It's an unusual opportunity, a chance for so many people to share in the excitement and the fun of the fact that we may be on to hints as to what the Universe is made out of. I guess the whole point of a prize like this is to be able to get that out into the community.

Schmidt. The advertisement showed his passion for the study of the cosmos at even a very young age. Saul Perlmutter (born September 22 1959) is an American astrophysicist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and a professor of physics at the University of California Berkeley.

Schmidt and Adam Riess for providing evidence that the expansion of the universe is accelerating. He is also a member of the National Academy of Sciences.