{"id":108594,"date":"2009-12-28T13:00:43","date_gmt":"2009-12-28T18:00:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.discovermagazine.com\/badastronomy\/?p=9615"},"modified":"2009-12-28T13:00:43","modified_gmt":"2009-12-28T18:00:43","slug":"ask-a-nobel-laureate-bad-astronomy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/108594","title":{"rendered":"Ask a Nobel laureate! | Bad Astronomy"},"content":{"rendered":"

I received an unusual email from, of all people, the Nobel Prize website<\/a> editor! He was notifying me that the Nobel Prize folks have started a new series of videos<\/a> where people get a chance to ask questions of Nobel laureates, who will then answer them on YouTube. Pretty cool, and something I heartily approve of. I love it when people get more contact with scientists, especially ones who are doing research that qualifies them for the Nobel!<\/p>\n

They started the series off with astronomer John Mather<\/a>, the Principal Investigator for the James Webb Space Telescope<\/a>, who won the prize for his work with COBE<\/a>, the Cosmic Background Explorer. I worked on that project very briefly, and over the next few years had the pleasure of working with John, who is just about as nice as he can be. <\/p>\n

Here’s an example<\/a> of one of the questions — what happened before the Big Bang — with John’s answer:<\/p>\n