PHYSICIST

George Smoot

1945 - Today

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George Fitzgerald Smoot III (born February 20, 1945) is an American astrophysicist, cosmologist, Nobel laureate, and the second contestant to win the $1 million prize on Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader?. He won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2006 for his work on the Cosmic Background Explorer with John C. Mather that led to the "discovery of the black body form and anisotropy of the cosmic microwave background radiation". This work helped further the Big Bang theory of the universe using the Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE) satellite. According to the Nobel Prize committee, "the COBE project can also be regarded as the starting point for cosmology as a precision science." Smoot donated his share of the Nobel Prize money, less travel costs, to a charitable foundation. Read more on Wikipedia

His biography is available in different languages on Wikipedia. George Smoot is the 189th most popular physicist (up from 300th in 2019), the 712th most popular biography from United States (up from 1,425th in 2019) and the 33rd most popular American Physicist.

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Among PHYSICISTS

Among physicists, George Smoot ranks 189 out of 851. Before him are Shin'ichirō Tomonaga, Georg Christoph Lichtenberg, Jerome Isaac Friedman, Hans Geiger, Georg von Békésy, and Douglas Osheroff. After him are Ilya Frank, Isidor Isaac Rabi, Auguste Piccard, Val Logsdon Fitch, George Francis FitzGerald, and Igor Tamm.

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Contemporaries

Among people born in 1945, George Smoot ranks 51. Before him are Adly Mansour, Goldie Hawn, Dési Bouterse, James Avery, Alan Ball Jr., and Douglas Osheroff. After him are Keith Jarrett, Vinko Puljić, Jean Nouvel, Michael J. Smith, Slobodan Praljak, and Jacky Ickx.

Others Born in 1945

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In United States

Among people born in United States, George Smoot ranks 712 out of 20,380. Before him are D. B. Cooper (1931), Ronald Evans (1933), Bryan Cranston (1956), Chester W. Nimitz (1885), Anne Bancroft (1931), and Douglas Osheroff (1945). After him are Donald Davidson (1917), Tom Clancy (1947), Meghan, Duchess of Sussex (1981), Val Logsdon Fitch (1923), William Holden (1918), and Harvey Cushing (1869).

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Among PHYSICISTS In United States

Among physicists born in United States, George Smoot ranks 33. Before him are Leon Cooper (1930), Martin Lewis Perl (1927), Arthur Leonard Schawlow (1921), Burton Richter (1931), Jerome Isaac Friedman (1930), and Douglas Osheroff (1945). After him are Val Logsdon Fitch (1923), Hugh David Politzer (1949), Kip Thorne (1940), Hugh Everett III (1930), Murray Gell-Mann (1929), and Edward Mills Purcell (1912).

American born Physicists

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