A scientist who studied the cosmofrom the Eastern Sierra has won a Nobel Prize. George Smoot with UC Berkeley has won the Nobel Prize in Physics for research into the origins of the universe. Some of this research was done at the Barcroft Field Station, high on the shoulder of White Mountain.
A press release from staff at the White Mountain Research Station states that Professor Smoot worked at the Barcroft Station and Antarctica to develop extraordinarily sensitive instruments to study tiny ripples in the Cosmic Background Radiation. This Cosmic Background Radiation is believed to be remnants of the Big Bang, that scientists believe occurred when the universe began.
Smoots work, including the work done at the White Mountain Research Station, is said to have helped define modern theories about the origin of the universe.
Professor Smoot spent much of the 1980s working on instruments at Barcroft. Now one of his students, Phil Lubin, continues to study the universe at the White Mountain Research Station.
For more on this recent Nobel Prize winner, George Smoot, wrote a popular book about his work called Wrinkles in Time.
While were on the subject, White Mountain Research Station assists many types of researchers besides life, the universe, and everything. Other studies and work will be on display this weekend at the annual Barcroft Station open house.
This is the day that the gate across the road to the Barcroft Station is open just past the Patriarch Bristlecone Grove. This not only gives the public drive up access to the tours and presentations at the Barcroft Station, it also knocks a couple of miles off the hike to the top of White Mountain Peak.
There interpretive programs scheduled to educate the public, but there will also be real research going on as well. John Smiley with the White Mount Research Station reports that a sports medicine group out of UC San Diego, will be at the summit of White Mountain looking for volunteers to participate in a study of Acute Mountain Sickness.
The annual open house at the Pace Laboratory at Mt. Barcroft runs 10:30 to 4:00. For those who plan to take the annual short version of the hike up White Mountain, the road opens at 6:30 AM and closes at 6:00 PM. More information is available at the White Mountain Research Station website wmrs.edu.