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What’s the weight of the Universe? It’s not
the kind of question that most people will
take seriously, much less even attempt to
answer. But Australian-American cosmologist
Professor Brian P. Schmidt is an exception,
and the question goes to the heart of a
problem that researchers have grappled with
since Einstein introduced his famous theory of
general relativity back in 1917. If the Universe
is expanding as a consequence of the Big
Bang around 14 billion years ago, how will it
all end?
When Professor Schmidt began his work in
the early 1990s as a talented young scientist
leading the High-Z Supernova Search Team,
prevailing cosmological models predicted
that the expansion ofthe Universe was
slowing down due to the influence of the
gravitational attraction of matter. But using
distant supernovae – exploding stars – to
measure this expected deceleration, Professor
Schmidt’s team came to an extraordinary
conclusion: the expansion of the Universe
was, in fact, speeding up.
FortheBettermentofMan
a “universal” task By Ian Seldrup Photos Justin Ong
The results, which were soon corrobo-
rated by another team, constituted a massive
scientific breakthrough that would alter the
“weight” of the Universe: the observations
led to the idea that, rather than matter, the
observable Universe was mostly made up of a
mysterious component called “dark energy”.
The groundbreaking effort earned Professor
Schmidt, along with two colleagues, the 2011
Nobel Prize in Physics.
Professor Schmidt remains passionate
about the importance of the kind of
fundamental research that led to his team’s
pioneering work. Today, as a high-profile
scientist, he recognises that he has an even
greater role in bridging the divide between
scientists and policy-makers to find solutions
to global problems such as pollution, climate
change, and unchecked population growth.
He is adamant that if peace and sustainable
development should be humanity’s
overarching goals, investment in scientific
education and research must be essential
ies for governments around the world.Catch the
full interview
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