When was George Smoot born?

George Smoot was born on 20 February 1945 in Yukon.

Where did George Smoot study?

George Smoot was educated at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Upper Arlington High School.

Nomo michael hoefner http://www.zwo5.de · CC BY 3.0

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George Smoot

American astrophysicist and cosmologist (1945–2025)

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George Fitzgerald Smoot III (February 20, 1945 – September 18, 2025) was an American astrophysicist and cosmologist. He shared the 2006 Nobel Prize in Physics with John C. Mather "for their discovery of the black body form and anisotropy of the cosmic microwave background radiation".

Quick facts

Born: 20 February 1945 wd
Place of birth: Yukon wd
Died: 18 September 2025 wd
Place of death: 7th arrondissement of Paris wd
Citizenship: United States wd
Occupation: astronomer, cosmologist, astrophysicist, physicist, university teacher wd
Education: Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Upper Arlington High School wd

Awards wd

Nobel Prize in Physics (2006)
NASA Exceptional Scientific Achievement Medal (1992)
Oersted Medal (2009)
Fellow of the American Physical Society
Albert Einstein Medal (2003)
Ernest Orlando Lawrence Award (1994)
honorary doctorate of the University of the Mediterranean - Aix Marseille II (2007)

About

This work helped further the Big Bang theory of the universe using the Cosmic Background Explorer. According to the Nobel Prize committee, "the COBE project can also be regarded as the starting point for cosmology as a precision science." In 2007, Smoot donated $500,000 to fund the Berkeley Center for Cosmological Physics, and an additional amount from his Nobel Prize money, less travel costs, to the East Bay

Community Foundation, a charity.

Smoot had been at the University of California, Berkeley, and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory since 1970. He was Chair of the Endowment Fund "Physics of the Universe" of Paris Center for Cosmological Physics. Apart from being elected a member of the US National Academy of Sciences and a Fellow of the American Physical Society, Smoot had been honored by several universities worldwide with doctorates or professorships. He was also the recipient of the Gruber Prize in Cosmology (2006), the Daniel Chalonge Medal from the International School of Astrophysics (2006), the Einstein Medal from the Albert Einstein Society (2003), the Ernest Orlando Lawrence Award from the U.S. Department of Energy (1995), and the Exceptional Scientific Achievement Medal from NASA (1991). He was a member of the advisory board of the journal Universe.

Smoot was one of the 20 American recipients of the Nobel Prize in Physics to sign a letter addressed to President George W. Bush in May 2008, urging him to "reverse the damage done to basic science research in the Fiscal Year 2008 Omnibus Appropriations Bill" by requesting additional emergency funding for the…

Questions

When was George Smoot born?: George Smoot was born on 20 February 1945 in Yukon.
Where did George Smoot study?: George Smoot was educated at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Upper Arlington High School.

Sources

Last updated 31 October 2026 · facts checked 4 November 2026

Cite this page

"George Smoot". DigiNepal. Last updated 31 October 2026. https://diginpl.com/people/george-smoot. Retrieved 4 November 2026.

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Text from the Wikipedia article George Smoot, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. This page's text is shared under the same licence. Facts from Wikidata (CC0). Image: George smoot 06N7133a.jpg — Nomo michael hoefner http://www.zwo5.de, CC BY 3.0.

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