BALTIMORE– John’s Hopkins professor Adam Riess found out he would share this year’s Nobel Prize in Physics early this morning in a call from Sweden.
“I was pretty stunned. That’s an amazing thing to learn in the morning before you’ve had coffee,” Riess said.
Riess, 41, shared the award with scientists from the University of California at Berkley and Australian National University.
In 1998, the researchers discovered that the universe is still expanding and that possible dark energy is filling it, an idea first thought of by Albert Einstein. The research was conducted across a span of 7 billion light years.
“Not only is it expanding, but it’s expanding faster and faster all the time. We don’t quite understand why that is,” he said.
Riess and the other scientists will split a prize of about $1.49 million. They will be formally awarded the prize at a ceremony in Stockholm in December.
