Janet D. Stemwedel (whose nom de blog is Dr. Free-Ride) is an associate professor of philosophy at San Jose State University. Before becoming a philosopher, she earned a Ph.D. in physical chemistry. Email her at dr.freeride@gmail.com.
Since, as I mentioned, my mom worked with data from COBE, and thus, was in a position to cross paths with newly-minted Nobel Laureates John Mather and George Smoot, I shook her down for some information about the pair.
Disclaimer: I suspect Mom exaggerates more in her anecdotes about her children than in the ones she tells about her work place, but I'm counting on her for the details here.
Here's what Mom emailed to her children upon hearing the news that Mather and Smoot won the Nobel Prize:
Your mother worked with this year's Nobel physics prize winners.Mather was NASA PI for all of COBE, and hands on director of the group to develop user documentation that I worked on for some time. He was one of the prime movers in the design of the FIRAS (Far-IR) experiment to accurately measure the B[ig] B[ang] remnant.
Smoot was a scientist responsible for analyzing the DMR (microwave background) results and determining that there is anisotropy visible under the noise. He used to come east for science meetings and to push the imaging along. He'd be working late (as I did except on Friday-drive [back] to NJ [from Washington, D.C.] nights). I'd see him padding down the halls in his stocking feet looking to find the printer he had just used. We'd chat. He called to see how things were going after your Dad's event. I was at the hospital, so it was my Dad who spoke to him. Dad relayed the message to me that some guy named Smoot called to ask about your Dad. I think my Dad would be amazed that he spoke to a future Nobel physics winner.
Needless to say, I am excited about the news, but felt it was coming. What they did to make observational cosmology a reality WAS ingenious and a great leap forward. I am pleased to have had some small association with them.
My dad's "event" mentioned here was a major stroke. I remembered, from back then, that Smoot had called to see how he was doing, which is why my mom's acquaintance with Smoot is the one that stuck in my head.
With a little prodding, I got Mom to give up some more:
When George Smoot walked down the hall looking for the printer in stocking feet,
- I asked who mugged him and took his shoes (in the locked/secure office space), and
- I tried to tell him where the printers had been moved to, since their names always involved the original locations, not the current locations (IT guys always claimed it was too difficult to change the network name, yadda, yadda).
John Mather, besides being truly ingenious in pushing the design of the FIRAS instrument long before I worked for him, was one of the few COBE scientists that showed some genuine interest in others beyond the COBE team ultimately being able to access and understand how to use the COBE data. The issue of data formats (proprietary vs. generally accessible) is continually evolving in each branch of science. On the evidence of the progress of IBM and Apple, science is unlikely to develop uniformity of data formats across disciplines (areas of art) within my lifetime.
Comments
your mom is cool.
no, wait...your mom is 1337. yeah.
Posted by: JM | October 3, 2006 1:38 PM
Is this the son of the Smoot used to measure the MIT bridge? I heard he'd followed his dad in going to MIT.
Posted by: David Harmon | October 3, 2006 7:28 PM
Correction, it's called the Harvard Bridge, I associate it with MIT because of the original Smoot incident and my own odd background.
Posted by: David Harmon | October 3, 2006 7:31 PM
Hahahaha- we were talking about Smoots today (the Mass Ave Bridge one and the Nobel one- we were wondering the same thing),- what a great story, though. My fave though, the SJ Merc News on Andy Fire's win yesterday- "Area Man Wins Nobel Prize"- how Oniony™!
Posted by: Pinko Punko | October 3, 2006 9:53 PM
I was going to ask about the unit of measurement as well. I also recall "a nose" as part of the measure, and still am curious of the size of said nose.
Posted by: Unlearned Hand | October 6, 2006 9:44 AM