the CMB, a breakthrough Smoot described as "evidence for the birth of the universe" and said "if you're religious, it's like looking at God."

After COBE, Smoot took part in the Millimeter Anisotropy eXperiment IMaging Array and was a collaborator on the Planck satellite. He was also a collaborator on the design of the Supernova/Acceleration Probe and assisted in analyzing data from the Spitzer Space Telescope. Smoot was credited by Mickey Hart with inspiring the album Mysterium Tremendum. He joined Kazakhstan's National Council for Science and Technology in January 2023. He appeared as himself on The Big Bang Theory and won a million-dollar prize on Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?

Reader's Guide

George Smoot's significance lies in his central role in transforming cosmology into a precision science. As the lead for measuring the small variations in the temperature of the CMB on the COBE mission, he provided the first direct evidence that the early universe contained the tiny density fluctuations that later grew into galaxies and clusters. This discovery, announced on April 23, 1992, was hailed as a confirmation of the Big Bang theory and earned him the 2006 Nobel Prize in Physics, shared with John C. Mather. The Nobel committee stated that 'the COBE project can also be regarded as the starting point for cosmology as a precision science.' The success of COBE was the outcome of extensive teamwork involving more than 1,000 researchers, engineers and other participants. John Mather coordinated the entire process and had primary responsibility for the experiment that revealed the blackbody form of the CMB, while Smoot had the main responsibility of measuring the small variations in temperature. In the book The Very First Light, Mather suggested that Smoot violated team policy by leaking news of COBE's discoveries to the press before NASA's formal announcement. Smoot eventually apologized for not following the agreed publicity plan, and Mather acknowledged that Smoot had 'brought COBE worldwide publicity' the project might not normally have received. Smoot collaborated with journalist Keay Davidson to write the general-audience book Wrinkles in Time, chronicling his team's efforts.

Did You Know?

• Smoot's distant relative, Oliver R. Smoot, was the MIT student used as the unit of measure known as the smoot.
• Smoot won a million-dollar prize on the Fox television show Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader? on September 18, 2009, correctly answering that Acadia National Park is in Maine.
• Smoot appeared as himself in two episodes of The Big Bang Theory: 'The Terminator Decoupling' and 'The Laureate Accumulation'.
• Smoot died from a heart attack in Paris on September 18, 2025, at age 80, and the Astroparticle and Cosmology Laboratory announced his death on September 25.
• Smoot gave a 2014 TEDx lecture suggesting that certain aspects of physics support the simulation hypothesis.

A Career Defined by Recognition

George Fitzgerald Smoot III (1945–2025) spent more than five decades at the University of California, Berkeley, and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, where he had been based since 1970. His crowning achievement arrived in 2006 when he and John C. Mather shared the Nobel Prize in Physics for their discovery of the black body form and anisotropy of the cosmic microwave background radiation. The Nobel committee itself described the COBE project as the starting point for cosmology as a precision science. His other honors include the Einstein Medal from the Albert Einstein Society (2003), the Gruber Prize in Cosmology and the Daniel Chalonge Medal from the International School of Astrophysics (both 2006), the Ernest Orlando Lawrence Award from the U.S. Department of Energy (1995), and the Exceptional Scientific Achievement Medal from NASA (1991). He was elected a member of the US National Academy of Sciences and a Fellow of the American Physical Society. Smoot had been honored by several universities worldwide with doctorates or professorships. He was a member of the advisory board of the journal Universe and was Chair of the Endowment Fund 'Physics of the Universe' of Paris Center for Cosmological Physics.

The COBE Breakthrough

After correcting for the Doppler effect caused by the Earth's motion, the cosmic microwave background had appeared perfectly uniform. That uniformity contradicted observations of the universe, with various structures such as galaxies and galaxy clusters indicating that the universe was relatively heterogeneous on a small scale. Smoot reasoned in the late 1970s that if the universe is heterogeneous today, it would have been heterogeneous at the time of the emission of the CMB as well, observable through weak variations in temperature. He proposed to NASA a project involving a satellite equipped with a detector similar to the one mounted on the U-2 but more sensitive and not influenced by air pollution. The proposal was accepted and incorporated as one of the instruments of the Cosmic Background Explorer, which cost $160 million. COBE was launched on November 18, 1989, after a delay owing to the destruction of the Space Shuttle Challenger. After more than two years of observation and analysis, the COBE research team announced on April 23, 1992, that the satellite had detected tiny fluctuations in the CMB, a breakthrough Smoot called 'evidence for the birth of the universe' and said 'if you're religious, it's like looking at God.' The success of COBE was the outcome of extensive teamwork involving more than 1,000 researchers, engineers and other participants. John Mather coordinated the entire process and had primary responsibility for the experiment that revealed the blackbody form of the CMB, while Smoot had the main responsibility of measuring the small variations in the temperature of the radiation.

From Yukon to MIT

George Smoot was born in Yukon, Florida, on February 20, 1945. His father was a hydrologist for the US Geological Survey, and his mother was a teacher and school principal. He had a sister, Sharon. Their maternal grandfather was Johnson Tal Crawford. The family lived in Alaska before relocating to Ohio. Smoot graduated from Upper Arlington High School in Upper Arlington, Ohio, in 1962. He then enrolled at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, earning dual bachelor's degrees in mathematics and physics in 1966 and a PhD in particle physics in 1970. MIT holds a curious footnote in Smoot's family history: a distant relative, Oliver R. Smoot, was the MIT student who was used as the unit of measure known as the smoot. After completing his PhD, Smoot switched to cosmology and began work at Berkeley, collaborating with Luis Walter Alvarez on the High Altitude Particle Physics Experiment, a stratospheric weather balloon designed to detect antimatter in Earth's upper atmosphere, the presence of which was predicted by the now discredited steady state theory of cosmology.

Giving Back and Advocating for Science

Beyond his research, Smoot demonstrated a sustained commitment to funding and protecting the scientific enterprise. In 2007 he donated $500,000 to fund the Berkeley Center for Cosmological Physics, and an additional amount from his Nobel Prize money, less travel costs, to the East Bay Community Foundation, a charity. In May 2008 he joined nineteen other American Nobel laureates in Physics in signing a letter addressed to President George W. Bush, urging him to 'reverse the damage done to basic science research in the Fiscal Year 2008 Omnibus Appropriations Bill' by requesting additional emergency funding for the Department of Energy's Office of Science, the National Science Foundation, and the National Institute of Standards and Technology. Earlier in his career, Smoot had also worked with Alvarez and Richard A. Muller to develop a differential radiometer that flew on a Lockheed U-2 plane, making it possible to determine that the overall rotation of the universe was zero and detecting the dipole pattern attributed to the Milky Way's motion of nearly 600 km/s relative to the last scattering surface.