Saul Perlmutter (born September 22, 1959) is a U.S.
astrophysicist at the
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), commonly referred to as the Berkeley Lab, is a United States national laboratory that is owned by, and conducts scientific research on behalf of, the United States Department of Energy. Located in ...
and a professor of physics at the
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant un ...
. He is a member of both the
American Academy of Arts & Sciences and the
American Philosophical Society
The American Philosophical Society (APS), founded in 1743 in Philadelphia, is a scholarly organization that promotes knowledge in the sciences and humanities through research, professional meetings, publications, library resources, and communit ...
, and was elected a
Fellow
A fellow is a concept whose exact meaning depends on context.
In learned or professional societies, it refers to a privileged member who is specially elected in recognition of their work and achievements.
Within the context of higher education ...
of the
American Association for the Advancement of Science
The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is an American international non-profit organization with the stated goals of promoting cooperation among scientists, defending scientific freedom, encouraging scientific respons ...
in 2003. He is also a member of the
National Academy of Sciences
The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the Nat ...
. Perlmutter shared the 2006
Shaw Prize in Astronomy, the
2011 Nobel Prize in Physics
The Nobel Prize in Physics ( sv, Nobelpriset i fysik) is awarded annually by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences to scientists in the various fields of physics. It is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the 1895 will of Alfred Nobel ...
, and the 2015
Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics
The Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics is one of the Breakthrough Prizes, awarded by the Breakthrough Prize Board. Initially named Fundamental Physics Prize, it was founded in July 2012 by Russia-born Israeli entrepreneur, venture c ...
with
Brian P. Schmidt
Brian Paul Schmidt (born 24 February 1967) is the Vice-Chancellor of the Australian National University (ANU). He was previously a Distinguished Professor, Australian Research Council Laureate Fellow and astrophysicist at the University's M ...
and
Adam Riess
Adam Guy Riess (born December 16, 1969) is an American astrophysicist and Bloomberg Distinguished Professor at Johns Hopkins University and the Space Telescope Science Institute. He is known for his research in using supernovae as cosmologic ...
for providing evidence that the
expansion of the universe is accelerating. Since 2021, he has been a member of the
President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology
The President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) is a council, chartered (or re-chartered) in each administration with a broad mandate to advise the president of the United States on science and technology. The current PCAST ...
(PCAST).
Education
Saul Perlmutter was born one of three children in the
Ashkenazi Jew
Ashkenazi Jews ( ; he, יְהוּדֵי אַשְׁכְּנַז, translit=Yehudei Ashkenaz, ; yi, אַשכּנזישע ייִדן, Ashkenazishe Yidn), also known as Ashkenazic Jews or ''Ashkenazim'',, Ashkenazi Hebrew pronunciation: , singu ...
ish family of
Daniel D. Perlmutter, professor emeritus of chemical and biomolecular engineering at
University of Pennsylvania
The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a Private university, private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest- ...
, and Felice (Feige) D. Perlmutter (née Davidson), professor emerita of
Temple University
Temple University (Temple or TU) is a public state-related research university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It was founded in 1884 by the Baptist minister Russell Conwell and his congregation Grace Baptist Church of Philadelphia then calle ...
’s School of Social Administration. His maternal grandfather, the
Yiddish
Yiddish (, or , ''yidish'' or ''idish'', , ; , ''Yidish-Taytsh'', ) is a West Germanic language historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews. It originated during the 9th century in Central Europe, providing the nascent Ashkenazi community with a ve ...
teacher Samuel Davidson (1903–1989), emigrated to
Canada
Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by to ...
(and then with his wife Chaika Newman to
New York
New York most commonly refers to:
* New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York
* New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States
New York may also refer to:
Film and television
* '' ...
) from the
Bessarabia
Bessarabia (; Gagauz: ''Besarabiya''; Romanian: ''Basarabia''; Ukrainian: ''Бессара́бія'') is a historical region in Eastern Europe, bounded by the Dniester river on the east and the Prut river on the west. About two thirds o ...
n town of
Floreşti in 1919.
Perlmutter spent his childhood in the
Mount Airy neighborhood of
Philadelphia
Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Since ...
. He went to school in nearby
Germantown Germantown or German Town may refer to:
Places
Australia
* Germantown, Queensland, a locality in the Cassowary Coast Region
United States
* Germantown, California, the former name of Artois, a census-designated place in Glenn County
* G ...
; first
Greene Street Friends School
Greene Street Friends School is a coeducational school under the care of Green Street Monthly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends. Located in Germantown, Philadelphia, Greene Street serves 320 students in grades Pre-K to 8.
History
In ...
for the elementary grades, followed by
Germantown Friends School
Germantown Friends School (GFS) is a coeducational independent PreK–12 school in the Germantown neighborhood of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in the United States under the supervision of Germantown Monthly Meeting of the Religious Society of ...
for grades 7 through 12. He graduated with an AB in physics from
Harvard
Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...
''magna cum laude'' in 1981 and received his PhD in physics from the
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant un ...
, in 1986. Perlmutter's PhD thesis titled "An Astrometric Search for a Stellar Companion to the Sun" described the development and use of an automated telescope to search for
Nemesis
In ancient Greek religion, Nemesis, also called Rhamnousia or Rhamnusia ( grc, Ῥαμνουσία, Rhamnousía, the goddess of Rhamnous), was the goddess who personifies retribution, a central concept in the Greek world view.
Etymology
The ...
candidates under
Richard A. Muller
Richard A. Muller (born January 6, 1944) is an American physicist and emeritus professor of physics at the University of California, Berkeley. He was also a faculty senior scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. In early 2010, Mul ...
.
At the same time, he was using this telescope to search for Nemesis and
supernova
A supernova is a powerful and luminous explosion of a star. It has the plural form supernovae or supernovas, and is abbreviated SN or SNe. This transient astronomical event occurs during the last evolutionary stages of a massive star or whe ...
e, which would lead him to his award-winning work in cosmology.
Perlmutter attributes the idea for an automated supernova search to
Luis Alvarez, a 1968
Nobel laureate
The Nobel Prizes ( sv, Nobelpriset, no, Nobelprisen) are awarded annually by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, the Swedish Academy, the Karolinska Institutet, and the Norwegian Nobel Committee to individuals and organizations who make o ...
, who shared his idea with Perlmutter's research adviser.
Work
Perlmutter heads the
Supernova Cosmology Project at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. It was this team along with the competing
High-z Supernova Search Team led by Riess and Schmidt, which found evidence of the
accelerating expansion of the universe based on observing
Type Ia supernova
A Type Ia supernova (read: "type one-A") is a type of supernova that occurs in binary systems (two stars orbiting one another) in which one of the stars is a white dwarf. The other star can be anything from a giant star to an even smaller white ...
in the distant universe. Type Ia supernova occurs whenever a
white dwarf star gains enough additional mass to pass above the
Chandrasekhar limit
The Chandrasekhar limit () is the maximum mass of a stable white dwarf star. The currently accepted value of the Chandrasekhar limit is about ().
White dwarfs resist gravitational collapse primarily through electron degeneracy pressure, compar ...
, usually by stealing additional mass from a
companion star
A binary star is a system of two stars that are gravitationally bound to and in orbit around each other. Binary stars in the night sky that are seen as a single object to the naked eye are often resolved using a telescope as separate stars, in ...
. Since all Type Ia supernovae are believed to occur in essentially the same way, they form a
standard candle whose intrinsic
luminosity
Luminosity is an absolute measure of radiated electromagnetic power (light), the radiant power emitted by a light-emitting object over time. In astronomy, luminosity is the total amount of electromagnetic energy emitted per unit of time by a st ...
can be assumed to be approximately the same in all cases. By measuring the apparent luminosity of the explosion from Earth, researchers can then infer the distance to supernova. Comparing this inferred distance to the apparent
redshift
In physics, a redshift is an increase in the wavelength, and corresponding decrease in the frequency and photon energy, of electromagnetic radiation (such as light). The opposite change, a decrease in wavelength and simultaneous increase in fr ...
of the explosion allows the observer to measure both the distance and relative velocity of the supernova.
The Supernova Cosmology Project concluded that these distant supernovae were receding more quickly than would be expected due to the
Hubble expansion
Hubble's law, also known as the Hubble–Lemaître law, is the observation in physical cosmology that galaxies are moving away from Earth at speeds proportional to their distance. In other words, the farther they are, the faster they are moving a ...
alone, and, by inference, the expansion of the universe must have been accelerated over the billions of years since the supernovae occurred. The High-z Team also came to a similar conclusion. The two teams' reports were published within weeks of each other, and their conclusions were readily accepted by the scientific community due to corroborating theories.
This conclusion has subsequently been supported by other lines of evidence. These findings reinvigorated research into the nature of the universe, and especially into the role of
dark energy
In physical cosmology and astronomy, dark energy is an unknown form of energy that affects the universe on the largest scales. The first observational evidence for its existence came from measurements of supernovas, which showed that the univ ...
.
For this work Perlmutter was awarded the
2011 Nobel Prize in Physics
The Nobel Prize in Physics ( sv, Nobelpriset i fysik) is awarded annually by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences to scientists in the various fields of physics. It is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the 1895 will of Alfred Nobel ...
, shared jointly with Riess and Schmidt.
Perlmutter is also a lead investigator in the
Supernova/Acceleration Probe project, which aims to build a satellite dedicated to finding and studying more supernovae in the distant universe. The goal is to more precisely determine the rate at which the universe has been accelerating. He is also a participant in the
Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature project, which aims to increase our understanding of recent
global warming
In common usage, climate change describes global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its effects on Earth's climate system. Climate change in a broader sense also includes previous long-term changes to ...
through improved analyses of climate data.
Perlmutter is a professor and currently teaches at UC Berkeley.
Awards and recognition
In 2002, Perlmutter won the
Department of Energy's
E. O. Lawrence Award in Physics. In 2003, he was awarded the California Scientist of the Year Award, and, in 2005, he won the
John Scott Award and the Padua Prize. In 2006, he shared the
Shaw Prize
The Shaw Prize is an annual award presented by the Shaw Prize Foundation. Established in 2002 in Hong Kong, it honours "individuals who are currently active in their respective fields and who have recently achieved distinguished and signifi ...
in
Astronomy
Astronomy () is a natural science that studies celestial objects and phenomena. It uses mathematics, physics, and chemistry in order to explain their origin and evolution. Objects of interest include planets, moons, stars, nebulae, g ...
with
Adam Riess
Adam Guy Riess (born December 16, 1969) is an American astrophysicist and Bloomberg Distinguished Professor at Johns Hopkins University and the Space Telescope Science Institute. He is known for his research in using supernovae as cosmologic ...
and
Brian P. Schmidt
Brian Paul Schmidt (born 24 February 1967) is the Vice-Chancellor of the Australian National University (ANU). He was previously a Distinguished Professor, Australian Research Council Laureate Fellow and astrophysicist at the University's M ...
.
The same year, Perlmutter won the
Antonio Feltrinelli International Prize The Feltrinelli Prize (from the Italian "Premio Feltrinelli", also known as "International Feltrinelli Prize" or "Antonio Feltrinelli Prize") is an award for achievement in the arts, music, literature, history, philosophy, medicine, and Physical sci ...
.
Perlmutter and his team shared the 2007
Gruber Cosmology Prize (a $500,000 award) with Schmidt and the High-Z Team for discovering the accelerating expansion of the universe. In 2010, Perlmutter was named a Miller Senior Fellow of the
Miller Institute at the
University of California Berkeley. In 2011, Perlmutter and Riess were named co-recipients of the
Albert Einstein Medal
The Albert Einstein Medal is an award presented by the Albert Einstein Society in Bern. First given in 1979, the award is presented to people for "scientific findings, works, or publications related to Albert Einstein" each year.
Recipients
S ...
.
Perlmutter shared the
2011 Nobel Prize in Physics
The Nobel Prize in Physics ( sv, Nobelpriset i fysik) is awarded annually by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences to scientists in the various fields of physics. It is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the 1895 will of Alfred Nobel ...
with Riess and Schmidt.
The Nobel Prize includes a
SEK 10 million cash award (approximately US$1.5 million). Perlmutter received one-half of the cash prize, while Riess and Schmidt shared the other half.
In 2014, Perlmutter received the Golden Plate Award of the
American Academy of Achievement
The American Academy of Achievement, colloquially known as the Academy of Achievement, is a non-profit educational organization that recognizes some of the highest achieving individuals in diverse fields and gives them the opportunity to meet ...
.
Perlmutter, Schmidt, Riess and their teams shared the 2015
Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics
The Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics is one of the Breakthrough Prizes, awarded by the Breakthrough Prize Board. Initially named Fundamental Physics Prize, it was founded in July 2012 by Russia-born Israeli entrepreneur, venture c ...
with $3 million to be split among them.
A
United States Department of Energy
The United States Department of Energy (DOE) is an executive department of the U.S. federal government that oversees U.S. national energy policy and manages the research and development of nuclear power and nuclear weapons in the United States ...
2020
supercomputer
A supercomputer is a computer with a high level of performance as compared to a general-purpose computer. The performance of a supercomputer is commonly measured in floating-point operations per second ( FLOPS) instead of million instructio ...
is named
Perlmutter in his honor.
Family
Saul Perlmutter has two sisters:
Shira Perlmutter
Shira Perlmutter (born 1956) is an American lawyer and law professor and the 14th Register of Copyrights. Perlmutter has given public lectures on copyright, stating that Americans desire copyright laws that make sense, that are fair, and that re ...
(b. 1956), a lawyer, and
Tova Perlmutter
Tova is a given name, nickname and a surname. Notable people with this name include:
Given name
* Saint Tova of Thorney (died ), Anglo-Saxon martyr
* Tova of the Obotrites (, Slavic princess and queen consort of Denmark
* Tova Beck-Friedman ...
(b. 1967), a nonprofit executive. He is married to
Laura Nelson, an anthropologist at
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant un ...
, and has one daughter, Noa.
Popular culture
Reference to Saul Perlmutter was made on the CBS television comedy series ''
The Big Bang Theory
''The Big Bang Theory'' is an American television sitcom created by Chuck Lorre and Bill Prady, both of whom served as executive producers on the series, along with Steven Molaro, all of whom also served as head writers. It premiered on CBS ...
'' during the 2011 episode "The Speckerman Recurrence". In the episode, the character
Sheldon Cooper
Sheldon Lee Cooper, Ph.D., Sc.D., is a fictional character in the CBS television series '' The Big Bang Theory'' and its spinoff series '' Young Sheldon'', portrayed by actors Jim Parsons and Iain Armitage respectively (with Parsons as the la ...
watches the Nobel award ceremony on his laptop, and jealously berates Perlmutter: "Look at Dr. Saul Perlmutter up there, clutching that Nobel prize. What's the matter Saul, you afraid somebody's going to steal it? Like you stole Einstein's cosmological constant?" Then later: "Oh, now Perlmutter's shaking the King's hand. Yeah, check for your watch, Gustaf, he might have lifted it."
Perlmutter was also referenced in the 2011 episode of ''The Big Bang Theory'', "The Rhinitis Revelation". In a conversation with his mother, Sheldon says, "I’ve got a treat for us tomorrow, Mom. I’m taking you to see Saul Perlmutter give a lecture about his Nobel Prize-winning work in cosmology. And the best part is, at the Q and A afterward, I’ve worked up a couple of Q’s that will stump his sorry A." Later in the episode, Sheldon criticises the lecture and questions the decision to award Perlmutter a Nobel Prize.
Technical reports and conference/event proceedings
* Perlmutter, S., ''et al.'
"Progress Report on the Berkeley/Anglo-Australian Observatory High-redshift Supernova Search" Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), commonly referred to as the Berkeley Lab, is a United States national laboratory that is owned by, and conducts scientific research on behalf of, the United States Department of Energy. Located in ...
, (November 1990).
* Perlmutter, S., ''et al.'
"Discovery of the Most Distant Supernovae and the Quest for " Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), commonly referred to as the Berkeley Lab, is a United States national laboratory that is owned by, and conducts scientific research on behalf of, the United States Department of Energy. Located in ...
, (May 1994).
* Perlmutter, S., ''et al.'
"Discovery of a Supernova Explosion at Half the Age of the Universe and its Cosmological Implications" Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), commonly referred to as the Berkeley Lab, is a United States national laboratory that is owned by, and conducts scientific research on behalf of, the United States Department of Energy. Located in ...
, (December 16, 1997).
* Perlmutter, S., ''et al.'
"The Distant Type Ia Supernova Rate" Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), commonly referred to as the Berkeley Lab, is a United States national laboratory that is owned by, and conducts scientific research on behalf of, the United States Department of Energy. Located in ...
, (May 28, 2002).
* Perlmutter, S., ''et al.'
"The Supernova Legacy Survey: Measurement of Omega_M, Omega_Lambda, and w from the First Year Data Set" Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), commonly referred to as the Berkeley Lab, is a United States national laboratory that is owned by, and conducts scientific research on behalf of, the United States Department of Energy. Located in ...
, (October 14, 2005).
* Perlmutter, S
"Supernovae, Dark Energy and the Accelerating Universe: How DOE Helped to Win (yet another) Nobel Prize" Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), commonly referred to as the Berkeley Lab, is a United States national laboratory that is owned by, and conducts scientific research on behalf of, the United States Department of Energy. Located in ...
, (January 13, 2012).
See also
*
List of Jewish Nobel laureates
Nobel Prizes have been awarded to over 900 individuals, of whom at least 20% were Jews.
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
The number of Jews receiving Nobel prizes has been the subject of some attention.*
*
*"Jews rank high among winners of Nobel, but why ...
*
Cosmological constant
*
Dark energy
In physical cosmology and astronomy, dark energy is an unknown form of energy that affects the universe on the largest scales. The first observational evidence for its existence came from measurements of supernovas, which showed that the univ ...
*
Dark matter
Dark matter is a hypothetical form of matter thought to account for approximately 85% of the matter in the universe. Dark matter is called "dark" because it does not appear to interact with the electromagnetic field, which means it does not ...
References
External links
Supernova Cosmology Project Website*
List of scholarly publicationsas provided by the SAO/NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS) abstract server.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Perlmutter, Saul
1959 births
Living people
Nobel laureates in Physics
American Nobel laureates
American astrophysicists
American people of Moldovan-Jewish descent
American cosmologists
Harvard College alumni
Jewish American scientists
Jewish physicists
Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences
Institute for Advanced Study visiting scholars
University of California, Berkeley alumni
University of California, Berkeley College of Letters and Science faculty
21st-century American astronomers
20th-century American astronomers
Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science
Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
Members of the American Philosophical Society
Germantown Friends School alumni
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory people
Albert Einstein Medal recipients
Dark energy
Fellows of the American Physical Society