Charles L. Bennett, a professor in the Henry A. Rowland Department
of Physics and Astronomy
at The Johns Hopkins University, has been chosen by the
National Academy of Sciences as the winner
of the 2009 Comstock Prize in Physics for his
groundbreaking work in cosmology. As the leader of the
NASA Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe space mission,
Bennett and his team made a precise
determination of the age, composition and curvature of the
universe.
The $20,000 Comstock Prize was established in 1913
through a donation from the estate of
Cyrus B. Comstock, who was chief engineer under Gen.
Ulysses S. Grant at the Battle of Vicksburg and
a member of the Army Corps of Engineers. It is awarded
every five years to a resident of North
America for a "recent innovative discovery or investigation
in electricity, magnetism or radiant energy,
broadly interpreted." The first Comstock Prize went to
Robert A. Millikan of the University of Chicago
for his discovery of the charge of the electron.
Bennett, who is being honored for his mapping of the
cosmic microwave background and
determining the universe's age, mass-energy content,
geometry, expansion rate and re-ionization epoch
with unprecedented precision, will receive the prize at a
ceremony set for April 26 during the 146th
annual meeting of the National Academy of Sciences in
Washington, D.C.
"It is a great honor to receive the Comstock Prize in
Physics from the National Academy of
Sciences," said Bennett, who emphasizes that though the
WMAP team has answered many fundamental
physical questions about our universe, mysteries remain.
"Fortunately, the tools for confronting these
mysteries are nearly at hand. Although we occupy an
insignificant spot in the vastness of space, we
have learned an enormous amount about our universe, and we
are poised to learn even more. This is a
very exciting time."
Throughout his career, Bennett has made significant
contributions to the knowledge of
cosmology through pioneering measurements of the cosmic
background radiation, the oldest light in
the universe and a remnant of the hot young universe. In
2003, Bennett and his team made
international news with their announcement that the
universe is less than 5 percent atoms, one-
quarter dark matter and nearly three-quarters a mysterious
dark energy, and that the universe is 13.7
billion years old. The WMAP results also support the
paradigm that the cosmos we now see grew from
subatomic in size to a vast expanse of stars and galaxies
in a tiny fraction of a second. Bennett and his
team made international news again in 2006, when these
conclusions were further strengthened with
additional data.
Bennett previously served as deputy principal
investigator for NASA's Cosmic Background
Explorer satellite, which was launched in 1989 and provided
evidence in support of the big bang
theory. As a result of that work, he shared in the Peter
Gruber Foundation's 2006 Cosmology Prize to
John Mather and the COBE Team.
In 2005, Bennett won the prestigious Henry Draper
Medal of the National Academy of Sciences
"for significant contributions to astronomical physics." In
2006, he was awarded the Harvey Prize by
the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology. Bennett was
elected to the American Academy of Arts
and Sciences in 2004 and the National Academy of Sciences
in 2005. He received two NASA
Exceptional Achievement medals and a NASA Outstanding
Leadership Medal. He is a fellow of both
the American Physical Society and the American Association
for the Advancement of Science.